Seattle Unable To Investigate Rape Cases After Defunding Police

Nearly two years after Seattle began to defund its police departments in response to pressure from Democrats during the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots, the city’s police force is too understaffed to investigate sexual assaults, according to a new report.

“In the last year, Seattle Police have forwarded far fewer sex assault cases to the King County Prosecutor’s Office. Meanwhile, arrests for sex crimes involving adults and children have plummeted: This year so far, 1.6% of cases investigated by the sexual assault and child abuse unit have resulted in an arrest, down from 14% in 2019,” KUOW reported, a local station.

In March, Seattle Police did not assign a detective to investigate a single case of a sexual assault, according to KUOW. The department has just four detectives in total handling cases of sexual assault, and they are primarily focused on child abuse cases.

“The Seattle Police Department sexual assault unit is not at all investigating adult sexual assault reports or cases unless there was an arrest,” a source inside the Seattle Police Department told KUOW.

In 2020, Seattle’s council voted to cut the police budget as the city faced some of the most violent Black Lives Matter riots in the country. After the cuts, the police force’s 1,281 deployable officers at the end of 2019 dropped to 958 at the end of last year, according to KUOW.

After KUOW published its report, the office of Seattle’s new mayor, Bruce Harrell, released a statement saying that his administration’s proposed budget will prioritize sexual assault cases.

“Any lack of urgency around sexual assault investigations or arrests is wholly unacceptable. Sexual assault cases must be exhaustively investigated, and offenders must be held accountable – period,” the statement said. “When we assumed office, the SPD Sexual Assault Unit had a depleted number of deployable staff and our evaluation of these limited resources underscore the need for increasing SPD staffing to ensure justice for survivors. Chief Diaz is already in the process of providing our office with detailed and data-based information on the status of sexual assault investigations and what immediate improvements can be made in this area, including additional staff. Our administration’s proposed budget will reflect this priority by increasing detectives, resources, and specific training for investigations.”