- My name is Angela Brown, and my business is Brown Angel Skin and Hair, a plant-based clean beauty product line that features vintage Black actresses on the labels.

My business is a micro business, and I was concerned about taking that risk to get this new concept out.

The Comcast Rise Grant is giving me an opportunity to take that risk and scale up my business and take it to the next level.

I feel that my business helps increase representation for Black women on the shelf.

(upbeat jazz music) (jazz music) - [Narrator] What can Seattle do to solve our public safety problems?

- I think that we need to really empower and engage community to be part of the solution, and to police ourselves really.

- [Narrator] How can community leaders and the police help?

- When you run an organization, you really wanna make sure that you're not doing 100 different things, that you're doing just a couple different things, and that's really trying to get back to the basics of policing.

- [Narrator] On this month's Civic Cocktail, we explore what's getting better, and what still needs to be done.

(upbeat jazz music) (audience applause) - Hello everyone, and welcome to Civic Cocktail.

I'm your host, Monica Guzman.

What does it mean today to be safe in Seattle, to be shielded from danger or threat, so you can live your life fully without fear, no matter where or who you are.

It's a big question as our city wrestles with rising crime and overwhelmed police department, a strained legal system and neighbors who are fed up and frustrated by everything from distrust around racial disparities, to what feels like inaction, bordering on neglect.

All with this nagging sense, after the reckonings of the last few years, that we're still not seeing the bigger picture.

So we will attempt to sketch a broader outline here tonight.

We'll begin by hearing from three local leaders whose community advocacy gives them each a critical lens on what a truly public safety is all about.

And then we'll talk to the man in charge of the most powerful local institution officially charged with supporting safety in our city, Seattle Police Interim Chief, Adrian Diaz.

With us to help draw out what it takes to be safe and sound in Seattle are my first three guests.

Please join me in welcoming Sean Goode, Executive Director of CHOOSE 180, a nonprofit that offers young people restorative alternatives to traditional prosecution, Quynh Pham, Executive Director of Friends of Little Sai Gon, a group building the vibrancy and vitality of that neighborhood, and Esther Lucero, President and CEO of the Seattle Indian Health Board, a community center that offers cultural, healthcare and human services.

Thank you all for your work, and thank you for joining us tonight.

Let's hear it for our guests.

(audience cheers and applause) All right.

So this is a conversation about safety, and before we can get too far into it, we wanna understand what from your perspective, safety even means.

So let's start with you Quynh.

When you think about safety in your community, in your life, in your work, what does it come down to?

- For me personally, and my community that I represent is are the folks in Little Sai Gon.

It's the Vietnamese immigrant and refugee families, seniors, and small businesses, and so safety for me is being able to just walk outside, greet your neighbors without the feeling that you're going to be harmed physically or even mentally, especially in our current society.

For our business owners, it's really at the end of the day, closing up their storefronts and not feeling like they're gonna come the next day with the smashed window, and also to the customers being safe, feeling safe when you're parked in any place in the neighborhood.

So it's really basic needs, but yeah, it's a feeling that we all have the right to feel and it's just being challenged every day.

So it becomes harder and harder to define what real safety means for our community.

- So, Sean, I know public safety touches on a lot of things.

What's one key concern where you begin to unpack what it means for you and your community?

- Yeah, well, the other night I fell asleep, and I forgot to lock my door, and I woke up in the morning and I didn't really think like, oh my goodness, I forgot to lock my door, something could have happened to me, because my wife and I were homeowners, and we live in a neighborhood, you know, my son's in college, we both have jobs, gainfully employed, and that experience is dynamically different than what it was in my childhood when I run from the end of the block, into my apartment complex right into my home, my apartment home, or when I was sleeping in my car, outside the Home Depot, before I go into my shift over the Upper Lander, safety is having the experience of your material needs met, and a community around you that knows you, that understands you, and that sees you for who you fully are in your humanity.

Safety is being able to walk in a world that embraces your full humanity, and doesn't consider you less than fully human, like my ancestors were, safety is living in a community that's absent of a promotion of racism and racist ideas, where folks can choose to live in neighborhoods, because they're equally affordable, that the material conditions of neighborhoods can change without pushing people out of them, those are all things that contribute to safety.

And I have a privilege to experience that at this point in some regard, but it's also really confined to where I am at that given moment, because last week on Sunday, I was going out for a run and I got pulled over for having a headlight out on Rainier, and in that moment, I absolutely did not feel safe, because of all the other variables that are present, that would then make me feel as though my life were in danger.

- Thank you.

So Esther, you've heard a couple of, you know, definitions of safety, being able to walk out in your neighborhood without fearing for something, but also being seen for who you fully are, and having a community support you, and the city support you, and a lifestyle that you can access.

What does safety mean to you?

Tell us what it looks like from your vantage point and your community.

- Yeah, I think from an organizational perspective, I can really agree with Quynh, we share a neighborhood really in the International District.

And then of course, what I love about Sean and he always brings, you know, historical context into perspective.

