Hunkered Down in Bremerton

Roles for Police Department

A big issue that is coming out of the Black Lives Matter movement and protests is determining the role in our society for police departments and recognizing and removing systemic racism from policing. Almost everyone can agree that the main purpose of the police in our society is to protect lives. Police officers need the training and tools to protect lives because Black Lives Matter, all lives matter. Beyond this there is controversy.

The current protests on Capitol Hill in Seattle seem to involve the role of police in protecting property rights. Many people feel that protecting property rights is an important role for the police. The Left-Behind Left-Wing Persons (LBLWP) who have co-opted the original Black Lives Matter argue that protecting property rights is not a valid role for police because there should be no private property to protect. The movement to defund the police is truly all about preventing police departments from enforcing property crimes.

The elected leadership of Seattle is completely confused by the difference between and the importance of these two roles and is totally unable to solve the problems created by the LBLWP's "occupation" of an area of Capitol Hill. Because of this Seattle Police Department for several weeks abandoned its role of policing the "occupied" area. The elected leadership are preventing SPD from using the non-lethal tools (such as tear gas and flash-bangs) that SPD could have used to end the "occupation" earlier and saved lives.. The SPD was only left with potentially lethal tools to prevent criminal behavior.

The potentially lethal tools (firearms and nightsticks) are appropriate tools to protect lives. However they are inappropriate to address property crimes. The SPD leadership made their best available choice by staying out of the Capitol Hill neighborhoods when they weren't allowed to use appropriate enforcement tools.

For the SPD is to enforce property crimes it must be given the ability to use tools appropriate for the job at hand. There are times when protecting lives and property call for the use of non-lethal tools.

Howard B. Julien

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Updated July 4, 2020