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Speaker 1: Crime is a growing issue in America political issue. More

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Speaker 1: and more people catching on with the fact that crime

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Speaker 1: is up, all different kinds of categories of crime. And

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Speaker 1: you know what you need to bring down crime, you

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Speaker 1: need cops. Well, that's a problem lots of different places,

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Speaker 1: including in Seattle. Right now, we're gonna talk to Mike Solan,

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Speaker 1: who's the president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild. Mike,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Armstrong and Getty Show. Hey, happy to

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Speaker 1: be here. Appreciate you having me yet, Yeah, I want

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Speaker 1: to talk about this and you know we're talking specifically

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Speaker 1: about Seattle, but similar problems all across America. I'm reading

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Speaker 1: right here. Over the last year and a half, the

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Speaker 1: Seattle Police Department has lost two hundred and fifty police officers,

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Speaker 1: which is the equivalent of over three hundred thousand service

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Speaker 1: officers on path to losing three hundred police officers. That's

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Speaker 1: a lot of calls that are gonna go unheeded. That's

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Speaker 1: a lot of criminals that aren't gonna get arrested. That's

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Speaker 1: a lot of deterrence that's not gonna happen. Um, So

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Speaker 1: tell me what's going on. Well, your statistics are spot

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Speaker 1: on and as you and I both know, statistics and

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Speaker 1: data do not lie. But the activist Twitter mob that

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Speaker 1: is in control of Seattle's public safety political discourse dictates

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Speaker 1: how things are done in Seattle, and our politicians acquiesced

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Speaker 1: to the mob. And the problem is is we're now

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Speaker 1: left with the reasonable citizens in the city who still

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Speaker 1: support public safety and the cops. Um, they're the ones

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Speaker 1: left hold in the bag. And here we are, we've

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Speaker 1: lost a third of the officers and they continue to

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Speaker 1: leave because a year ago when the mayor and a

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Speaker 1: current mayoral candidate who's the current president of the city

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Speaker 1: Council publicly applauded this agency is the modeled, reformed agency

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Speaker 1: and just that happened days before George Floyd. And obviously

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Speaker 1: when George Floyd happened, they completely pivoted their political talking

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Speaker 1: points and the political betrayal from that experience as what's

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Speaker 1: left to this vacuum and as public safety crisis that

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Speaker 1: we are experiencing in Seattle. Um. But to your point,

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Speaker 1: anybody that supported the defund nonsense, This type of crime

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Speaker 1: and low staffing numbers is now a rampant throughout major

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Speaker 1: urban cities. Yeah, all across America and I've got a

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Speaker 1: friend who was a police officer, and I won't mention where,

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Speaker 1: but in a big city. And um, and he actually

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Speaker 1: retired a little earlier than he was planning. And when

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Speaker 1: he retired, he said he didn't realize how much pressure

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Speaker 1: he was feeling until he retired, just that every time

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Speaker 1: he was on a call, he was worried. You know, here,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna end up being a viral video. I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: end up a household name for just doing my job.

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Speaker 1: And maybe I make a mistake, maybe I don't, doesn't

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Speaker 1: make any difference. And uh and and just the pressure

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Speaker 1: of that is that, what's is that what's causing cops

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Speaker 1: to quit? And the other question I want to answer

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Speaker 1: to both of these is that why cops are quitting?

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Speaker 1: And are you having trouble getting people to apply? You know, well,

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Speaker 1: to your last point, it's very difficult now to get

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Speaker 1: people to apply to be a police officer, not just

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Speaker 1: in Seattle, but I believe nationwide. Uh. As you know,

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Speaker 1: the riots post George Floyd, the activists, the antiphon mob,

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Speaker 1: the Twitter mobs are referred to them as they specifically

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Speaker 1: targeted officers. They've docked them, they've harassed them, they've marched

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Speaker 1: on private homes, they've done they've done everything they can

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Speaker 1: to try to break the system and break the spirit

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Speaker 1: of police officers. And I believe it's that people that

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Speaker 1: are culpable are obviously are effectless politicians that don't have

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Speaker 1: the courage or the backbone to stand up to the

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Speaker 1: Twitter mob. But there's a continued political narrative to target

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Speaker 1: specific parts of the criminal justice system, meaning the police

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Speaker 1: officers for just being there to do the job. And

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Speaker 1: there is this fear that if you make one mistake

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Speaker 1: as a human during the doing the job of a

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Speaker 1: police officer, that that mistake will be amplified by the

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Speaker 1: activist mob, then obviously amplified even more with the media,

