Ex-SPD Chief Diaz Fired, Bus Stabbing Sparks Safety Debate, Graffiti Crackdown

[00:00:10] Hello, and welcome to the latest edition of Seattle Nice. I'm David Hyde, here as always with Erica C. Barnett of Publicola. Hi, Erica.

[00:00:18] Hello.

[00:00:19] And political consultant Sandeep Kaushik. Hi, Sandeep.

[00:00:23] Hey, David.

[00:00:24] Today we're going to be talking about three stories. Erica's got something for us on graffiti, breaking graffiti news.

[00:00:30] We're going to talk about a sad story of a bus driver stabbed to death in the U District.

[00:00:36] So that one really is about public safety and mass transit. But first, former Police Chief Adrian Diaz,

[00:00:44] fired this week by Mayor Bruce Harrell following an investigation by the city's Office of Inspector General.

[00:00:51] Diaz found to have violated SPD policies, right Erica, because he had, and I don't want to say illegal,

[00:00:57] but a relationship with his chief of staff, Jamie Tompkins, that violated city policy.

[00:01:03] Correct. It violated, and you know, we're saying the name because her name is out there now, Chief Su Rahr.

[00:01:09] Interim Chief Su Rahr has said her name. So this is the chief of staff that former Chief Adrian Diaz hired,

[00:01:16] created a position for, and then according to the Office of Inspector General investigation,

[00:01:21] had a romantic relationship with, and that violates, you know, a whole number of things,

[00:01:27] and didn't tell anybody about it, and in fact lied about it, saying that it was not true. And I'm also

[00:01:34] going on Jason Rant's radio show to say he is gay, and therefore it could not be true. And so it

[00:01:40] violated policies requiring professionalism, honesty. You are not supposed to have intimate

[00:01:46] relationships with subordinates, particularly those you don't disclose. And there are, you know,

[00:01:52] a lot of allegations in this pretty lengthy report that the OIG came out with. I mean,

[00:01:57] the biggest one, I think, is dishonesty. The police department tends to take that pretty seriously.

[00:02:04] I will say, I mean, this took quite a while to happen. He has been at the police department since

[00:02:10] being demoted back in May, collecting a very large salary and not serving as chief. So there was sort of

[00:02:17] a double chief salary that was happening for a long time there, up until they finally fired him in

[00:02:22] December. Sandeep, this just seems like, I mean, Erica was mentioning this earlier, somebody referring

[00:02:29] to it as a soap opera. I mean, but this is a real life soap opera. It's kind of unfair to call it a

[00:02:34] soap opera. What was your response to having followed the story? Well, a soap opera with a lot of

[00:02:41] salacious details, right? I mean, I think most soap operas have salacious details. I think that's the...

[00:02:46] Yeah, there's definitely plenty of that. I want to know about the rabbit.

[00:02:51] Yeah, there's a reference to a vibrator in the report. I mean, it does get pretty spicy.

[00:02:57] Yes, that's apparently rabbit shaped or why is it called a rabbit? I want to know...

[00:03:01] It's a type of vibrator, Sandeep. Look it up. Actually, don't. Please don't.

[00:03:07] Now that you gave me permission, Erica, how could I not look it up?

[00:03:10] Yeah. So anyway, obviously, like a lot of salacious details, you know, there's the text of

[00:03:19] alleged love note between, you know, Dias that Dias apparently received from his Tompkins that was

[00:03:26] found in, you know, a cruiser or vehicle that the chief was being transported in. And I think my sense

[00:03:34] is he's denying... It seemed like he told the Seattle Times that this love note might be fake or a forgery.

[00:03:43] I don't...

[00:03:43] Well, he told that to the investigators as well. And, you know, and he's... Yeah, he seems to still

[00:03:47] be adopting the position of just denial of all of it.

[00:03:51] He does.

[00:03:51] I mean, he said the same thing to Fox 13.

[00:03:54] I like the KW headline about this. Star Wars-themed love letter torpedoed former

[00:03:59] Chief Diaz's career because I guess it had an Ewok on there.

[00:04:02] That's true.

[00:04:03] And then also referred to the fact that he was a big fan of Star Wars movies, but they mentioned

[00:04:08] princes. So I don't know that those would have been Star Wars.

[00:04:11] Yeah.

[00:04:11] Well, I just want to do the obnoxious thing that I always do, which is to just point out that I

[00:04:17] got this investigation on whatever night it was. I think it was Wednesday night and posted about

[00:04:25] it at 10 o'clock at night and then got a lot of notes from various reporters asking me where to

[00:04:30] find it on the site. And so I did have this first. I'm just, you know, whatever. Like,

[00:04:37] it's a public document. It's on the city's website. You can read the entire, I think, 41 pages of it.

