Taxpayers in Seattle may begin to start asking exactly what they’re paying for if they aren’t asking already. The uber-liberal city has been beset by “revolutionary” vandals for years who say they’re acting in the interest of social justice, but their methods don’t strike many people as just.
Many will recall the leftists who took over a six-block region of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood in 2020, declaring the area “occupied.” They called it the Capitol Hill Occupied District (CHOP), erected fences to keep people and law enforcement out, and trashed businesses inside the area. This action was encouraged by the violent “defund the police” movement that sprang up in Democrat cities around the U.S. in response to the death of criminal George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The effects of this embrace of lawlessness are still being felt in the Pacific Northwest city. The city’s police department has announced that it will no longer send cops to respond to security or burglar alarms unless there is “supporting evidence” of a crime taking place.
Interim Police Chief Sue Rahr announced the change on September 13. Under the new rules the Seattle Police Department (SPD) will not respond to automatic alarms that come in from security systems that alert the police to a possible break-in. Instead, cops will only be dispatched if there is “supporting evidence” that a burglary is actually happening. This might consist of a witness report, audio, video, or someone pressing a “panic” button to indicate they’re facing an intruder.
Shannon Woodman is the CEO of Washington Alarm which sets up fire and burglar alarms, plus video security systems, and offers customers automatic monitoring. She said that with only two weeks’ notice, her company has to radically change how they monitor customer properties. Despite the fact that the SPD has been considering these changes for the better part of a year, Woodman said, no one in law enforcement has contacted companies like hers.
Justifying the policy change, Chief Rahr said that most of the 13,000 residential and commercial burglary alarms police get every year are false alarms. These are caused by a malfunctioning sensor, or by a homeowner or employee who accidentally activates the system. Of all the alarms police got in 2023, only 4 percent were found to have any actual crime associated with them, said Rahr.