I'm gonna tell you public safety or just safety generally for me means that, you know, one in three of our Native women will not be raped.

How about that?

How about we need to walk on this land, like we're guests on this Planet, right?

And understand that Indigenous People have a right to this land, and that we have experienced historical atrocities that have really caused ailments in our community.

And we shouldn't be subject to racism for those or discrimination for those things, right?

We should be subject to honor and respect and community commitment to supporting our people.

Now, I think about the ways that we will move through the world together, standing shoulder to shoulder, as People of Color and what that looks like.

Being able to be in a communal environment, without folks taking that as a threat, those things are public safety, having access to resources and services that allow us to live healthier, happier lives, those things are safety.

So I think, you know, that's as an individual, it's also, I am one of those businesses, you know, and being able to call on support and help for protection is really key and not experience fear when that phone call is made, right?

- Now that the story around public safety in the headlines is typically a story about where safety meets the law.

It's a story about crime.

And lately it hasn't been a great one, property crime on the rise, violent crime surged 20% from 2020 to 2021, and parts of downtown and Little Sai Gon are being called hotspots of criminal activity.

Where is the focus on crime helpful in working toward a safer Seattle, do you think, and what does it tend to miss?

And I'll start with you, Sean.

- Yeah.

I think what happens is when we focus on crime, we don't do it unilaterally.

We focus on crime that occurs in particular areas that have where we can emphasize folks who we believe are most likely to commit those particular behaviors.

We don't focus on illicit drug use in suburban neighborhoods.

We focus on property damage in the downtown corridor.

I mean, both of which are crimes, but where we place the emphasis is where I think some of the low hanging fruit is and objectively also where the greatest support is needed.

I think what's not helpful is when we transition from talking about crime, to making someone a criminal, like a person can do something that's been criminalized, but that doesn't make them a criminal, they're still a human being, they're still like fully present to that humanity.

And our current system doesn't help those who have caused harm to engage in a healing journey, nor does it help those who have been harmed to begin to heal either, when a business owner gets their door smashed in, a friend of mine has a business and a candle shop and their business got broken into, they didn't stop feeling insecure when the police showed up and took a report like that lingers.

And there's not support to heal from that.

And what we know to be true is that if people don't heal, then they stay hurt, and hurt people are very likely at some point of time to engage in a cycle of hurting others.

And until we begin to address public safety in a manner that quickly engages people who have been harmed, and those that have been accused of causing harm in a journey towards healing, we're going to continue to talk about how many repeat offenders there are, and the city attorney's office is gonna continue to look for ways to incarcerate people for longer periods of time who continue to show up on the heat maps and these hot spots, because we've yet to embrace the fact that we cannot police our way out of the social pandemic that we've placed ourself in the midst of, you can't divest from population of people, you can't place people in the midst of a pandemic and have them experience one of the greatest mental health crisis of our country's existence, leave folks, unhoused, unsheltered, absent of support, and the necessary resources to thrive, and then suggest that somehow they're going to get on and carry and become better after they spend time in a county lockup, where people are committing suicide at incredible rates, like that actually doesn't honor the integrity of anyone, those who have been impact are those who have been accused of causing impact.

- So that's what we're missing, it sounds like you're saying is, the focus on crime misses the person that's been branded the criminal that could have a different journey than they tend to have.

- Absolutely.

We believe that young people in particular are possibilities to be developed and not problems to be solved.

And that conviction has led to some terrific outcomes when we support them through offering them community instead of criminal convictions.

It's because we're centering their humanity and developing them on a continuum that allows them to see themself as possible instead of problematic.

- So Quynh, I'd like to bring you into this, where is the focus on crime?

I mean, we, you know, we have statistics so that we can track what's happening with our city, right?

We have laws so that we can have agreements, a certain kind of contract about how we could attempt to ensure safety.

So where is that helpful and where do you think it misses the mark?

- It's so hard to separate crime, and some of the social problems that we're dealing with and having, so I'm gonna put a cultural lens on top of that.

I think, especially in the Little Sai Gon, International District, our community has a hard time separating all of the issues across, because there has been no opportunity to learn and understand.

We've always been in this very reactionary phase, and we can't seem to get out of it and -- - Reacting to what?

- Reacting to just everything that's happening street level.

- [Monica] So take us there.

- So just that sheer number of unhoused folks, I think just the physical visibility, and media plays a lot into this, telling this different narrative, that may be not something we're seeing on a regular basis, but creates a perception that is so unsafe in our neighborhood that it's hard to avoid, and for especially commercial districts, we're attracting people from outside of the region, and to have news of Little Sai Gon on front pages of our local papers, only talking about safety, of course, our businesses and our visitors are gonna have this very narrow perception of what that is, and it becomes really hard to break apart the humanity and the crime and everything that's going on and explain that in a culturally sensitive and linguistic way that people can understand across these very diverse communities.

And so something as simple as that our neighborhood has been asking for is very culturally specific services for unhoused folks, and even getting to that point has been so challenging.

