Christal Wood for Seattle Mayor

In recent years especially, there has been a growing physical and social separation between the Seattle Police Department and the communities they are charged with protecting. The problems of police brutality and racial profiling abound. Racial disparities in searches, arrests and seizures persist. I believe that one answer to many of these issues is true community policing—not as it has been written about or practiced here in Seattle thus far.

Contrary to the concept of police “decentralization” (wherein officers can be assigned any area at any given time depending on what area is defined as a high crime area or hot spot) I believe that officers should come from and live in the communities that they serve. Officers should know the populace, and be sensitive to the special situations, or circumstances that may exist in a given neighborhood or precinct. Accountability should be maintained through regular public contact and dialogue.

In the policing of large gatherings, the emphasis should be protection of the citizenry and of constitutional rights, not the suppression of them. Never again should the city wage war on it’s own people as it did during the protests of the World Trade Organization in 1999. Nor should City government respond to social unrest with negligence or obstinacy, as in the instance of the Fat Tuesday riot in Pioneer Square.

Seattle cannot continue to live in fear of itself, if it is to progress as a metropolis. Ultimately, We must steer Seattle’s police culture away from the paramilitary and toward a more cooperative model.