Seattle Mayor Selects Woke Candidate for New Police Chief

What's that about those who don't learn from the past?

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, 2019 Seattle City Councilmember, Photo: (Seattle City Council, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0)

Haven’t the men and women of the Seattle Police Department suffered enough under politically extreme and/or, most recently, incompetent leadership? With Mayor Bruce Harrell’s announcement of his choice for police chief, I guess not.

Even when the cops had a decent chief (Carmen Best), the city government thwarted her attempts to lead and eventually forced her out. This new chief-select appears more competent than his predecessor (Diaz), but he’s certainly not less politically extreme.

According to The Seattle Times, “Madison, Wis., Police Chief Shon Barnes, a former history teacher seen [by the radical Left] as a ‘next generation’ leader in law enforcement, is Mayor Bruce Harrell’s pick to head the Seattle Police Department….” The Seattle City Council still needs to approve Barnes’ nomination.

The article, written by The Times’ Mike Carter, unsurprisingly, mentioned only the positive aspects of Harrell’s choice and nothing controversial. He said zero about how the rank and file might feel about the selection. I can tell you they ain’t celebrating. But, then again, they’re used to the city’s lack of respect by now. There was no mention of The Times contacting the police guild for a comment either.

Carter quotes from James Copple, a former President Barack Obama sycophant who called Barnes “a true leader in the field….” He would call him that, right? After all, Copple assisted the former President with his “Task Force on 21st Century Policing,” which is similar to his many anti-police projects I wrote about for the National Police Association book The Obama Gang (2021).

During most of my career in Seattle and since then, if the cops approve of a police chief candidate, to the Seattle government that’s usually the kiss of death. However, this is supposedly a new and improved council, so we’ll see if this candidate gets through after they learn of his woke status, of which the cops don’t need any more.

No sooner had I written an article highlighting comments from the woke Madison, Wisconsin police chief, sprinkling in leftist talking points at a press conference, that I learned that extremist police chief is the top candidate for the new chief of police for the Seattle Police Department.

He was speaking on the horrific school shooting in Madison by a reported trans student who allegedly killed two, wounded six, and then committed suicide.

In a recent Substack article about the Madison shooting, I wrote, “According to CBS News, Madison Police Chief Shon F. Barnes, whose press conference initial comments were mostly appropriate, couldn’t refrain from veering into politics.”

A reporter asked if the school had metal detectors, a reasonable question. Chief Barnes said he didn’t know but couldn’t help but add, “nor should schools have metal detectors. It’s a safe space.”

Aside from the obvious that the school wasn’t a “safe space” at that time, on that day (though I agree it normally is and should be), that is a partisan, leftist opinion given in the wake of a horrific tragedy, which he shouldn’t have selfishly exploited for political purposes.

According to Seattle radio talk show host Jason Rantz, recently writing at MyNorthwest.com, “Shon Barnes, the rumored frontrunner for the top job with the Seattle Police Department (SPD), has said he doesn’t believe in the Second Amendment” (At least, he’s honest. I’ll give him that).

Let me say it once again, succinctly: If you don’t believe in the Second Amendment, then you don’t believe in self-defense, which means you don’t believe in our God-given right to life. And you have no business being a police chief in the United States of America, especially having to swear an oath to uphold the Constitution, as it exists.

He holds a gun-stupid “Living Constitution Doctrine” view of, at least, the Second Amendment. Essentially, an Originalist view is that the Constitution means what it says: human nature and virtue don’t change. However, as I also wrote at Substack, according to author Eugene W. Hickok, Jr., Living Constitution advocate “Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes’… [said] that the “Constitution is what the judges say it is.” Or police chiefs, I guess.

Rantz points out that Barnes believes the Constitution is “outdated” and “should be ignored.”

This woke extremist police chief spoke with Naomi Knowles of WBTV News. Barnes said, “Sometimes, it requires an evolution of our thinking. What was written in 1789 may not be appropriate for 2022 unless we’re OK with kids being killed.”

Knowles asked, “You’re referencing the 2nd Amendment?

Barnes replied, “Yes, I am.”

What an unsophisticated and gun-stupid argument. So, if I don’t like kids being slaughtered at school (I don’t), then I must give up my Second Amendment rights to self-defense, which facilitate my right to defend the life I also have a right to. Why? What do law-abiding, peaceful gun owners have to do with evil assholes shooting kids in schools—or any armed criminals shooting anyone anywhere?

Nothing!

As Rantz astutely notes, Barnes’ argument is a lazy one. He attributes a mass murderer’s evil notions and deadly actions to everyone who lawfully owns a gun, which is exceedingly lazy thinking. Otherwise, we’d deal the same way with all the people killed by irresponsible motor vehicles drivers.

People like Barnes never make the argument they make about guns after people are killed by dangerous drivers that government must take responsible drivers’ cars or driving privileges away. Safe drivers have no connection to dangerous drivers who maim and kill with cars. Neither do responsible gun owners for armed criminals who maim and kill with guns.

But what’s the difference? Oh, right. Everyone drives cars, and only one out of three adult Americans owns a firearm.

However, another difference with this example is that owning a gun is an explicit constitutional right (despite Barnes’ specious, arrogant objections), but driving a car is not.

Many more people are killed in traffic collisions than by guns annually. And, of the gun deaths, according to USAFacts.com, “Suicides were 54% of all firearm-related deaths that year, compared to 43% from homicides.”

Even here, there is a similar comparison in that guns are no more responsible for suicides than ropes, bottles of pills, or a car’s exhaust.

Carter 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.”

“Stabilize morale?” This selection alone will destabilized morale. While Chief Barnes has done some positive things in Madison, like returning cops to schools, there is too much evidence of his general affinity for extreme leftist ideology.

Although many lefty buzzwords speckle stories about his career, his disparaging of any one of the 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights is enough for me to challenge his selection.

Why don’t we give Seattle’s cops a break after serving under the city’s last choice of a DEI-hire, badge (“scalp”)-collecting chief who’s proven he was never up to the job and who, in my humble opinion, is an insult to his own tarnished badge.

None of this is personal. I don’t know Chief Barnes, though I am familiar with his type. Still, I could be wrong about him, and I hope I am. Maybe he’ll surprise me and the cops he’s about to lead, but I don’t think he will.

Why is Seattle, once again, trying to “fix a problem” by doing the same old thing? What’s that called again?

P.S. This selection 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.