Unarmed social workers hired to respond to 911 calls in Seattle

Councilmember Lisa Hebold, who led the effort to defund the city’s police department in 2020, said during an interview on Friday that the city is beginning to hire six unarmed "crisis responders" instead of police officers for emergency calls through a new 911 Dual Dispatch/Alternate Crisis Response pilot program for an "alternate response team."

Earlier this month, the program received $1.6 million as part of the midyear supplemental budget.

Herbold said, "Usually I’m complaining about how delayed we are and how frustrated I am that we’re not meeting our benchmarks for developing this program. But today I’m really, really happy to report that the city is hiring for the six positions for its first pilot alternate response team. It’s going to be a way for 911 operators to dispatch calls to somebody other than police, somebody other than fire, a crisis responder who is unarmed.”

The activist council member, who has a record of calling the police for minor offenses that she attempted to decriminalize continued, "The police department will be aware of the dispatch. They may attend, they may stage nearby, or they just may have situational awareness. Each call is going to be different, but it’s really exciting that we’re finally up and running with hiring the folks who will be doing this really important work that we have been working on since, I think, August of 2020."

In Aug 2020 during the riots that rocked Seattle, Herbold led the charge to defund the city’s police force in order to in part fund social worker programs.

The effort resulted in millions being cut from the department and a massive exodus of officers. Since then, the department has lost almost 600 officers and the city has suffered record homicides and violent crime during the crime wave that followed.

While the council meeting was proceeding to defund the police and replace officers with social workers, a social worker was stabbed to death by her homeless client.

Herbold’s efforts have caused companies such as Amazon to move divisions to nearby cities like Bellevue. However, Seattle’s failed defund the police experiment has also spread.

Last week, Bellevue’s City Manager Brad Miyake hired Joseph Todd as deputy city manager. Todd ran for Renton School District and city council on an anti-police/BLM platform and lost both times.

Todd’s hire was announced while Bellevue City Council was in recess and the body was informed after.

Todd previously called his black opponent an "Uncle Tom" and claimed the reason he ran was that he couldn't stand another black life being lost to those who are sworn to protect them.

Sources told the Post Millennial that many in the Bellevue Police Dept. and city management are irate about the hire.

In a release, even though he has demonized police, Miyake said Todd has a “focus on innovating to improve service delivery for the benefit of the public, his deeply held passion for public service, and his commitment to thoughtful and collaborative problem-solving.”

He also cited Todd’s "political astuteness and experience, his ability to use data to inform decisions, and his commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion."

The city’s chief communications officer Michelle DeGrand told The Post Millennial in a statement, “City leaders followed up with Joseph about his political involvement and vetted his overall job performance with employers. Several members of the city’s leadership team, including Bellevue’s police chief, were involved in the hiring process.”

“Like many cities in Washington, Bellevue operates under a city manager form of government, which means, per state law, the city has professional staff who oversee operations, including hiring. The Bellevue City Council makes public policy decisions with input from staff and the community. The council is not involved in personnel selection beyond hiring the city manager and so the city does not adjust its hiring cadence during council recesses. The council was notified about the hire, as is the usual process for filling professional staff positions.”