Constitutional law scholar Jonathan Turley criticized comments made by a city councilwoman in Seattle he said was suggesting the firing of white officers as part of an effort to shrink the police department.
“The Council is continuing to work through the SPD budget and we are in the very beginning stages of developing proposals. I want to address some misinformation SPD leadership is prognosticating on the content of budget cut proposals that haven’t been developed yet,” City Council member Lisa Herbold tweeted on Monday. “In the case layoffs are necessary, one threat is firing BIPOC officers first. Chief can request the Public Safety Civil Service Commission ED for permission to lay off ‘out of order’ when doing so is in ‘the interest of efficient operations of his or her department.’”
BIPOC stands for black, indigenous, and people of color.
Herbold continued: “This means Chief doesn’t have to fire the newest hired first. Chief says firing BIPOC members of the SPD would be harmful & I agree. I know she can argue just as convincingly that maintaining the employment of BIPOC officers is in the interest of efficient operations of the SPD.”
This means Chief doesn’t have to fire the newest hired first. Chief says firing BIPOC members of the SPD would be harmful & I agree. I know she can argue just as convincingly that maintaining the employment of BIPOC officers is in the interest of efficient operations of the SPD.
— Lisa Herbold (@Lisa_Herbold) July 13, 2020
The Seattle Police Department hired 108 officers in 2019, which was the highest number of officers hired in over a decade at the department, the city said. Of those 108 hires, 39% were people of color, also the highest percentage of people of color hired in a single year in the department’s history.
Chief Carmen Best wrote a letter to the mayor on July 10 warning cutting the department so deeply would be “catastrophic for public safety in the city of Seattle.”
“Cuts this deep mean we would lose more than 50% of our Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) officers,” Best said. “These officers’ life experiences make us a better department and community.”
Turley argued Herbold’s proposal would unfairly target white officers with more senior positions and higher salaries.
“The problem is that the firing would be done by seniority and many of the less senior officers are black,” Turley wrote in a blog post this week. “This of course would be even more egregious since Herbold wants to fire white officers due to their race alone. They would not be accused of any wrongdoing or failure. Herbold would not only refuse to promote on the basis of race but would fire officers on that basis. No test. Just a pure racially discriminatory program of terminations.”
Turley, a legal expert who was called by Republicans as a witness during President Trump’s impeachment, cited several federal court rulings related to race and discrimination as he rebuked Herbold’s proposal.
“Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (2007), Chief Justice John Roberts once declared “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” Turley wrote. “That is clearly not the plan of Herbold and any of her colleagues who want to fire officers based on their race.”
