Did the Seattle Mayor’s New Woke Choice for Police Chief Fail His Polygraph?
A woke police chief is not what Seattle cops need to improve morale
City of Seattle Announces Three Finalists for Chief of Police, 2018, Photo: (Seattle City Council from Seattle Creative Commons Attribution 2.0)
If only someone had tried to warn Seattleites that Mayor Bruce Harrell’s selection for the new Seattle police chief, Shon Barnes, the former chief of Madison, Wisconsin, might not have been his best choice to lead the beleaguered officers of the SPD.
Either Seattle didn’t do its homework, or it did. I suspect the latter is true, showing that the city’s Woke infection isn’t healing like much of the rest of the nation is currently experiencing. And now, some believe Mayor Harrell’s new chief may have failed his polygraph examination.
Reportedly, Mayor Harrell wouldn’t immediately comment on the police “rumors” about Barnes’ Polygraph failure (administered by the King County Sheriffs Office). If the answer was no, they would have said that immediately, but they didn’t.
Rather than answer, no—or yes, the mayor’s office eventually decided to vacillate and parse. And we know what that usually means, coming from leftists? I know what I think. The cops have a very dependable rumor mill.
According to Jason Rantz, writing at MyNorthwest.com, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office “later denied the claim coming from the source. He said the polygraph test isn’t a traditional pass/fail test.” Vacillating.
I underwent a polygraph examination during my hiring process. Yes, there are nuances to assessing the results. However, in the end, even if it’s a judgment call, the candidate either passes or fails into the job. In defense, the mayor’s staff also said they “reviewed” Barnes’ “background investigation” and told the mayor they found “no adverse findings.”
Was that specifically regarding the background portion of the investigation not including the polygraph? That’s what it sounds like to me.
Yes, the polygraph, with which the examiner attempts to detect deception, is a component of the entire “background” investigation. But separating it from the whole for these purposes sounds like something they’d do. Parsing.
Mike Carter, at The Seattle Times, wrote, “Harrell has made it clear he wants a chief from outside the department who can stabilize morale and lead the department out of the last vestiges of 12 years of [BS] federal oversight through a [bogus] consent decree with the Department of Justice that has [unnecessarily] cost Seattle more than $200 million.”
Harrell doesn’t give a shit about officer morale because just his choosing Barnes has decreased morale (if that’s even possible). Not that he asked the cops. Did he even consider a compromise pick? We don’t know because his search was reportedly done in “secret.” Barnes is as radical leftist a pick as they come. And that’s a one likely reason the mayor restricted SPD from the selection process.
I’ll admit that it was Barnes’ anti-Second Amendment stance that specifically “triggered” me. We can be on different political sides, but if we can’t agree on the Bill of Rights, we don’t have much to talk about. Like it or not, that’s the American system government officials swear an oath to uphold.
Still, how he regards the Second Amendment is not a bad way to discern the scope of his political beliefs. For example, this statement he made after a school shooting flabbergasted me. He seems intelligent, but he made a blanket statement that he opposes metal detectors in schools.
In a perfect world, maybe. But some school districts may feel they are necessary for their circumstances. But Barnes, after answering a reporter’s question about whether the school had metal detectors, he added, “nor should schools have metal detectors. It’s a safe space.”
But, if local officials believe a school needs metal detectors to make it safe, and they don’t do it, is it truly a safe space? As we’ve tragically seen, saying a place is a safe space doesn’t magically make it so. That notion is in the realm of slapping up “Gun-Free Zone” signs and believing that will keep a criminal from entering a building with a gun.
You don’t know how much I want to be wrong about this next bit. And if I am, I’ll admit it in writing. But I believe Seattle will find a way to “pass” Barnes into the Top Cop job. It’s become quite apparent over his tenure on the city council and as mayor that Harrell has no aversion to being wrong.
That is the Seattle way and has been for decades. Even in this selection, as Rantz points out, “the selection process was criticized by many within the department as lacking in transparency since SPD was mostly left out of the process.”
Well, that makes sense, right? Leave the cops out of choosing someone whose policies will directly affect their professional lives—and possibly, in some cases, their actual lives.
Some past concerns about Barnes include an investigation into “creating a hostile work environment.” Ironically, that is a beloved leftist workplace catchphrase.
Barnes was eventually cleared of wrongdoing by someone who apparently could read his mind. They determined an inappropriate question Barnes had reportedly asked an officer about her sexuality during her exit interview was rhetorical and did not require an answer.
Other controversies Barnes was “embroiled in” were a wrongful raid of a residence, and, only a few months ago, he allegedly failed “to disclose a clear conflict of interest in a report he submitted about body-worn cameras.”
As I wrote in closing my Substack article (linked to in the first paragraph), “Why is Seattle, once again, trying to ‘fix a problem’ by doing the same old thing?” What’s that called again? Insanity?
Also, “P.S. This selection [Barnes] isn’t likely to stop the flood of cops out the door or increase the trickle of cops coming in. I wonder if the mayor thought about that.”
Everyone knows the SPD is at critically low staffing and has effectively been operating on amazing officers and luck for years, but it’s never been as ominous as it is right now. And one of those positions that needs staffing is that of chief of police. Rantz points out that the city “has already lowered standards for new recruits.”
So, I suppose, why not lower standards for new police chiefs too? After all, the SPD has already over half of their officers. How much worse could it get?
Dreadfully, the answer is much worse, especially if/when the city runs out of luck or runs out of good officers because of those lowered standards.
