Seattle tops city most want to leave over crime

In the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue MSA, 9.3 percent or 258,000 persons aged 12 or older were classified as having a substance use disorder in the past year (Figure 2). 6 Among adults aged 18 or older in the Seattle- Tacoma-Bellevue MSA, 7.5 percent (187,000 adults) experienced a major depressive episode in the past year.

Violent crime increased by 4% across Seattle and homicides increased by 24%, according to 2022 data from the Seattle Police Department...


...The number of trained and deployable officers in 2022 was 954, the lowest mark in over 30 years.

The number of officers within the Seattle Department hovered between 1,200 and 1,300 for seven consecutive years before dropping to 1,094 in 2020, according to data from the City of Seattle.

On the heels of weeks of sustained protests against police brutality, spurred by the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020, a majority of the Seattle City Council committed to a series of police reform ideas proposed by activists, including cutting the city’s then-$409 million police budget in half. The money divested from SPD was to be spent on alternative responses to some emergency calls and other community services.

But it never happened.

Two years since the commitment was made, the department’s budget has been reduced by roughly 13% — primarily by moving $45.4 million in traffic enforcement, 911 dispatch and other services out of SPD’s budget and into those of other departments — and most council members now denounce the idea of defunding the police, focusing instead on finding alternative responses to…