Tag: seattle

Seattle Firefighters Now Drilled on Ibram Kendi Before Promotion to Top Jobs  

Of all the jobs in a standard fire department, a lieutenant’s is among the most difficult. When a fire truck approaches a blaze, the lieutenant decides how to tackle it—what windows to breach, which floors to prioritize, and how best to deploy the truck’s three or four firefighters against a shifting, inanimate enemy.

To see if they’re up to snuff, most departments administer a written test, typically multiple-choice, to prospective lieutenants. Candidates must score above a cut-off to be considered for the job, with higher scores increasing the odds of promotion. The exam, which covers a litany of topics from building construction to medical techniques, is designed to ensure that the people making life-and-death decisions know the bare minimum to make them well.

So firefighters in Seattle, Washington, were surprised when their department’s lieutenant exam focused almost as much on social justice as on firefighting.

The test, which has both written and oral components, is based on a list of texts assigned by the Seattle Department of Human Resources—including, as of this year, How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi and Both Sides of the Fire Lane: Memoirs of a Transgender Firefighter by Bobbie Scopa, according to a copy of the exam bibliography obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Along with A Leader’s Guide to Unconscious Bias and Fighting Fire, a memoir by a female firefighter, the books about race and gender span over 800 pages—a large fraction of the total study material.

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Seattle officials intentionally ‘purged’ thousands of texts about 2020 ‘autonomous zone’ despite order not to: federal judge

The city of Seattle has been hit with sanctions by a federal judge for deleting thousands of text messages between officials, including the former mayor, police chief, and fire chief during the deadly three-week-long Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, also known as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or what was termed the CHAZ or CHOP.

US District Judge Thomas Zilly sent the Hunters Capital lawsuit, on behalf of over a dozen businesses that were in the Capitol Hill area that was taken over by protestors and essentially abandoned by the city, to trial for two of five claims, but dismissed three others.

The businesses, led by Seattle developer Hunters Capital, sued for damages on June 24, 2020, claiming the zone cost them almost $3 million in lost business. Their attorneys sent a series of letters demanding that city officials preserve any evidence pertaining to city officials’ alleged support of the zone’s creation, according to the court documents.

Zilly ruled that the charge that the city “directly participated” in creating CHAZ through its decision to provide barriers, portable toilets, hand-washing stations, dumpsters, and other accommodations during the June 8 to July 1, 2020, armed occupation, can go to trial. 

He also ruled that a jury should decide whether the actions of city officials amounted to a “right-of-access taking” by allowing the rioters to disrupt access to local businesses.

Zilly dismissed the plantiffs’ claims that there was an alleged violation of due process rights by the city, negligence, and illegal taking of property and civil rights.

The judge also ordered the city to pay attorneys’ fees for plaintiffs that demonstrated that city officials destroyed significant evidence regarding their decisions during the armed occupation of 6 blocks of the city by BLM and Antifa rioters, including their decision to abandon the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct that led to the creation of the zone.

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‘Defund the police’ councilwoman begs Seattle Police for protection after ‘poop’ thrown at her house

Kshama Sawant, the Seattle City Council member who led the charge to defund the police department is now requesting police to protect her home in response to repeated scatological vandalism.

Sources told The Post Millennial that over the past month someone has been throwing human feces at the Marxist councilmember’s home. According to the source, the Seattle Police Department responded and took a report, and the councilmember is now requesting a “permanent patrol presence monitoring her place from 5 pm -10 pm every day.”

This is not the first time the radical councilmember has asked for police protection. In December 2020 following the riots that rocked the city in the wake of the death of George Floyd, Sawant demanded police protection in response to threats. However, it was later revealed that Sawant had used the threats for publicity before contacting the Seattle police.

Sawant was one of the most vocal members of the defund the police movement in Seattle which led to hundreds of officers leaving the force. Following the defunding movement, crime skyrocketed, and the city is on track to beat last year’s record-high number of homicides. Rapes and assaults have also spiked. 911 response times have steadily climbed and many residents reported being placed on hold.

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Ex high-ranking Seattle cop who displayed Nazi insignia to get $1.5M from city

A suburban Seattle city will pay more than $1.5 million to settle a dispute with a former assistant police chief who was disciplined for posting a Nazi rank insignia on his office door and joking about the Holocaust.

Former Kent Assistant Police Chief Derek Kammerzell, who had been with the department for nearly three decades, was initially given two weeks of unpaid leave after the 2020 incident. Outraged residents and members of the Jewish community prompted Mayor Dana Ralph to put Kammerzell on paid administrative leave and demand his resignation.

