Through the Static

By Hannah Saunders

Just one week after Seattle Police Department (SPD) officers gunned down 29-year-old Christian Hadley Nelson, the Seattle City Council approved its new contract, providing the department with fat pay increases and minimal accountability. Cops will receive a retroactive pay increase of 6% for 2024, with an added 4.1% for this year. An increase of 2.7% will hit their accounts in 2026, followed by a 3-4% increase in 2027. Dozens of community members attended the meeting on December 9, and many brought attention to the violence and harm officers have caused just this year alone. 

“When SPD murdered Jack Paleli they showed no interest in deescalating the situation, and when SPD murdered Christian Nelson, they shot up the whole neighborhood and shut down the light rail, traffic, and buses for upwards of 12 hours,” Jonathan Toledo, board member of the Seattle Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression (SAARPR) said. “They refused to deescalate and used military-grade weapons to shoot over 24 bullets, which ended up hurting someone who lives in the UW Commons, and sending them to the hospital.” 

A person named Olive took to the microphone, and said Nelson’s murder in Othello was terrifying, as that’s the neighborhood they reside. 

“It’s just insane that we want to give the police more money so they can do more things like this. It breaks my heart for Christian Nelson’s family, for Jack Paleli’s family. I don’t think this contract should go through,” Olive said, citing the need for community control of police, the budget, and hiring and firing officers. 

Henry Keen, a physician, spoke against the Seattle Police Officer Guild’s (SPOG) contract, and said the CARE team was created to tend to events that police aren’t well-trained in, like crisis response. SPOG is one of few police unions in the country and negotiates contracts on behalf of SPD. 

“This contract puts the police, not the trained crisis response staff, in charge of determining the nature of the response in such a wide variety of spaces and other socially complex situations that it destroys their usefulness almost entirely,” Keen said. “Reject the contract.” 

A sentinel event review (SER) of SPD’s excessive use of force during the May 24 protest at Cal Anderson Park hosted several community members, including Gabriel Dias, who expressed at the council meeting how appalled he was by what he witnessed during that process. 

“We had a quote from officers, from Matthew Didier, who was the head of the CRG at the time who said, ‘We’re going in heavy and we’re going to put some fucking work in on these guys’,” Dias said. 

Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck voted no due to significant accountability concerns, including one that states “officer misconduct must be proven with an elevated standard of review,” she said. Asking taxpayers to pay more in policing without requiring long-term accountability is not a deal she could support, she added. 

Rinck had Councilmember Rob Saka’s approval and highlighted how his experiences of being a father, son, and Black man in America have shaped his perspective on public safety. 

“The proposed SPOG CBA is a bad deal for the City of Seattle. Accountability provisions contained in that contract are too lightweight, and do not at all close the gap between what’s set forth in our accountability ordinance, our city values, and the terms and conditions in the final agreed-upon contract,” Councilmember Saka said. 

Councilmember Eddie Lin also rejected the contract, also citing accountability and the need to address the root causes of public safety issues in the city. Councilmember Daniel Strauss was the first to vote yes, and said that although accountability measures are not good enough, he will continue to push for more because this contract is better than the current one. 

The audience created what Councilmember President Sara Nelson referred to as several “disturbances,” and she threatened to call a recess and take a vote in the privacy of offices. 

“Christian Nelson! Say his name! Christian Nelson! Say his name!” roared into chants of “Jail killer cops!” 

Councilmembers Rivera, Hollingsworth, Juarez, Kettle, and Nelson all voted in favor, and the contract passed by 6-3.

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