(PatrioticPost.com)- Attorney General William Barr slammed the Seattle City Council this week, blaming them for the resignation of the city’s first black police chief, Carmen Best. Barr said that the decision to drastically cut the Seattle Police Department Budget was the reason why Police Chief Carmen Best resigned on Monday.
“I was disheartened to learn of the resignation of Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best,” Barr said in a statement on Tuesday. “Her leadership and demonstrated commitment to her oath of office reflected all that is good about America’s law enforcement. In the face of mob violence, she drew the line in the sand and said, ‘Enough!’, working tirelessly to save lives, protect her officers, and restore stability to Seattle.”
Barr said that Best’s example should be “inspiration” to everybody who respects the rule of law and values safety in their communities. He also said that this experience – the fact that Best resigned as a result of the massive cuts to her department – should be a “lesson to state and local leaders about the real costs of irresponsible proposals to defund the police.”
Best told her Twitter followers that she resigned not because of the money, but because of the general disrespect to her officers from the city council and other officials.
“The Council gave us $1.6 million to hire the best, brightest and most diverse. Now they want me to layoff 100 of those officers. I can’t do that,” she said. “I don’t want the people who work for me to impacted by the animus directed toward me. That animus felt personal.”
Can you imagine being the police chief of a city and being disrespected and told to get rid of your officers, while somehow also keeping the people of your city just as safe as they were before the cuts? That’s an impossible task.
Best was the voice of reason during the famous “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” riots whereby extremists from Antifa and Black Lives Matter occupied six blocks of Seattle city. Best expressed her desire to send in police officers to clear out the protests and allow people to return to their homes and businesses, but Democratic Mayor Jenny Durkan insisted the rioters be left alone to continue their destruction.
In response to the recent decision to defund the police department, Best told members of the City Council that they should “stand up for what is right.”
I’m betting they won’t.
