Democrat Mayor Wanted Less White, Military Men In Police Recruiting Images
ANALYSIS – Even though, after the recent Supreme Court ruling against Affirmative Action, the momentum seems to be shifting away from discriminatory Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts nationally, one major, crime-infested, ‘Defund the Police’ city on the Left coast hasn’t gotten the message.
Seattle’s Democrat Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office ordered fewer White males and officers with ‘military bearing’ be shown in promotional images and videos for the city’s struggling police force.
The controversial document appears to be part of the mayor’s Comprehensive Police Recruitment and Retention Plan passed last year which prioritizes applicants with “diverse racial and immigration backgrounds.”
It was first reported by My Northwest.
Once the memo provoked a firestorm of protest, the document was quietly edited to remove the offensive verbiage. Then the mayor’s office lied about having copies of the original memo, saying the original versions were lost.
This, according to a March 2023 memo written for the Seattle Police Department (SPD), titled “SPD Marketing More and Less,” calls for more photos and videos of “officers of color” who are “younger” and of “different genders” to be featured in the department’s marketing materials.
And to make the overtly discriminatory point as clear as possible, the memo also directed that there should be “less” images and videos of “officers who are white, male” and “officers with military bearing.”
The outrageous memo was written by Ben Dalgetty, a Digital Strategy Lead from the mayor’s office who oversees SPD recruitment. And it got the Seattle Police Officers Guild justifiably upset.
Officer Mike Solan, president of the police union told Seattle radio host Jason Rantz in a written statement that the union cannot abide by “discrimination.”
“What I condemn and will forever continue to push back on is the verbiage within the recruitment document that calls for less of white male officers. Less of people in leadership positions, and less of humans with military backgrounds. This is flat-out discrimination. Period. It is an affront to decency, reasonableness and further divides our communities,” Sloan wrote.
“It is embarrassing, shameful, and detrimental to a healthy functioning society.” But he wasn’t the only one outraged by the memo.
According to My Northwest, police sources who spoke to “The Jason Rantz Show” were shocked that the mayor’s office would put their radical racial and other preferences for police recruitment in writing.
“I thought, ‘Are you kidding me? You put this in writing?'” one SPD source reportedly said. “It shows not only a lack of respect for officers, but a lack of respect for the military. They have no understanding of someone willing to put their lives on the line for their fellow man. They don’t have respect.”
Other SPD officials were “livid” with the memo. After receiving complaints from SPD, Dalgetty made several edits to the document.
“The Jason Rantz Show” said their public records request for the original memo went unanswered for months before the mayor’s office finally provided the edited version on July 10, but wrongly claimed the original version wasn’t available anymore.
Meanwhile, there were 52 homicides in Seattle in 2022, and last year had the highest number of violent crimes with 5,625, the most in over 10 years of Seattle crime statistics.
And, since 2020, and the Black Lives Matter riots, the SPD has had a net loss of 325 officers. Last year, it was a net loss of 90 cops, despite Mayor Harrell’s much-publicized diverse recruitment efforts.
At the same time, the left-wing city council and two different Democrat mayors have talked for nearly three years about forming teams of social workers or mental health counselors to respond to some calls instead of police.
But the fact is that 300-plus cops who used to respond to an increasing number of 911 calls are gone — and haven’t been replaced with anything real.
Still, city officials have the audacity to discriminate against the remaining white male officers with ‘military bearing’ who remain.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
