Seattle Hires Unarmed Social Workers to Respond to 911 Calls
Seattle, Washington announced the start of a new pilot program offering residents an “alternate response team” of unarmed social workers who will act as “crisis responders” to 9-1-1 calls as opposed to sending trained police officers.
In an interview, Seattle City Councilwoman Lisa Hebold, who has been vehementy in favor of defunding the city’s police department since 2020, announced the decision to begin hiring candidates to act as crisis responders on Friday.
“I’m really really happy to report that the city is hiring for the six positions for its first pilot alternate response team,” Councilwoman Herbold said. “It’s going to be a way for 9-1-1 operations to dispatch calls to somebody other than police, other than fire, a crisis responder who is unarmed, the police department will be aware of the dispatch.”
“It’s really exciting that we’re finally up and running with hiring the folks who will be doing this really important work that we have been working on since, I think, August of 2020,” she added.
The city official led charges to defund the police department following the George Floyd and BLM riots that destroyed much of downtown Seattle and called for the abolition of police departments around the country. Since 2020, 600 officers resigned from the department, leading to record homicides and violent crimes often likened to a warzone.
As one now-retired Seattle police officer explained in her brutal 15-page-long resignation letter, “Seattle has become a laughingstock . . . it’s been a free fall into anarchy.“
“Last year, Seattle’s City Council eliminated 80 of the 200 officer positions that the city previously committed to hiring, and from 2020 to 2021, funding was cut by $35 million, with an additional cut of $6 million in 2022.”
“Washington State set a new record for the highest number of homicides in a year in 2022. Seattle alone had a 24% increase in homicides from 2021 to 2022 and a steady increase in other violent crimes as well as property crimes.”
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Protests in Seattle grew so chaotic that rioters declared an area of the city an “autonomous zone” named “CHAZ,” which was known nationally for complete anarchy and violence. City officials did not condemn the actions of the rioters, but instead gave in to their demands by significantly cutting the police department’s budget.
The Post Millennial reported that the new program, which seeks to replace armed and trained police officers with unarmed social workers, received $1.6 million as part of the “midyear supplemental budget.”
According to the job listing posted by the city, The “Dual Dispatch” crisis response team will consist of “six mental health community responders and one clinical supervisor.” Additionally, “The team will operate during a 12-hour period, currently anticipated to be 11 am to 11 pm (informed by crisis data trends and needs), seven days a week. Community Crisis Responders will be scheduled for 40 hours a week with the potential to work overtime.”
