Seattle PD maced a child and the officer who did it faced no repercussions. Is the Chief of Police a toothless position? The only other conclusion is that maybe GP should consider removing Seattle's Chief as a supporting example.
I would consider macing children to be "cartoonishly evil."
In big cities in states with strong union laws, the burden is very high for cause to fire an officer. Even when there is a firing, the officer can appeal and sometimes be reinstated. It opens the department up to liability if they don't wait for the normal "follow the evidence, build the case" flow.
When there are big protests in big cities, the regional police departments actually share officers. I would bet that about half of officers on the riot line in Seattle were actually from surrounding suburbs or from the state police. I don't think Seattle's chief can fire one of those officers; he would have to do an inter-agency thing that I'm sure is pretty complicated.
Also, the chief has to walk a thin line of perverse incentives. He needs the department to be functional and to do that, he can't be seen as making an example of an officer (for "morale" reasons). He also has to consider that police officers will leave a department in droves and the chief ends up with more problems if crime rises due to "bad management" of the department.
And earlier today, SPD invited, met with, and knelt in solidarity with a group of peaceful protesters at the East Precinct on Cap hill. Once the photo op was done, they started macing and gassing the protest.
There was no looting, no vandalism, no riot, no burnt cars in that area. Nobody was behaving violently. It took ten seconds for a peaceful protest to turn into an assault on the public.
I would consider macing children to be "cartoonishly evil."