There are so many outreach programs, but all of them lack language and cultural competency to get the real needs addressed in our community, so ... - Esther, what would you add to this conversation about what's helpful about the way we tend to tell this story and track, and what we track, and what do we need to improve about it?

- I think we have a very difficult time deconstructing the intersection between homelessness, you know, mental health, stability, substance use disorder and criminal activity.

I think we all, we think of them as synonymous, and that's problematic.

I'll have to tell you running a community health center in the International District, and we have a very heavily publicized encampment near our building, and I think about like the pandemic and the impact of the pandemic, and lack of responsiveness from police, especially when everything became so heavily politicized.

And I remember as an organization, we actually began to employ armed security guards, 24 hours a day, and it wasn't so -- - [Monica] When was that roughly?

- That was right during the pandemic.

- During the pandemic.

- So about two years ago.

- Yep.

- I mean, put it in perspective, it's cost us about $2.5 million to improve safety around our area.

Now I wanna be clear about something, this wasn't just about our building, this wasn't about the relatives that we serve.

We call our patients our relatives.

It wasn't just about our staff, but I have to tell you those unhoused folks in that encampment were so grateful that we did that, because they felt like they were being targeted and exploited by some of, you know, human trafficking, drug trafficking, like those types of things that we see that occur.

And we exist to serve our relatives who are in their most, you know, desperate place.

And it just broke our hearts just to see folks, you know, not only to be without resources, but also just subject to just fear.

And I'll tell you if we are calling, and there isn't a response, what happens when they're calling?

Certainly no response.

And you cannot tell me that it's appropriate when we are supposed to be dependent upon our public safety entities to care for us, you know, to redirect that to small businesses or community health centers like us, that is problematic.

- So here's a question from our audience, that I'm very curious to hear your response.

The audience member says, "Do you think public safety only became an issue "when people in Fremont and Queen Anne "and other more well-to-do neighborhoods "started to feel unsafe?"

So this is a critical question.

This is a question that gets to something tender, something big, who wants to take it?

- Sure, I mean, go ahead, paper, rock and scissors.

(audience laughing) I mean, like, I love the Fremont Market on Sundays, (audience laughing) you know, and walking by Theo's Chocolates, I'm a little disappointed that I can't get samples like I used to because we're in this pandemic world, right?

And I think it's really challenging for folks when suffering becomes visible, and they're not used to the visible manifestation of suffering being in their neighborhood, and so it's easy to other that visible manifestation of suffering and do so in a way that distance yourself from being proximate to it, so that way you believe that could never be you, because you are not that, and you're not them, when in reality, what we recognize is that there were so many folks who were one check away, and when that check went away, they were now no longer living in the homes or apartments, but on the sidewalks outside of those homes and apartments.

So absolutely, I think it plays a role when there's a constituency that has the resources necessary to mobilize and elevate their voice in a manner that gets attention, but I think it's part and parcel of a larger narrative that also extends into the downtown business corridor.

It also extends into some of the quickly gentrifying areas where people aren't used to living proximate to folks who are navigating different degrees of suffering.

I think it's a combination of the whole, right?

And we can't pin that on any single neighborhood, but I think all of us, if we are neighbors to those who are unhoused, or those who are in the midst of a mental health crisis, those who are navigating addiction should center the humanity of those before we begin to determine that we could never be them, because those are criminal.

- So Quynh for Little Sai Gon, there's a tension on the neighborhood.

It's sort of what you were saying, right?

But yeah what is the attitude within the neighborhood about is the attention the right kind?

- I guess any public media is decent media to just bring awareness.

I mean, public safety has been a long time issue within our community, because we've never felt a sense of really real safety, as we all mentioned, a lot of it is just like, is based on relationships with community, within community, but also within our government agencies and other players.

And I don't even, I didn't realize it became a bigger issue.

I was just, we've always been so focused on our needs in our neighborhood, that it's interesting to hear from other folks that have only realized that their safety needs aren't met while our safety needs have never been met.

So, yeah, interesting.

A real, a good perspective.

- May I say something real quick, just -- - Yeah, and then I wanna make sure we hear from Esther, as well.

- It'd be really brief.

I just wanna call out the fact that we're not talking about safe, these safety needs are not synonymous with one another, like the safety needs that are manifesting in Little Sai Gon are a result of intentional divestment from a portion of the city who's never had the material conditions met to meet the needs of the residents there.

That's completely different than the safety needs of like Ballard in Fremont, which are a new manifestation as a result of people who have been there historically that can no longer afford to live in those homes, right?

So I just wanna make sure for the sake of conversation and definition that those safety needs are dynamically different and are byproduct of two vehemently different like environmental conditions.

- What I just said.

- Yeah.

(audience laughing) - Esther, anything to add?

- Yes, definitely.

I think, you know, Fremont, Queen Anne, those are neighborhoods that really strongly reflect rapid gentrification and economic inequities, right?