The city’s attempt to essentially discipline Kammerzell a second time led to a dispute between his lawyers and the city that appeared headed for litigation. But interim city Chief Administrative Officer Arthur “Pat” Fiztpatrick, who is also the city attorney, said Friday the city had resolved the matter through negotiation, The Seattle Times reported.

Ralph, in calling for Kammerzell’s resignation in January, acknowledged that the decision to revisit the discipline issue would likely “come at a high cost.” The city said Friday it would pay him $1,520,000 to resign.

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Seattle Cleared Out Two Homeless Encampments to Prepare for Joe Biden’s Visit

The city of Seattle cleared out two homeless encampments in preparation for Joe Biden’s visit.

Approximately 15 homeless people were displaced by Democrat Mayor Bruce Harrell to make sure the area looked nice for the president on his Earth Day visit.

Jamie Housen, spokesperson for the mayor’s office, told the Seattle Times that the encampments were cleared “so that the city could close the streets and limit access to sidewalks to ensure the safety of the president.”

The homeless people were given two days to move their belongings or have them trashed by Seattle Parks and Recreation.

“Housen said that nine tents and shelter structures were removed from Virginia Street to Olive Way between Sixth and Fifth avenues. Three people staying there left on their own and four others were referred to shelter by the city’s encampment outreach team,” the Seattle Times reported. “Four tents were removed between Lenora and Virginia streets, from Fifth Avenue to Fourth Avenue. Four people there left voluntarily and two others were referred to shelters.”

The city removed several other encampments as well, but claimed that those ones did not have anything to do with Biden’s visit.

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Seattle rape cases moved to back burner, police insiders say

nvestigating sex crimes has become much less of a priority in Seattle.

In the last year, Seattle Police have forwarded far fewer sex assault cases to the King County Prosecutor’s Office. Meanwhile, arrests for sex crimes involving adults and children have plummeted: This year so far, 1.6% of cases investigated by the sexual assault and child abuse unit have resulted in an arrest, down from 14% in 2019.

This impacts adult victims most often; two employees of Seattle Police confirmed that adult sex assault cases are seldom assigned — a recent development.

In March, outside of arrests, not a single sexual assault case involving an adult victim was assigned to a detective, according to documentation provided by a Seattle Police employee.

The Seattle Police Department says there are fewer officers to investigate these crimes. The two anonymous Seattle Police employees agreed that employee retention is part of the problem; 16% of Seattle officers are on leave. Others have left permanently. But it’s not the only reason, they say.

A new mayor means a new policing strategy, and Mayor Bruce Harrell made it clear during his campaign that he aims to address “visible crime.”

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Seattle museum hosts $400 week-long summer camp for kids as young as 12 that teaches the ‘art of drag’, how to create ‘a persona’ and ‘hair and makeup techniques’

A Seattle museum will host a drag camp for kids as young as 12 with camp-goers taught ‘hair and makeup techniques’.

Led by local drag artist Joshua Hancock, ‘Summer Camp: the Art of Drag’ has run for the past two summers at the West Coast city’s Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP).

Formerly known as EMP (the Experience Music Project), MoPOP is famous for having the world’s largest memorabilia collections on Seattle musicians Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana – and a Sky Church venue in the shape of one of Hendrix’s guitars.  

The ‘Art of Drag’ camp description states: ‘Calling all current and future kings and queens! Explore self-expression in MoPOP’s week-long, drag-tastic summer camp!

‘Led by Seattle performer Joshua Hancock, you’ll investigate drag history and work together with local artists to create your own personas.

‘You’ll choose your name, explore hair and makeup techniques, and develop your character’s stage presence. 

‘At the end of the week, celebrate your new drag personas with a private showcase!’

The event is open to ‘Youth of all gender expressions and identities’. 

Hancock also ran last year’s activities.

‘Summer Camp: the Art of Drag’ runs from August 18-22 and costs $370 if you register before May 31, or $400 after that.

A spokesperson for MoPOP told Fox News: ‘We are proud to offer an opportunity for young people to use drag to explore self-expression through creating characters and performances that express and uplift their unique identities.’

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Infamous ‘CHAZ’ Leader, Celebrated by MSM, Now Accused of Sick Sex Crimes

Social justice. What does it mean? It depends on whom you ask.