[00:04:44] This love letter was... Alleged love letter was written... Well, I don't know. I mean, it's a love

[00:04:50] letter. It was written on an Ewok birthday card and it referenced Diaz's love of Disney movies,

[00:04:58] which is like apparently a thing. There's a lot of cops that are adult Disney fans.

[00:05:02] It's probably fairly hard to write a love letter that's not going to be somewhat cringey,

[00:05:06] but this seemed, you know, kind of cringey, the whole thing.

[00:05:08] Well, there's a song that's been written. I heard a performance of somebody singing it

[00:05:13] on morning radio this morning.

[00:05:15] Performing the letter?

[00:05:16] Yeah.

[00:05:17] Oh my God.

[00:05:18] Yeah.

[00:05:18] Oh my God.

[00:05:19] Wow.

[00:05:20] We're devolving into chaos here.

[00:05:22] So a couple of quick points, bringing it back to, I mean, one, this is a pretty spectacular flame

[00:05:28] out. I mean, for, you know, a person who was until fairly recently the well-respected, you know,

[00:05:35] police chief of Seattle, you know, and we've now gone through, I do think soap opera is a right term

[00:05:41] and this weird, you know, weird twists and turns and claims that he's gay. And therefore,

[00:05:47] you know, the, the allegations that he was having an affair aren't true, but then this love note

[00:05:51] surfaces and this whole report and a lot of testimony from people at SPD saying he bragged

[00:05:57] about the affair and he maybe even showed around a semi-nude photo of, you know, his,

[00:06:04] of Ms. Tompkins. So, so what, I mean, there's a whole bunch of the rabbit, the rabbit. I now have to

[00:06:08] go look up what a rabbit is now that Erica's allowed me to do so. So pretty big flame out.

[00:06:14] Second point I would make is that, you know, the old adage that, you know, the coverup is worse than

[00:06:20] the crime is probably true in this case. Like if he had just fessed up to it at the beginning,

[00:06:26] that there was, you know, apparently this affair going on. And then, and then the last thing I'll say,

[00:06:33] it did take a while for them to get to this firing, but I want to give the mayor here some

[00:06:39] credit on that point because he didn't take and make a knee jerk reaction. And, you know, he,

[00:06:46] he removed him from his chief's position, but allowed him to stay on, allowed this investigation

[00:06:51] to go forward and to develop what looks like a lot of evidence that makes the case that this

[00:06:58] affair was in fact happening. And, and Dias has lied about it repeated times. And so I think it's

[00:07:04] gonna be hard for Dias to now contest this because they did do their homework and dot their eyes and

[00:07:09] cross their T's on it. Erica, did mayor Bruce Harrell cover himself in glory here? What do you think?

[00:07:14] Well, I mean, you know, it's a little more complicated than that. I mean, I think one reason,

[00:07:19] I mean, this also gets into sort of why Gino Betts, the head of the office of police accountability

[00:07:23] was shown the door because I mean, this investigation has been going on a really long time. And part of

[00:07:29] that has been delays that, you know, happened somewhere, you know, between, because the investigation

[00:07:34] goes from OPA to OIG, it's, there's a whole process, but it sat around for a long time. And I

[00:07:39] would argue, you know, that Dias probably wouldn't have been, you know, taking a taxpayer paycheck for

[00:07:45] seven months if that process had moved more quickly. Now, how much that's on the mayor,

[00:07:50] I don't, you know, I don't think that, I don't think that we can really like blame Bruce Harrell

[00:07:54] for that. But I think there are reasons that it took so long and it wasn't because they were

[00:07:57] diligently working hard every second of the way. I think it's because there was, there was some

[00:08:01] delay and there was some reluctance to go after the police chief on the part of, you know, the

[00:08:06] accountability folks. And, and there was frustration at OPA about that, you know, among staff.

[00:08:12] Yeah. So there's, you know, not to get too much into the weeds, I think that, you know,

[00:08:16] Harrell obviously did the right thing, but, you know, when he demoted Dias, you know, he did kind

[00:08:21] of go overboard saying, you know, he's a friend, he's a man of impeccable integrity, you know,

[00:08:27] and I wrote about it at the time because the phrase that he gave Dias was so effusive and so over the top.

[00:08:34] And so I think you, we also have to, you know, not have such short memories that we don't remember

[00:08:38] that, you know, Harrell really defended this guy and provided cover for him for a long time.

