Nickels deals with safety, SPD recruitment issues
Whether he likes it or not, Mayor Greg Nickels has had to deal with a lot of questions regarding neighborhood safety lately.
As Nickels continues to insist that the Seattle Police Department will meet its recruiting goals, several high-profile cases have vaulted the problem into a major concern with community members.
To many, SPD has always had a reputation for being too rough and ridiculously unfriendly (a case of a few hotheads ruining the good name of a ton of others...check out the Amy S. story at the link above) but now they are being faced with a bigger public relations problem: high profile cases.
The random beating of a UW student and the now-infamous Shannon Harps murder have put up a curtain of fear over certain neighborhoods in Seattle.
Perhaps the most disturbing sub-plot to these horrific local crimes is the idea that the city may start to panic when it comes to their expectations for new recruits (this article from last year details some of the difficulties faced by SPD). Sadly, this situation will be determined a winner or loser based on numbers alone, with little to no focus on the quality of those recruits.
We have to put trust in Nickels not to panic on this issue, but if we've learned anything about Seattle politicians it's that they have no backbone and will do whatever they must to avoid bad press. Throw in the fact that the Seattle Police Guild has more power than Nickels will ever hope to, and we could have a serious problem.
I think those of us who possess logic can agree that these cases do not tell of an epidemic waiting to happen. But if new recruits are being hired with less stringent requirements, these high-profile cases will be the least of our concerns.