And I mean, I used to live in San Francisco Bay area, it's, we saw that happen there.

And so it's happening now there, and I'm not as much of a fan of Fremont, I've been there once, you wanna know why?

- For Theo's chocolates, I mean, come on.

- No, I called Mid-Century Modern Furniture.

I do.

- Okay.

- And first time I went to a antique shop there, I got the retail triangle, right?

Folks who know retail, you know, when they center around you, and I'll tell you that shop lost a lot of money, and I haven't been back since.

That's what we're talking about is like racial profiling, rapid gentrification, and what I do know from our perspective and the ID and also Little Sai Gon is that what we watched is that there were addressing quote unquote safety and there's shifting issues in our direction, right?

And it became a lesson -- - What do you mean by that?

Like shifting issues in your -- - Well, we kind of watched, so Sean was just talking about like, Downtown, right?

It's like anywhere, but here.

So what they do is they begin to force it farther East, and guess where it lands, Little Sai Gon.

And that's the part that we're talking about here.

It's really frustrating to watch that happen.

- So from the frustration and the complications, and obviously this goes deep, let's talk about what the solution might be.

What are some signs of progress you have seen, the last couple years, few years, I mean, go back as far as you'd like, it's been tough, but there have been people banding together, and there have been people trying, and working and doing like the three of you.

What signs of progress are you seeing for making your communities more safe?

Where are the buds?

What are you excited about?

Do you wanna start Esther?

- Sure.

You know, I had the privilege of working with Chief Diaz this morning, and it's really heavy on my mind, I'm wearing my necklace here around missing murdered Indigenous people.

And I think a really good example of community and public partnerships is related to missing murdered Indigenous people.

We released a report that called out the data gaps in missing and murdered Indigenous people, and we have established a very clear partnership with Seattle Police Department, sorry about that.

And so we actually have a position that's analyzing data, we are working together to establish a clear community response, you know, not any one entity is considered higher than the other, right?

And together we're coming up with defined solutions and it creates true community accountability.

And that to me is a great example of what it looks like when people finally see you or hear you.

We're talking a lot about visibility in the back, you know, and just what that means.

And so I know it's possible.

- Yeah, all right, great.

Who of you wants to take it next?

- I can just go.

- Yeah, what are you seeing in Little Sai Gon?

- I think for at least the, so it's Asian, American, Pacific Islander, Native Hawaiian heritage month, so we're celebrating, but also really creating more opportunities to advocate and bring louder voices to our issues.

As many of us know there was a rise in anti-Asian hate in the past year, and that was really challenging to deal with, but it also brought a lot of people out and together.

It has been really hard because although there is a lot more voices coming to the table and we're finally, instead of feeling like we have to have one voice, like everyone has to agree, we're also recognizing that we have such diverse voices.

We don't have to all agree.

One of the most challenging things that I always get asked is that, what does the Chinatown ID want?

What is that one ask?

What is this one thing that one mind that you guys want?

And I'm like, I, what?

No.

I'm not gonna give you one answer.

And just being able to see the growth within our own community and how we advocate and how we are becoming stronger and stronger in our voice, and also seeing the collaboration across the different diverse cultures and community has been amazing.

It is a struggle though.

'Cause now everyone thinks that they also, their opinion matters, so .. - No you have to -- - I have to deal with some of the conflict, but I think there's a lot of conversations and talking and coming together that's happening.

And we are really driving a lot of community solutions rather than really looking only to authority our government to find those solutions for us.

- Sean.

- Yeah.

I was just thinking like, how cool would it be to live in a world where White people thought they were a monolith, right?

And we could point to like one of their representatives and be like, that's all of you, right?

All of you feel that way, right?

45, I mean like, isn't that like all of you, right?

But like isn't that what happens on like marginalized communities?

You're like, oh, we gotta change the other side of the street because we know I saw that rap video and I know what's gonna happen next.

Yeah, you know, I struggle with this question, but I have some absolutely things to share.

You know, we began our work a little over 10 years ago in partnership with the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, when Dan Satterberg engaged community leader, Doug Wheeler, and said that "We're failing Black and Brown children, "can you help?"

And at that point, they co-created what was called the 180 program, which essentially served as a pre-filing diversion program, which basically means when young people's behaviors criminalize, because they live in overly policed neighborhoods, they get access to community instead of a courtroom.

And, you know, and since we've been doing that work, over 90% of the young people that engage don't return to the criminal legal system within 12 months of participating in the program, and it's been running strong, but this year we sunset the program, working with young people, because it no longer needs to exist, because the referrals are no longer coming in, because the system has effectively changed and is no longer criminalizing those types of behaviors for young people.

Like when people ask me about impact, that is how we define impact as an organization, the closer we get to no longer needing to exist, because that means the harm that necessitated our existence is gone.

Now, I think that's a really big win and we celebrate that.

And all of you have a lot to do with that, because not only did law enforcement and prosecution stop criminalizing and adjudicating those cases, the social contract began to change too.