[00:08:43] So what happens next, Eric or Sandeep? So now we've, we've, you know, we're moving past the

[00:08:49] chief Dias era. Are there any lessons from this or, or what happens next at SPD, I guess is my

[00:08:54] question. Well, again, I think we've had a period, an interim period now with former Sheriff Sue Rahr,

[00:08:59] right, who we've talked about. We did a whole episode on, um, where I think there was a lot of

[00:09:04] agreement that we think that, that, um, interim chief Rahr, who has a lot of reformist credentials

[00:09:10] and a lot of experience and is a former King County sheriff has made a lot, has made significant

[00:09:15] progress in trying to fix some of the issues that existed at the department. And in fact,

[00:09:20] is in the process now of continuing, it looks like the kind of clean house, right? The other

[00:09:25] announcement that happened in the last week is that the deputy chief Barton has announced that

[00:09:30] he's leaving, right? And, and, well, you know, yeah, I mean, he was actually out and then Rahr

[00:09:37] brought him back. So, you know, she was, she said that he had some allegations against him.

[00:09:42] She said that they were, you know, not serious allegations, brought him back and now he's gone.

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[00:10:26] today or head on over to Ike's.com. That's Ike's.com. Right now he's saying he's leaving of his own

[00:10:39] volition and you know, maybe that is the case, right? But, but they certainly do seem to be

[00:10:44] clearing the decks because they're about to announce a new chief, right? As our understanding

[00:10:48] is that they're going to make this announcement before the end of the year. In fact, that was

[00:10:51] something I think we broke here for, I broke here first at Seattle nice months ago. I was like,

[00:10:56] a couple months ago, I was hearing that they're going to make this announcement by the end of the

[00:10:59] year. And it looks like that is in fact, what's going to happen. The name seems to have leaked out

[00:11:03] of who it's going to be, which is right. Right now there's a lot of speculation as the police chief

[00:11:07] of Madison, Wisconsin is going to be coming and being our new chief. So, so a lot of change happening

[00:11:12] right now at SPD, at least from what I can tell from the bio, if it is the Madison police chief,

[00:11:17] he seems to have some pretty good reformist credentials and Kathleen O'Toole, the former chief,

[00:11:23] the former last outsider brought in to be SPD chief was very involved along with Rahr in picking

[00:11:28] this person. So, so yeah, yeah, that's what's happening.

[00:11:33] Could we really not find another woman? I mean, it seems like we got a woman in there.

[00:11:37] And, and I'm not, I'm not saying that every woman is, you know, above reproach, but I mean,

[00:11:41] the, the allegations and the issues at SPD are not just, we need reform. They are a culture of

[00:11:47] misogyny and harassment, you know, which is what chief Diaz going back to him for a second is accused

[00:11:53] of and is being sued for currently. And that the city is spending money defending him on. So I,

[00:11:58] I just, I think that that culture has not meaningfully been addressed. I mean, there's

[00:12:03] just, there hasn't been enough time and, you know, and I think that the police department is still in

[00:12:08] denial about that. So, I mean, we'll see if this guy from Wisconsin is going to come in and address

[00:12:14] that part of the problem. But, you know, as I've said many times on the show, you know,

[00:12:18] you're not going to hire all the people that the city says it wants to hire if women are

[00:12:24] essentially excluded from that pool. And if they're excluded because, you know, the city has a

[00:12:29] culture, has a well-known culture of misogyny in its police department and of harassment and of,

[00:12:33] you know, discrimination and, and difficulty kind of moving up the ranks.

[00:12:38] Yeah. I think that issue is going to be, you know, right squarely on the plate of the new incoming

[00:12:42] chief. I would just point out again, that it's, it's, it's Rahr and O'Toole, two very strong women,

[00:12:47] uh, do, as we believe you. Oh, I hate that phrase. Well, what is a good phrase then?

[00:12:53] Well, I don't know. Let's, do we talk about very strong men who are like, you know,

[00:12:57] capable of doing the jobs that they do? Okay. Strong smelling men.

[00:13:02] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, uh, strong enough for, strong enough for a man, but made for a woman.

[00:13:08] Um, uh, yeah, but, uh, uh, uh, uh, anyway, sorry for the seventies deodorant reference.

[00:13:15] Irish spring reference.

[00:13:17] You guys, it's secret. It's secret.

