Former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said media reports underplayed how chaotic and dangerous the demonstrations were in the city’s “Capitol Hill Organized Protest” zone last year.
Best, who left her role as head of the Seattle Police Department in September following the Seattle City Council’s vote to cut millions of dollars from the department’s budget, was a vocal critic of the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, later renamed CHOP. The zone formed after protesters took over a city block and abandoned police precinct during last year’s summer of unrest over the police-involved deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.
The former police chief told Jerry Ratcliffe on his Reducing Crime podcast published Monday the “destructive behavior” of the protesters “did not get the level of publicity or media attention” as the officer-involved fatalities such as the death of Floyd.
Best, who recorded the interview with Ratcliffe in early May, told the Seattle Times on May 24 the decision to abandon the police precinct in downtown Seattle was not her decision, adding that she advised against it.
NEARLY 20% OF SEATTLE OFFICERS QUIT IN PAST 18 MONTHS: POLICE CHIEF
“I would read stories about the peaceful protests,” Best told Ratcliffe. “I go, ‘Well, part of it was peaceful.’ But I was standing 20 feet away from a hail of rocks. I was looking right at them, hail down, feet from me. I was behind a telephone pole.”
Best said she was confused when reading reports about protesters claiming they were unfairly targeted by police who threw tear gas and used pepper spray on them. She said those tactics were not “arbitrary.”
“But certainly, we were trying to look as non-threatening as possible, maybe not have the riot shields up,” Best said. “But once we know we’re going to be getting rocks and bottles thrown at us, I have a responsibility as a chief to make sure people have protecting gear. We can’t just leave them out there with soft hat [sic] and rocks are being thrown and whatever.”
The former police chief said her retirement was not influenced by a proposed 40% cut of her salary but was due to the $3 million departmentwide cut the Seattle City Council voted on last summer.
“This is not about the money — I have thicker skin than that. This is about the disrespect shown [to] all SPD officers,” Best tweeted in August.
“The Council gave us $1.6 million to hire the best, brightest and most diverse. Now they want me to layoff 100 of those officers. I can’t do that,” Best wrote in another Twitter post in August.
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In the past 18 months, nearly 20% of Seattle’s police force left their positions. Interim Police Chief Adrian Diaz currently leads SPD.