And folks in the community began to recognize that a young person stealing something isn't grounds for them to be caged, and that we should go a different direction.

And so there's a need for not only laws to evolve and practices to evolve, but also the social contract to evolve.

So that all of you that are tapped in on this evening and present here in this space begin to see people as human and not criminal, and then once we see them as human, the innovation comes forward and there's so many things we can create to put them on a healing journey that doesn't exacerbate the harm.

- So with our last couple minutes, we're gonna hear from Interim Chief Diaz, coming up next.

What is the right role for police in this question of a safe and sound Seattle?

Quynh, do you wanna kick us off on that?

- I mean, the system has laid it out so that police should be the ones to be our protectors and help community when we can't deal with certain situations that are violent, they should be working with community, I mean, a lot of the dialogue and everything you're hearing today is that ability to work with community, to address safety and be part of community too, and not just like this big authority entity that we all either fear or just look to as the one solution to our problems.

I have a challenge dealing with this question, because there is the half of our community that are just don't want to deal with police, and wanna break apart the system, really start over, but there are community folks who see a very direct role that community should not be part of the, I mean, police are trained and they have the tools to do the things that they do.

So there is a middle ground where we can come together, and work more closely.

- Esther, what would you say?

- Yeah, I think that we've asked police to do too much, you know, things that they're not qualified for, around social service, mental health, you know, even physical health, like those types of things are really an issue.

I think that we need to flip the script on the hierarchy, right?

We think about them as pinnacle.

I think that we should think of them as the last resort.

Right?

And I think what I like what Sean said, like eventually I'd like to see a time when we don't need them as much, not as busy.

We're not having to increase as many.

We're not that place yet, right?

But I think that we need to really empower and engage community to be part of the solution and to police ourselves, really.

So we have many steps to get there.

- Thank you.

Well, we are at time for this segment, I cannot thank you enough for the depths of insights and observations that you shared with us tonight.

So thank you to Sean, Quynh, and Esther, give it up.

(audience applause) And thank you to those of you here with me in our live audience at Town Hall, Seattle, and for everyone watching at home.

We are going to take a short break and be back soon for the second part of our Safe and Sound program.

See you soon.

(upbeat music) Hello everyone, and welcome back to Civic Cocktail.

In the first segment of our program, we talked with community leaders who helped us get a closer, but also broader look at what public safety means in our city.

Now we're going to turn to that critical service provider on the other end of a 911 call, our police department.

For that, I wanna welcome to the program Interim Seattle Police, Chief, Adrian Diaz.

Welcome Chief.

(audience applause) Well, first you were sitting here, for the first segment.

- I was.

- So I'm curious, they defined safety, they talked about the stories of their communities.

What stood out to you, what dots connected, what challenged you?

- Yeah, so when we look at, and we talk about public safety, there's one component that believes that it's about protection, and feeling that a sense of safety when they walk outside the door, there's also the level of identifying what safety means, and some people identify safety as, you know, making sure that they have food and housing and services and connections to a variety of different things and both components of it, because we know that when people feel protected, we also have less trauma that goes on into a community.

And so when people are victimized, you have that level of trauma that is continuously affecting a community, and there is no level of the safety that is felt.

And so for me, it's really about when I start to think about what, like public safety means, really have to think about it as kind of an action statement in the sense of like trying to help people.

And it's this balance between, you know, protecting and also making sure that we also provide and meet people's needs.

- Well, how does a police department set one strategy for a city with different communities, different needs, but also at a time when those differences are really on stage, right?

That different people wanna make sure that, "Hey, don't forget me."

- Yeah, so when we start to look at kind of an overall strategy, it's really making sure that the department has a vision for making sure that it delivers compassion and empathetic policing, and that it is, is focused on just trying to help people, and then really trying to make it simple, you know, you can put out a good mission statement and a vision statement, says that we're gonna protect people and prevent crime and, you know, intervene in crime, and do all sorts of different things, at the end of the day, you want an officer to be compassionate and empathetic, you want them to focus on helping people, meeting people where they're, you know, where they're at, 'cause we're dealing with people that are in the most traumatic time, in the worst levels of experience, whether it's responding to the rape call or responding to the child that's been neglected to respond to the shooting, and so an officer is trying to figure out how they're gonna end up responding as well as trying to make sure that they create an area of safety for the environment that they're, you know, that they're doing that work in.

- You've been in the department, I just learned, 25 year this year.

- 25 years.

- 25 Years this September.

Morale is low, criticism is high and nothing is easy.

The department is down a net 332 officers since January, 2020, it's about 26% drop.

Our last police chief quit.

So in all seriousness, why are you still here?

(Chief Diaz and audience laughing in unison) - You know, I think it comes down to I love the city, to your point.

You know, in 2020 we lost 186 officers.