[00:13:19] Secret. Uh, I was there in the eighties too. Um, yeah, yeah. So, so, so as Sandy was saying,

[00:13:24] they, they're going to, they're going to choose a new chief. I mean, I think that, um, Bob Kettle,

[00:13:29] who's the head of the council's public safety committee, you know, was sort of putting out

[00:13:34] statements, uh, this week saying, you know, it's good that we're putting this chapter behind us

[00:13:38] and we can move forward. But I think that, you know, the reason I'm kind of emphasizing this,

[00:13:42] uh, culture thing is that the problems within the police department definitely go deeper than

[00:13:46] Adrian Diaz and his, you know, peccadillos and sort of, you know, feeling that he was,

[00:13:51] you know, uh, immune from, uh, you know, from, from getting caught doing stuff like this. I mean,

[00:13:57] I just, I think that there are, there are deep problems that ideally would be addressed in the

[00:14:01] next year that probably won't be addressed. And so I don't think we should sort of say, you know,

[00:14:05] oh, Diaz is out of the way. Let's sweep him under the rug and pretend that never happened because,

[00:14:10] you know, I think it, you know, his presence there has a lot of ramifications. I mean,

[00:14:15] we're going to be looking at these lawsuits over the next year and it's not going to just go away

[00:14:20] because he's going away. Okay. Let's move on. I am curious to find out in coming weeks, how

[00:14:25] folks in Seattle respond to this new chief. So hopefully we'll get to that. Also in the news this

[00:14:31] week, a terrible story about a bus driver being stabbed to death in the university district.

[00:14:36] Police say they have a suspect. Sandeep, you wanted to talk about this one. What did you want to say?

[00:14:42] Well, obviously it's a terrible, terrible, tragic incident, but it's, um, it's kind of the capstone,

[00:14:48] I think, of complaints we've been hearing from the drivers and their union for a while about safety

[00:14:54] issues. Uh, you know, in the bus system, there was a press conference in the wake of this, um,

[00:14:59] stabbing and the, you know, death of this, uh, I think it was 59 year old driver where a bunch of

[00:15:05] elected officials, but also the union folks were there and the union folks, you know, were saying

[00:15:09] like, we've been worried, not enough has been done on safety issues in the Metro bus system.

[00:15:15] We need more of a barrier between the drivers and the passengers because there've been too many

[00:15:19] assaults of drivers that happened. It's the first death, but there's, you know, been a lot of, um,

[00:15:23] um, uh, a lot of issues. And in fact, they're calling for more police presence on, on buses,

[00:15:30] more transit police and more police walkthroughs on, on, on buses right now. So, so I think that,

[00:15:37] you know, and I think they're getting a receptive audience from elected officials right now in a way

[00:15:44] that it does indicate that, that some of the conversation around public safety has shifted,

[00:15:48] but maybe not enough since we're still having real concerns being expressed by folks about the,

[00:15:54] about the safety of the system.

[00:15:55] Erica, what do you think?

[00:15:57] Yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, it is, um, worth noting as, you know, some of the coverage did

[00:16:03] that this is the first Metro driver who has been killed on the job in 26 years. It's a huge tragedy.

[00:16:10] Um, you know, I, I do think that the immediate politicization of this to call for, you know,

[00:16:17] by Reagan done among others, a King County council member and a Republican, but also many members of

[00:16:22] the city council to say that, you know, this would have been solved by, you know, more cops on the

[00:16:27] buses is, you know, it's a little unfortunate that they immediately went there because I don't know

[00:16:33] that historically having a transit police throughout the system to the extent that one would, I guess,

[00:16:41] be on every single bus at every single time has been remotely possible. I mean, I, I don't,

[00:16:46] I can't even imagine, I mean, I've done reporting on this in the past, but it's been a long time,

[00:16:50] but I mean, the cost to have like a constant police presence, I believe this happened at like three

[00:16:55] in the morning. So the cost to have a competent police presence on every single bus, you know,

[00:17:00] essentially 24 hours a day, um, is just, it's not feasible. And so maybe you focus on the,

[00:17:07] on the lines that have the most problems. I mean, I, you know, I just, but, but at the end of the day,

[00:17:12] I, you know, it's just not the case that swarming places with cops actually prevents crime. I mean,

[00:17:20] I, you know, I wish that there was a simple solution, um, to things like this. Um, and I, you know,

[00:17:25] and I, I do know that there are other problems with, you know, safe, the perception of safety on

[00:17:29] buses. Um, but you know, I think the sudden rush to let's pour, you know, millions of millions of

[00:17:36] dollars into cops on the buses is logistically pretty challenging when you're talking about,

[00:17:42] you know, thousands of buses. Sandeep, this also happened. I'm reading not long after Metro

[00:17:48] suspended a bus stop in the Chinatown international district for safety issues in that it's four

[00:17:54] stops. Okay. And in that case, citing concerns about riders, public safety issues kind of in

[00:18:00] that neighborhood. So is Erica right? Is the, is the best approach? I mean, I, I don't know. I don't

[00:18:05] want to characterize it, Erica, but it almost sounds like you were saying you wanted hotspot policing.