If you ask Solomon “Raz” Simone, the media proclaimed “warlord” of the 2020 Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone — the shortlived CHAZ of Seattle, Washington — “social justice” would include a “repurposing” of police, according to an interview Simone gave to Forbes in June.

Simone said he sees community-based self-policing as a viable alternative to traditional law enforcement. This might work out well for Simone. One major responsibility of a warlord is self-policing. In CHAZ, Simone played the part of top cop (even if he demurred at being called a “warlord.”)

But who watches the watchmen? Five women have now filed suit against Simone, a Seattle rapper of some acclaim, and four of them are accusing him of sex-trafficking, according to KUOW-FM in Seattle. Each of the women is seeking $1 million in damages. Simone denies the allegations and, like everybody else in America, is innocent until proven guilty.

But Simone is no stranger to sex and violence. He was there at the beginning of the CHAZ  movement when six blocks of Seattle were occupied after Seattle police were ordered to abandon the East Precinct due to riots sparked by the death of George Floyd, as reported in  The Post Millennial.

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Meet The Seattle Schools Woke Indoctrination Czar Who Married A Child Molester

Spend enough time studying the “racial equity” and “ethnic studies” programs sweeping school districts across the nation and you’ll find that they are following in the footsteps, on a several-year delay, of one of America’s most progressive cities: Seattle.

It’s worth examining, then, how all that worked out in Seattle. Despite decades of the most aggressive equity programs anyone could ask for, Seattle’s racial disparities are among the worst in the nation – and they’re getting worse, not better.

At the forefront of Seattle Public Schools’ (SPS) initiatives was Tracy Castro-Gill, until recently its director of ethnic studies, who represented herself as a fierce Chicana who overcame homelessness and was willing to take on racism no matter who she had to battle, turning schools into vehicles for social change.

Castro-Gill, it turned out, was a perennially unhappy toxic liar, one who misrepresented her background to the point that her own father compared her to Rachel Dolezal, and who was ultimately pushed out of her job for repeated misconduct. A focus on racial oppression did not create resiliency, but rather despondency, with Castro-Gill and three other racial justice leaders going on paid leave from SPS for mental health issues in 2019 alone.

As Castro-Gill used children for politics in the workplace, her personal life also raised questions about the costs that can incur. She married a convicted child molester and moved her young daughter in with him. Then, her previous ex-husband told me, she pressured her child, who had serious mental impairments, to become gender-nonbinary.

The academic achievement of Seattle’s youth plummeted as she implemented initiatives like replacing math instruction with courses on “power and oppression.” But in this world, there was no such thing as failing: Those gaps were used to justify still more jobs and efforts like hers. What follows is the never-before-told story of America’s first “woke” school system.

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Seattle Police Faked Reports of Armed Proud Boys to Spook George Floyd Protesters

Seattle police staged sightings of Proud Boys in conversations on public police radio frequencies during last year’s protests over George Floyd’s murder, just after protesters had taken control of a police precinct and the police had left the “autonomous zone,” according to a scathing report released Wednesday by Seattle’s Office of Police Accountability (OPA).

The “misinformation effort,” as the report dubbed it, “improperly added fuel to the fire” of the already tense protests, wrote OPA Director Andrew Myerberg.

“The use of the Proud Boys when it was known that the transmissions would be monitored took a volatile situation and made it even more so,” he wrote.

For more than two hours on the night of June 8, officers made remarks like “It looks like a few of them might be open carrying” and “Hearing from the Proud Boys group… They may be looking for somewhere else for confrontation.” In their radio transmissions on an open channel, cops fabricated reports of a brewing fight between the Proud Boys and protesters in Pioneer Square and a police response to it.

The precinct captain who ordered the ruse, Bryan Grenon, told OPA that he was looking for “an innocent way to just throw out some distraction” at a time when the police department was short-handed and under pressure.

According to the report, an unnamed journalist who was with protesters that night told OPA “that, in his perspective, things were going fine in CHAZ/CHOP until people in the crowd heard reports that the Proud Boys were coming. The journalist stated that, when this occurred, it seemed like everyone in the crowd who owned guns went to get theirs and the event went from being peaceful to something entirely different.” CHOP stands for “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest,” the site of last summer’s racial justice protests.

Captain Grenon told investigators the purpose of the faked conversations was to “get [protesters] into other areas” because “we were overrun with, you know, forces or protesters.” Grenon said, “It was never my intent to cause alarm,” adding that “Hindsight is 20/20.”

Then-Chief Carmen Best told investigators that she had not been informed about the tactic.

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