That was probably, you know, one of the most challenging years, because it was probably the large midyear budget cut that we experienced and trying to navigate that when you're, you know, your chief ends up leaving, and as I'm taking over the reins, we were still experiencing riots and protests, but really it was trying to also hit the reset button and say, look what we've done over the last couple months isn't working, and we've really gotta get back down to the basics, and that's kind of, that's what our focus has been doing, in 2021, I lost another 171 officers, and I've lost another 60 officers, now I've hired, you know, over the last couple years, but it's actually been over 400 officers that I've lost, and now I'm trying to train up another 100 that have, you know, come back, or that have we've hired in basic law enforcement, and some that have returned.

So part of that is really trying to make sure that I instill a level of culture in the department, one that is accountable, one that is also making sure that we rebuild trust with community, that we are still focused on trying to make sure that we provide what kind of level of service we wanna provide, and we've already seen really good markers for that.

You know, our complaints, our office of police accountability complaints are almost down 50%, from just a couple years, just into 2021.

Our use of force is down by 48%.

And so officers are, you know, it's really trying to make sure that you instill like what values you have.

Number one, it's I wanna make sure that people build that relationship with the community.

Number two, I wanna make sure that we are held accountable to the community, that we have to identify those impacts that we made in the community in 2020, that we also are, you know, making sure that we put ourselves on the right course for future of policing, and how do we change policing, for over a decade, I probably have told people that have said, we, you can't arrest your way out of these issues.

We found ourselves policing a lot of social issues, homelessness, unsheltered population, behavioral crisis, and so many other things that we probably shouldn't be, shouldn't have done, but we were one of the few 24/7 organizations that has the capacity to take on a lot of that work.

And so really for me, it's about getting back to the basics.

- So a question from our audience, "Should the police have different types of officers "respond to different kinds of situations?"

Give us that vision of the police department in five to 10 years.

- So when it comes to dealing with people in behavioral crisis, I would love to see, you know, more of the nonprofits, you know, that are mental health professionals that are really doing that work.

We have five mental health professionals within our department because we took, as we took on that role, we started to make sure that we created a co-responder model that we end up also employing mental health professionals to help us better understand what the triggers and hooks were in dealing with someone in crisis.

But I would say that there are a lot of that work that we do not need to respond to at all.

We don't need to have the police officer.

It could be just mental health professionals walking in the community because every community I've done walks in, they're saying, "Hey, we know when Joe is starting to find himself "in a bad situation, that he's starting to elevate."

And if you already had mental health professionals working and talking with them, walking that community, we would never have to respond.

It wouldn't be until the situation becomes out of control where now Joe is now potentially armed with a knife and threatening people.

And then really, so it's that type of work, but also when we start to look at unsheltered, that is really levels of work that maybe is assigned for social workers.

And so do we need to have the officer, you know, engage, right now, a lot of the people that are doing the work in some of these large encampments feel unsafe.

And so they've asked police officers to be present, but I've really tried to make sure that we limit that role, so we're not engaging in that level of what's more ideal for a social worker role.

- So part of the tension that came out in the first segment is about we're becoming more aware of larger, deeper, systemic types of issues that we ought to try to address, but at the same time, there's acute needs in our communities right now, right?

Quynh was talking about, I don't, like safety is feeling like I can walk the streets in my neighborhood without being afraid.

So how does one at the same time do both, and dedicate the resources to both those things, the acute needs that have to happen right now, but also, oh yeah, let's evolve and completely reform and change ourselves.

So maybe you can tell us about the program you're working on too.

- Yeah, so it's actually about, really about public and private partnerships, I mean, we really have to make sure that we include community into these dialogues and discussions and also have their solutions as part of the actual process to solving some of these issues.

So, as I mentioned, we have mental health professionals within that respond with an officer.

So there are an avenue for a co-responder model.

There's avenues for us that when we are dealing with say a shooting, we know that there's gonna be trauma on the back end.

The officers are gonna end up making, when they're gonna respond, they're gonna make sure the scene is safe, they're putting tourniquets and chest seals and addressing the immediate need of trying to save somebody's life, and then they're following up on doing the investigation to make sure that somebody is held accountable for that crime.

But we also wanna make sure that, you know, it's the friends that have been impacted by the violence, it's the family that's been impacted by the violence, that there is a social service that is actually being provided almost simultaneously to address that family's needs.

And I think that there's a way to get there.

There's a balance between both, and one of the things that we're doing is we calling it SPD before the badge.

And so I'm bringing officers in 45 days prior to the Academy, I'm actually focusing, it really is, I'm calling it an officer wellness program, really building the resiliency of an officer, but it's focused on, you know, teaching officers social emotional learning, brain development, trauma informed practices, it's also developing listening so it's also having listening sessions with community members that have been impacted by, you know, sometimes it's the Black community or Native community or the Latino community that have had different impacts by police, hearing their perspective, having dialogue, having healthy conversations, so that way, when they're out in the community, and somebody says something, they understand why somebody is saying, you know, that I don't trust the police.

And so by doing that in the very front end of their Academy time, it actually helps really instill the level of culture that this is what we value.

We really value, and my overall theme of it is called relational policing.

It's really about building those relationships in the community.