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Speaker 1: particular people that don't really want to put the real

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Speaker 1: message out to the American citizens. And then it's literally

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Speaker 1: that police officer, that individual police officer that has left

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Speaker 1: holding the bag, and they're the ones whose career and

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Speaker 1: more often than not, their livelihood, their personal lives are

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Speaker 1: ruined because of just the job they chose to do

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Speaker 1: to serve our communities. So these are just kind of

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Speaker 1: general themes we're talking about, and it's all true and

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Speaker 1: it's all a problem. But let's just talk about like

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Speaker 1: the reality nuts and bolts. If you're down officers in

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Speaker 1: a city like Seattle, what what actually happens? Do you

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Speaker 1: just are there? Are the police just spread further apart?

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Speaker 1: Are there just less people on shift at any given time?

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Speaker 1: So the so if you have dialline one one, that

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Speaker 1: takes that much longer to get somebody. I mean, what

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Speaker 1: what happens in reality? Yeah? The reality is is that

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Speaker 1: crimes don't go excuse me, crimes do not get investigated

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Speaker 1: to the degree that they used to be investigated. You're

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Speaker 1: going to have longer wait times to get a police

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Speaker 1: officer to you. And currently right now we're experiencing a

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Speaker 1: spike and obviously the overtime because they have to spend

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Speaker 1: money for officers just to fill the uniform to meet

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Speaker 1: that patrol staffing level, which would be somewhat of a

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Speaker 1: reasonable approach or response time to meet somebody's priority one

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Speaker 1: need and the priority one call us basically a straight

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Speaker 1: up the emergency. And right now we're feeling the effects

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Speaker 1: of our people are are burnt out. The people that

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Speaker 1: are still left, they're doing double shifts. The money allotted

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Speaker 1: for overtime is through the roof, and this is a

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Speaker 1: staffing crisis that will take decades to recover, all because

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Speaker 1: of the political betrayal by our elected officials in the

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Speaker 1: City of Seattle. When I mentioned a year ago, they

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Speaker 1: were applauding us as being a modeled, reformed agency who

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Speaker 1: were at hearing to the Department of Justice reform guidelines.

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Speaker 1: And obviously days later when Floyd unfortunately happened in Minneapolis,

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Speaker 1: these politicians couldn't walk away from as fast enough and

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Speaker 1: that's what's led to this what I call an erosion

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Speaker 1: in public safety in the city of Seattle. Mike Soullan,

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Speaker 1: President Seattle Police Officers Guild, where we appreciate you coming

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Speaker 1: on today and we'll check back in with you um

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Speaker 1: over the coming months to see you know, I feel

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Speaker 1: like the pendulum is going to swing back the other

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Speaker 1: direction because to fund the police is one of the

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Speaker 1: stupidest political um phrases and and things to run on

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Speaker 1: in the history of politics, and it's not popular at all,

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Speaker 1: even for Democrats. But thanks for coming on today, appreciate it,

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Speaker 1: are you bet? And the just recall to action for people,

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Speaker 1: do you gotta get involved and start getting involved in

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Speaker 1: elections at your local school boards. And if you want

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Speaker 1: further follow up, please visit my podcast Hold the Line

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Speaker 1: with Mike Soland, available on all podcasts and Seattle Police

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Speaker 1: Officers dot Com really appreciate you having me on you

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Speaker 1: bet you, thank you. And Joe's coming up in a

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Speaker 1: little bit Joe Getty and um, you know it's something

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Speaker 1: Joe always says? Is that? Uh? Um, what does Joey say?

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Speaker 1: It popped out of my head. What does Jolie say? Hey, Joe,

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Speaker 1: what do you always say? I'll ask him when he

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Speaker 1: comes on. Um, the it's amazing. How oh about the

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Speaker 1: idea of these things catching on the and and people

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Speaker 1: get like a fever for these weird ideas, um like

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Speaker 1: the defund the police, and a bunch of politicians say, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm for defunding the police. It sounds like a good idea,

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Speaker 1: and a tiny percentage of people got all worked all

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Speaker 1: whipped up about this stupid, stupid idea. When the majority

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Speaker 1: of Americans, including Democrats and particularly people who live in

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Speaker 1: crime written neighborhoods, they want more. It's not fewer in

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Speaker 1: it it, but but it caught on. Corporate media latched

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Speaker 1: onto it and it became a thing, and here we are.

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Speaker 1: You got towns like Seattle where they're down three hundred

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Speaker 1: cops soon and you just can't function as a city.

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Speaker 1: It's really weird, strong,