{"id":541123,"date":"2021-05-26T10:21:05","date_gmt":"2021-05-26T14:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=541123"},"modified":"2021-05-26T10:21:07","modified_gmt":"2021-05-26T14:21:07","slug":"former-seattle-police-chief-says-media-downplayed-violence-at-chop-to-make-it-appear-peaceful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/former-seattle-police-chief-says-media-downplayed-violence-at-chop-to-make-it-appear-peaceful\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Seattle Police Chief Says Media Downplayed Violence At CHOP To Make It Appear Peaceful"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fformer-seattle-police-chief-says-media-downplayed-violence-at-chop-to-make-it-appear-peaceful%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=541123&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-1195367635.jpg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best, who resigned last summer after the Seattle City Council voted to cut millions of dollars from the Seattle Police Department\u2019s budget, recently acknowledged what most outside the mainstream media bubble already knew: That the media manipulated news coverage inside Seattle\u2019s Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) to make it look less dangerous.<\/p>\n<p>Best made the comments on Jerry Ratcliffe\u2019s \u201cReducing Crime\u201d podcast, <a href=\"https:\/\/a8933cf9-c3da-4cfc-b8df-fad60911a9c3.filesusr.com\/ugd\/f5df24_638f655f807649a08fb943976f1d5cb9.pdf\">explaining<\/a> that the \u201cdestructive behavior\u201d of the protesters \u201cdid not get the level of publicity or media attention\u201d as the officer-involved deaths of George Floyd and others received.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would read stories about the peaceful protests. I go, \u2018Well, part of it was peaceful.\u2019 But I was standing 20 feet away from a hail of rocks. I was looking right at them hail down, feet from me. I was behind a telephone pole,\u201d Best said.<\/p>\n<p>Ratcliffe responded by saying: \u201cAnd then you read the media and find that they\u2019re pretty much gaslighting you. It never happened.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Best said she was confused when reading about the interactions with rioters in the media, who claimed it was a \u201cpeaceful protest\u201d and that protesters were unfairly and harshly targeted by police who threw tear gas and used pepper spray on them. Best said that they did use those tactics, but that their use \u201cwasn\u2019t arbitrary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut certainly, we were trying to look as non-threatening as possible, maybe not have the riot shields up. But once we know we\u2019re going to be getting rocks and bottles thrown at us, I have a responsibility as a chief to make sure people have protecting gear. We can\u2019t just leave them out there with soft hat and rocks are being thrown and whatever,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>As The Daily Wire previously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/breaking-seattle-police-chief-resigning-after-democrat-city-council-votes-to-cut-police-budget\">reported<\/a>, Best resigned after the Seattle City Council voted to cut about $3 million from the police budget, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Cut 32 officers from patrol \u2013 $533,000<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Reduced specialized units including officers assigned to mounted unit, school resource officers, homeland security, harbor patrol, SWAT team \u2013 $250,000<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Removed officers from Navigation Team, ensuring homeless neighbors are not retraumatized by armed patrol officers \u2013 $216,000<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Reduced staff budget through recognizing expected attrition \u2013 $500,000<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Reduced administrative costs, including salaries, community outreach, public affairs<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Cut $56,000 from training and travel expenses<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Cut recruitment and retention \u2013 $800,000<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Transferred victim advocates from SPD to Human Services Department \u2013 $377,000 impact<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Removed two sworn officer positions from the 911 Emergency Call Center<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Best <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/ag-barr-responds-to-seattle-police-chiefs-resignation-following-city-council-cutting-police-funds\">later<\/a> wrote on Twitter that, although part of those cuts included a 40% reduction to her own salary, she didn\u2019t resign because of the money, but because of \u201cthe disrespect shown all SPD officers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Council gave us $1.6 million to hire the best, brightest and most diverse. Now they want me to layoff 100 of those officers. I can\u2019t do that,\u201d Best&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/carmenbest\/status\/1293258501662244866\">wrote<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t want the people who work for me to be impacted by the animus directed toward me. That animus felt personal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best, who resigned last summer after the Seattle City Council voted to cut millions of dollars from the Seattle Police Department\u2019s budget, recently acknowledged what &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2313086,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-1195367635.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Former Seattle Police Chief Says Media Downplayed Violence At CHOP To Make It Appear Peaceful","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-541123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-1195367635.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Former Seattle Police Chief Says Media Downplayed Violence At CHOP To Make It Appear Peaceful","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2313086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}