- How does a police officer react to that?

How should a police officer interpret that, and make it actionable in the ways that you want?

- Yeah, I want an officer to understand it.

I want an officer to say, you know, I understand your experience, maybe it hasn't been positive, but I wanna change that environment, because at the end of the day, I still have to investigate whatever crime I'm trying to investigate.

And so for me, if I'm gonna hire 100 officers every year for the next five years, and I'm instilled this level of compassion, empathetic policing, that it will change the culture, because I have a thousand officers.

So if I put another 500 officers into this mix over the next five years, it really instills the level of culture change that I'm really seeking.

- So we talked about Little Sai Gon, one of, you know, what's been identified as a hotspot, a place of a lot of acute need.

So paint the picture for us.

You know, this program's been in place, it succeeds wildly, what is happening in Little Sai Gon?

- So when we first started doing the project in Little Sai Gon earlier this year is really wanted to make sure that we addressed the and targeted the violent criminal element that was going on.

So we ran a lot of surveillance, and a lot of undercover operations to really pinpoint who was actually doing, you know, sex trafficking, drug, you know, bringing in guns into the community, selling fentanyl into the area, and so then we did warrants.

So we did probably about 30 warrants, ended up making, you know, arrests at people's homes and hotels, and other locations, and recovered a lot of guns, recovered a lot of drugs, and so really is trying to take that violent crime element out of that area.

And we really didn't wanna focus on low level crime, because that's usually a product of what was going on in the environment.

So that was really trying to figure out how do you try to infuse social services.

So we made sure that we had a visible presence in that community after we did the big kind of arrest, and try to address a lot of the issues that were going on.

And then from that, we then started focusing our efforts on being a visible presence, making people feel safe, so when they walked down the streets, they weren't, you know, cLustered or harassed or, you know, threatened.

And, you know, right now the CID, we've had, that's the most shootings that we've had in a community than any other parts of the city.

It's also one of, I mean, think of all the Asian communities that occupy the CID, I mean, it's the Japanese, it's the Chinese it's, you know, Vietnamese, there's just such a huge level of Southeast Asian diversity as well in that area, and so we have to make sure that they're not victimized as well.

We also have a variety of social services that occupy that area, that are in that area, and so that that's where sometimes people are using those services, so we also don't want them to be victimized.

And I think Miss Lucero had mentioned, like, people felt that when they hired security, that they felt that people felt safe, because they were being victimized as well.

- Right, right.

- And so we wanna make sure that that environment is state level safe.

In fact, during that time, I actually incorporated not only police officers, but I incorporated our civilian community service officers to be present, as well.

So I had a balance between armed and civilian presence to also spending that time, get to know people, build those relationships and build those connections.

- And it sounds like you're raising an important distinction in this program is about safety.

That there is a kind of sort of red hot safety that is violent crime.

And you're saying, you gotta take care of that first, obviously, I mean, you just got to, but then you said something really interesting about how low level crime is the product of the environment.

- It's a product of the environment.

- So it's about getting, you know, tackling the violent crime, and then accepting that at some level, the low level crime is a product of the environment, and that more resources than traditional policing have to be put into place is that.

- Yeah, and so we, it actually allowed us to actually take less of a footprint in that area, we still had a visible presence, but it was less officer presence in that area.

Now I've moved some of that presence over into Tartan Pine, and again, we want to focus on those who were committing violent crime.

You know, what's really changed in the last couple years is fentanyl and the dynamic of our homeless people, our unsheltered population, and -- - Yeah, say more about that.

- And so right, about four or five years ago, we recovered probably about, I would say just in the hundreds of fentanyl pills.

Well, last year we recovered, you know, hundreds of thousands of pills, enough to kill this whole city.

And so you start to think about how fentanyl has really changed the dynamics, has made, people went much more volatile, and so that is a whole different dynamic than we've experienced five years ago, 10 years ago.

You know, when you started to think about like methamphetamine and other drugs that have, you know, come into a neighborhood, fentanyl is completely different.

- So what is the strategy to address it that has to be new in order to adapt to this?

- Yeah so right now, it's really trying to figure out who is bringing this, bringing fentanyl into the community.

And we've identified that a lot of the fentanyl is coming from cartels that are coming in from Mexico.

And so we don't have, we're not close to, we're close to a border city, but you know, Canada, but not Mexico, where the drugs are coming through.

So we have to then take kind of initiatives to try and figure out, okay, when they're in, when the fentanyl is coming in the city, you know, who is actually distributing out, how do we identify those people, are they associated with violent crimes, last year we'd made, I think it was 40 plus arrests, recovered of 50 guns recovered a lot of the fentanyl, we ended up having an officer involved shooting as part of the search warrant that we ended up serving, but that made a huge dent in the amount of fentanyl that was coming in.

- So I'm struck listening to, you know, these programs, these investigations of fentanyl and thinking again about, but the department is short-staffed.

It's something like 97% of shifts are in overtime.

- 99.7.

- 99.7.

