More than 200 Seattle cops face being fired due to Covid vaccine mandate as 20 refuse to get shot

More than 200 Seattle police officers could lose their jobs over the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate because they have either not received the shot or refuse to hand over their medical data to bosses, according to reports. 

The department is still reeling from a 17% budget cut following a push by leftist activists to defund the police last year â€" with nearly 300 cops already quitting since the start of 2020.

Washington Governor Jay Inslee announced last month that most state employees will be required to get vaccinated by October 18 or face ‘nondisciplinary dismissal’.

Seattle’s Democrat mayor Jenny Durkan and King County Executive Dow Constantine made similar announcements which covered city and county employees respectively. 

But the move could see the number of cops in Seattle slashed â€" despite staffing at the department already at lows not seen since the 1980s. 

Just over 200 cops have either said they are not vaccinated, or have refused to turn over their data to bosses,  according to KKTH‘s conservative host Jason Rantz.  

That represents about 20 percent of the department’s 1,080 deployable officers, who have to look over a population of more than 724,000 people.

In July, it was revealed that the department had already lost at least 280 officers due to what they called an ‘anti-police climate’ in the city amid Black Lives Matter protests and calls to defund the police.

A record 180 officers ‘separated’ from the department last year â€" nearly double the 92 that left in 2019. The numbers take resignations, retirement and dismissals into account. 

Another hundred officers have left the department up to July this year.

Mayor Durkan addressed the crisis at a July 28 press conference, before the vaccine mandate was announced, saying: â€˜As a city, we cannot continue on this current trajectory of losing police officers.

‘Over the past 17 months, the Seattle Police Department has lost 250 police officers which is the equivalent of over 300,000 service hours. We’re on path to losing 300 police officers.’

The number of officers to leave Seattle Police Department has been in free fall since last year, but the trend started in 2015

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan told SPD to jab up or face termination when the department is already facing a record-low staff shortage.

Durkan had said in July she plans to submit a new plan to hire more officers to restore its numbers. 

Under the vaccine mandate, city workers will risk losing their jobs if they do no get double-jabbed.

If a small portion of officers are terminated due to the mandate, the effect would spell disaster for local law enforcement. 

The SPD is already at a record-breaking low staff shortage that hasn’t been seen since the 1980s. 

‘We are at record lows in the city right now. I have about 1,080 deployable officers. This is the lowest I’ve seen our department,’ Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz told KING-TV in April. 

At times, there are only around 70 officers patrolling the city on a nightly basis, KKTH reported.

It comes despite violent crime in the city surging.

The city is on track to break last year’s homicide rate, which was also a new high for the fist time in 26 years. There have been 30 murders recorded in the city so far this year â€" compared to 52 in the whole of 2020.

Seattle’s homicide rate seems to be reaching the total of homicides in 2020, with four months left before the end of the year

Seattle ranks as number one when it comes to largest increase in homicides in major U.S. cities, above Chicago and Atlanta

According to Diaz, the department is in a ‘staffing crisis’.

But, the City of Seattle now says full vaccination against COVID-19 is considered to be a part of its conditions of employment, regardless of an employee’s age, risk factors, or past infection.  

The deadline for city workers to be fully vaccinated is set on October 18.

Religious and medical exemptions are offered, but it’s unclear if the city will accommodate the requests. 

More than 200 Seattle cops â€" 20% of its workforce â€" could lose their jobs over the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate because they’ve either not had the shot or refuse to hand over private medical data. PICTURED: Police chief Adrian Diaz (left) with mayor Jenny Durkan

However, some SPD officers do not believe the double-jab should be a necessary condition to do their job, while others argue that they been in the field for the last 17 months without a vaccine.

Some also don’t think the government should have access to their private medical records, even if they may be vaccinated, as they see as an infringement on their privacies. 

Mayor Jenny Durkan’s mandate is also subject to impact bargaining with the Seattle Police Officer’s Guild (SPOG), the largest police labor union in the Northwest. 

The union has been negotiating with city officials and an agreement on terms could be found as early as sometime this week or early next week. But it remains unclear as to how many of the 200 officers will be satisfied with the outcome.   

At least one union negotiating with the city is asking for severance packages if all staff members must be vaccinated.   

‘If you are advocating for more police officers because you know crime is on the rise, you need more cops because of what the City Council did,’ Mike Solan, the president of the union told KOMO News. 

‘Why are you threatening us with our jobs (if) you don’t get this vaccination. It’s unbelievable to me, it doesn’t make any sense.’ 

Last year, departing officers have cited what they call an ‘anti-police climate’ in Seattle, city council policies and disagreements with police department leadership.  

Officers of the Seattle Police department tend to be few and far between, reaching a record-low number since the 1980s

Racial protests after the death of George Floyd sparked a movement in the city to defund the local police

Seattle City Council’s Public Safety Committee was also considering a $5.4 million cut to SPD’s 2021 budget in February to account for an equivalent amount of overspending by the department last year

At the start of 2021, the Seattle City Council voted to defund the police budget by roughly 17 percent. 

It’s Public Safety Committee considered a $5.4 million cut to the Seattle Police Department’s 2021 budget in February to account for an equivalent amount of overspending by the department last year.   

Whether the proposal went through remains unknown.  

There is no vaccination rate for America’s entire population of first responders but individual police and fire departments across the country report figures far below the national rate of 74 percent of adults who have had at least one dose.  

‘We are hopeful that terminations will not be necessary and all unvaccinated employees choose to get vaccinated,’ a Durkan representative told Crosscut.       

Source: Daily Mail

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