We're down hundreds of officers though. And we don't and haven't had a mayor interested in bringing up a new system to replace the completely corrupt one we have.
(The latter part reinforcing your argument that we didn't try "depolicing" so much as, uh, "unpolicing"?)
The very next sentence highlights that the same problem existed before the Pandemic and police protests from 2020;
> Covid may have accelerated this trend, but attrition and hiring issues predate the pandemic. In the 2019 budget, Council approved over $700,000 for hiring incentives, citing the police department's difficulty filling positions.
Actually the very first sentence in the article immediately refutes your claim -- what a bizarre source to 'back up' the argument that Seattle defunded the police;
> "Why has Seattle lost so many police officers?" The answer is not that the Seattle Police Department was defunded.
Yes, I misremembered it and I was wrong about it which I discovered by googling it. But the number of police is way down, so it had the same effect as defunding. Part of the reason for the reduction is the Seattle City Council abused them by calling them murderers. The cops felt unsupported by the Council and unwanted, and they left.
