Which Is It? CNN: Seattle Police Chief Retires, Fox: Seattle Police Chief Resigns [Opinion]

Fox News:

“Carmen Best, the Seattle police chief, emailed her resignation notice late Monday, hours after the city council made good on its promise to approve sweeping proposals that would cut about 100 officers and slash the department’s budget.”

CNN:

“Police Chief Carmen Best announced her retirement Monday night, shortly after the Seattle’s City Council voted to cut nearly $4 million from the police department’s budget. Best’s announcement came on the same day the council approved the mid-year budget cut from the police department’s 2019-2020 budget of $400 million.”

So which one is it? Did she retire, or did she resign? And why are the semantics in this situation so important?

Carmen Best’s leaked email:

“To the Women and Men of the Seattle Police Department-

I wanted to notify you that I will be retiring from the Seattle Police Department, effective September 2nd, 2020. I wanted you to hear this from me, but some media have reached this conclusion on their own.

This was a difficult decision for me, but when its time, its time.

I want to thank Mayor Durkan for her continuous support through good times and tough times. I am confident the department will make it through these difficult times You truly are the best police department in the country, and please trust me when I say, the vast majority of people in Seattle support you and appreciate you.

I am impressed daily at your skill, your compassion, and your dedication. I am thankful my command team has agreed to continue serving the department and has agreed to continue serving the department, and that Mayor Durkan has appointed Deputy Chief Adrian Diaz as the interim Chief of Police. Chief Diaz shares my commitment to this department and has the trust of the community.

I look forward to seeing how this department moves forward through the process of re-envisioning public safety. I relish the work that will be done by all of you.

After more than 28 years, I am so thankful for the time I spent at SPD. You are my family. You will always be in my heart. We have had tough times before and come out better on the other side. I am glad I push through each of those tough times with you.

I am grateful for the opportunity to have served as your Chief.

Remember to take care of one another.

Thank you

Carmen Best
Chief of Police”

First, I would just like to congratulate the city of Seattle.

Not only were you able to defund the Police thus solidifying you as a city that will soon become a ghost town like NYC, but by trying to create equality in your police department, you forced out a BLACK FEMALE POLICE CHIEF!

How stupid can you honestly be?

You had the white progressive dream city. Seattle had white liberals holding almost every major elected office, legalized weed, and not only did you have a minority as your police chief, but it was a BLACK FEMALE police chief. You cannot get much more diverse than that, but your attempts at being the beacon of progressive policies have forced early retirement for your police chief.

So it’s progressive now to do such a terrible job managing your city’s crisis that it forces out a BLACK FEMALE POLICE CHIEF?!?!

This brings me to my second point. Carmen Best retired. The wording is clear, after 28 years with the Seattle police department, Carmen Best has decided to retire.

If you read the CNN article, it will paint a picture that after a long career serving the people of Seattle, it was time for her to retire and live a life of leisure.

The Fox article tells the story of an embattled police chief that quit after multiple attempts to get the city council to do the right thing for the people of Seattle.

This is what you get Seattle. If you think that they will stop after defunding the police you haven’t been watching the news lately. They want more. They will come for everything you hold dear. They will rip it away and force you to smile while they do it. You get the government you deserve, and you deserve a government that treats your lives as expendable tokens to be used at the political circus.

This is me adding Seattle to the list of places you couldn’t pay me to live in.

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