So, I mean, to what extent is what you're talking about actually kind of on hold until the department becomes resourced, and to a level that you might find satisfying or sufficient, and to what level is it, no, we're deploying on all these fronts, trust us, because it's hard to believe when you're that strapped.

- So what I had to do is I had to move 100 officers back to patrol.

So I had to, it impacted our detectives unit.

So our follow-up units is drained down.

I took every officer from like our traffic unit, so in our vehicle traffic unit, moved them back to patrol.

I took our community policing teams, moved them back to patrol, our act teams, our bicycle units, and everybody else, back to patrol.

I created a community response group, so I had a little bit of proactivity to work to be done, and so I had to really make some adjustments to how we deployed our services.

And that has helped out.

It's helped out for some of the projects that we we've been talking about, but it's still, knowing that we've had 99.7% of our shifts being augmented, officers are working two shifts, that's 18 hours a day.

And so it does put a drain on them.

And that's the reason why I've really had to make sure that I spent a lot of money in wellness.

So I've brought in psychologists, I've brought in -- - For the officers.

- For the officers, because at end of the day, when an officer is tired, that's not gonna have a good outcome in the community, but the officers coming to work, because they wanna make sure they support their fellow officer.

And so you wanna make sure that you're putting those investments to take care of people's health.

And so you know, things that, I don't think, it's hard to really understand all of the impacts, of running a big organization like this, but just trying to make sure that, hey, like we gotta invest in our officers.

We've gotta make sure that they're healthy, because we know that when they're healthy, you're gonna have a good outcome in the streets.

- So a question from our audience, going back a bit into a prior discussion "Isn't drug abuse, a product of a city "with insufficient social services, "lack of affordability, and poor citizen morale?"

Kind of comes down to, you know, what is the police's work and what isn't.

- Yeah.

- How would you address that?

- It's a great question, 'cause I think, you know, we wanna make sure that that right now people are getting access to services.

And sometimes when people are, you know, have, you know, they're impacted by drugs, some impacted by mental health, they're not taking those services, because they say, "Oh, I don't need this, I don't have a problem."

And so that does become an issue, a greater issue for the community, because they're usually, that is the kind of the high utilizers, what Sean was talking about, a person in and out of the criminal justice system, making, you know, where we're make arrests, they're not getting the services or treatment that they needed, because they don't feel like they need that.

And so how do we still make sure that people aren't being victimized in our community, but as well as making sure that our community is safe, and also people are getting the right services, as well, that they're being treated, and that we're doing it with compassion.

- What sorts of partnerships or solutions are possible today that you would not have seen 20 years ago in Seattle?

- We've expanded our mental health staff, you know, having mental health professionals, that is so needed, so desperately needed.

We know that the domestic violence, we are starting, we had already started to ramp up like a victim support services for, you know, families that are impacted by domestic violence, that is so needed, and then the capacity is so low, when we look at sexual assault, we know that, you know, right now probably about a third is actually, you know, we're getting referred into some level of services.

So we gotta make sure that people that are impacted by some level of sexual assault get services.

And so I see, you know, another partnership in with various groups that are doing that type of work.

And then also, you know, I kind of mentioned youth violence, we know that youth are being impacted.

I think that we will not truly know the impacts of COVID for the next couple years, because you know, many of the kid, many youth that have been impacted by COVID that social skill is gone, and they're having to relearn it.

They're having to re-acclimate to, but as well as they're actually behind in schoolwork.

And I think bringing groups in to do mentorship, to do case management, to find people jobs, to help people assist with housing, and all of those are essential to ensuring that it doesn't become a bigger problem in a couple years.

- So to close us out, you heard our first guest tonight, talk about what safety really boils down to for them.

You talked about, it's helping others.

It's helping people.

But after our discussion, you know, what really is the heart of that for you?

What is the heart of knowing how to do that well?

- When you run an organization, you really wanna make sure that you're not doing a 100 different things, that you're doing just a couple different things, and that's really trying to get back to the basics of policing.

And when you get back to the basics of policing, you make sure that you do it well, and you do it well with compassion, empathy, and that's what we really want to make sure that our officers are trained in, that we're focused on just helping people.

And so I think that right now we found ourselves in policing being everybody's, you know, the ability to save everything.

And we can't do that, because we just don't have the resources, and we don't have the services and it's not our specialty, like those that have those specialties be able to do that line of work.

Now we will assist in that work, but I think that there's other entities that can do that work better than us.

- Well, with that, thank you so much, Chief Diaz for joining us tonight.

Let's hear for our Chief.

(audience applause) Thank you to everyone who joined us here in our live audience at Town Hall, Seattle, and many thanks to all of you at home, joining in, as well.

Civic Cocktail returns on June 22nd when we will focus on the impending Supreme Court reversal of Roe V. Wade and the impacts here in our state.

Lots to cover, as you can imagine, you can find out more at crosscut.com/events.

Thank you everyone, and have a great night.

(audience applause) (calm jazz music)