NEW: One of the left's big opportunities next month is Seattle's mayoral race, & the city's approach to homeless has become a huge fault line there. The incumbent mayor has dramatically scaled up sweeps, and his challenger is testing whether voters thinks he's gone too far:

It's a basic requirement that the captain of the East Precinct must be...a captain. Raguso was an acting captain (with the permanent rank of lieutenant) until the results of the captain's exam were released in August. He failed. Badly. www.seattle.gov/documents/De...

They don’t even consider disciplinary history. It’s purely based on officers’ rankings on the exam. If there are more vacancies than officers on the register, they just promote everyone automatically.

More receipts showing a pattern going back to 2021. bsky.app/profile/dive...

This is also inaccurate. Erica should've read through our posts more thoroughly when she was raiding them. Tietjen was supposedly transferred for this incident, but he had been at the North Precinct since Nov 2020 and remained after the case closed. He was promoted a few months later.

She also used this incident ripped straight off our Twitter feed and then linked to the OPA report that she also lazily obtained from our Twitter feed.

Erica Barnett is always complaining that other outlets use her reporting without credit. Here she is again using our reporting without credit. She links to KUOW and every other outlet in this story, but here she links to OPA We were the only ones to cover this

Hey Divesters, we need your support. We're fundraising to build a statewide police misconduct database and hope to add 300 members to our Ko-Fi at the $5 level by the year's end. Join today and help us expose cops across Washington State. ko-fi.com/divestspd

The Republicans have won votes using a kind of radical authenticity, where they are perceived as saying what they mean (even if it isn’t true). And yet some Dems are still trying to figure out how to say what some imagined swing voters want… rather than finding their own authentic message.

Fare enforcement isn’t about revenue. It’s about keeping the homeless off transit

Harrell proposes regressive tax for non-police repsonse neutered by police protection racket FTFY

He was shot in the back while throwing road flares (called “incendiary devices” by authorities and the press) at a concrete building.

We will lose critical safety advantages like drunk driving and making sure our neighbors are strangers.

Seattle police policy bars cops from using Tasers on fleeing suspects because there's a high risk of injury. A cop did and injured someone. The OPA said this was okay. www.divestspd.com/p/no-discipl...

ICYMI: a federal court ruled against private corporation Geo Group, who barred WA L&I and Dept of Health from inspecting their NW ICE detention prison in Tacoma. While Geo will likely appeal, this is a positive step towards oversight of the long allegation record of human rights abuses here.

This is a very neat way to put a name and names and face to the Seattle cops with the most allegations of corruption and abuse. Consider supporting @divestspd.bsky.social’s reporting

Do you have any idea the absurd lengths SPD goes to to hide the identities of their miscreant officers from us? These are brilliant. 😍😍😍

@divestspd.bsky.social hoping for a special J6 booster pack edition 🙏🙏

NEW: The City Council will gaslight you, scold you, call you privileged if you disagree, but yesterday they didn't just expand an unproven surveillance program, voted to grease the wheels of fascism. www.theburnerseattle.com/post/the-sea...

Incredible analysis

Thread. If there's one plus side to getting priced out of this city, it's that I won't have to be within a thousand miles of this fascist fucking city council.

Bad move for Seattle citizens, no matter how they parse it.

Literally the only way we will ever know how these technologies are being used is through the work of Divest.

That's it for our coverage today. Both surveillance bills passed 7-2 (Rinck and Strauss against) Support our work. Send us a tip or sign up for a recurring donation at: ko-fi.com/divestspd

Public comment is over after nearly three hours. Thanks to everyone who spoke out. We're taking a break but will continue coverage when the surveillance item comes up.

Kettle’s entire argument is “Seattle is not Texas so trust us and our police.” 1. We don’t (for good reasons), and 2. even if we did, what good does that do once we come under federal and SPD collaborator occupation?

The real question is how much lower Sara Nelson's vote share can possibly go? Can she get it under 30%? That's nearing GoodSpaceGuy territory.

i’m here now

WAISN policy director. Increased surveillance creates greater risk to immigrant rights communities. "Seattle can't call itself a welcoming city to immigrants" while continuing to expand surveillance.

In-person comments are starting now Watch www.seattlechannel.org/watch-live

NO ONE LIKES THIS BILL

👨🏻‍🍳💋: "SPD states that efforts to prevent serious felony crimes have been unsuccessful, ...(but) violent crime has dropped by 17% ... shootings are down 36%, & homicides are down 48%." Homicides down almost 50% All with fewer cops. So. Why. Are. We. Spending. More. Money. On. Them???

👇 #seattle

This is brilliant. Since SPD has historically refused to be accountable for the harm they cause to our communities, let's make sure it's documented where ALL can see.

Naming names.

Whos gonna be the first degen to send these off to PSA? 😂

👨🏻‍🍳💋: "SPD states that efforts to prevent serious felony crimes have been unsuccessful, ...(but) violent crime has dropped by 17% ... shootings are down 36%, & homicides are down 48%." Homicides down almost 50% All with fewer cops. So. Why. Are. We. Spending. More. Money. On. Them???

In this thread, we are uploading all six pages of the Office of Civil Rights Policy Briefing Memo, and are providing the Legistar Link below: seattle.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=...

My office requested that the Office of Civil Rights assess CB 121052 and 121053, and we wanted to share this report with the public. "CCTV and RTCC technologies are not neutral instruments, as they carry direct consequences for equal protection, privacy, and the freedoms of speech and association."

Seattle peeps let's go

Collect em all Seattle

This project is cool as fuck and proceeds go towards a new statewide police misconduct database that will apparently contain 25 years of data on 200+ departments in washington state

*shuffling through my Divest SPD baseball cards at the protest to see what cop just pepper sprayed the shit out of me*

Brilliant.

Our first pack is a veritable rogues' gallery of 10 sadists, hotheads, and career criminals. We plan to put out two more 10-packs in the coming months. Collect them all and support your local police watchdogs.

Good news, Divesters! The wait is over. Print editions of our Bad Apple Baseball Cards are finally on sale! All proceeds will fund our exciting new project: a statewide police misconduct database. Buy here: tinyurl.com/DivestCards

Support a new project from DivestSPD and get some fun tokens of their appreciation: Bad Apple Baseball cards. Bring them to protests and hand them to the cops you see or keep them handy to know who might run over your head with a bike.

Having the funding to build a statewide police misconduct database would be a big deal. Consider buying a few packs!

Any city official supporting this surveillance expansion should never be taken seriously again if they talk about "Trump proofing" Seattle