[00:18:09] I'm not saying that to be clear. I'm saying that, you know, if, if that is the direction that the

[00:18:15] current sort of law and order, um, council mayor, um, and County are going, then, you know, maybe

[00:18:22] one logical approach would be, you know, to, to put cops on the buses where there've been more

[00:18:28] documented public safety issues, but generally the approach of just flooding, you know, anything,

[00:18:33] you know, whether it's buses or a corner with cops, um, is not to increase public safety overall.

[00:18:39] Yeah. I mean, it's not just, uh, drivers that have been feeling unsafe, but there's been,

[00:18:43] you know, a lot of, uh, uh, assaults, but most of the assaults that have happened on the,

[00:18:48] on the bus system have been directed to passengers. Right. So there's been certainly perceptions of

[00:18:55] safety there, which are going to, you know, if you want to have a functioning transit system

[00:18:58] that people want to use, you have to have a user experience where people feel, you know,

[00:19:02] as a minimum feel safe to use the transit system or you're going to have problems, um, getting people

[00:19:07] to, to, to, to ride it. Um, so, and, and yeah, you know, the, it's not just Reagan done, but it was

[00:19:14] ATU, right. The union that has been complaining about 12th and Jackson and the bus stops there

[00:19:19] and calling for them to be shut down because they're saying it's not safe to, you know, drop

[00:19:23] off and pick up passengers there. And last week, um, that's the action that they took, but, you know,

[00:19:29] I mean, rather than having to close bus stops or to try to significantly ramp up police presence,

[00:19:37] maybe we need, you know, some more proactive policing, uh, you know, upfront on some of this

[00:19:42] stuff. And I do think some of the actions that have been taken in recent years, like the, the kind

[00:19:47] of in the name of equity, moving away from any kind of significant fair enforcement stuff has,

[00:19:52] has had unintended consequences, including. Well, they're never, I mean, logistically,

[00:19:58] when you're talking about fair enforcement, you're conflating a lot of stuff. You're talking

[00:20:01] about light rail. And I mean, I don't, the fair enforcement on buses to the extent that it has

[00:20:06] ever been done has been done by bus drivers saying, Hey, you need to pay your fair. I mean,

[00:20:11] are you suggesting there should be cops stationed at bus stops to check people's fair? And if they

[00:20:17] don't pay, you know, forcibly remove them. I mean, I just, what would fair enforcement do have

[00:20:22] done in this situation on a bus? What, what I'm saying is that they're down transit officers,

[00:20:26] transit officers do do some enforcement, you know, of, of kind of minor incidents,

[00:20:31] including people like getting on buses and not paying and stuff like that. Uh, that,

[00:20:36] that has gone down in recent years and they're understaffed.

[00:20:39] Well, as someone who rides a bus, I mean, you almost never see, uh, you know, an officer sitting

[00:20:43] on a bus. I mean, I, I'm just saying that that is not a, that is not a good way to deploy.

[00:20:48] Totally.

[00:20:48] The limited resources of officers, you know, generally they're driving around and responding

[00:20:52] to things, not sitting on buses, hoping to deter crime. Well, they've also got, yeah,

[00:20:57] they've also got a much larger crew of non-armed, I don't know what they call them. Right. But, but,

[00:21:02] but, but, you know, Metro, I don't know, security ish kind of folks, right. That, uh,

[00:21:08] that, that do a lot of that work. Um, so anyway, uh, look, it's, it's a tragic incident.

[00:21:13] I think it, it, it, it highlights that, you know, when it coming on the heels of them closing the,

[00:21:18] the bus stops at 12th and Jackson, which is obviously not an ideal solution to be closing

[00:21:23] major bus stops because people, you know, don't feel safe to either, um, drive people there or,

[00:21:28] or, or to be passengers, uh, in those locations, you know, shows that we've got problems in the

[00:21:34] system that need to be addressed. And obviously there's going to be some moves to, to try to,

[00:21:39] uh, you know, respond to this and, and address them. I don't think it's knee jerk to say we got

[00:21:43] some issues here.

[00:21:44] Speaking about the broken windows theory, uh, Erica, you wanted to talk about graffiti.

[00:21:47] Yeah, there was a big announcement, um, on the day we're recording this Thursday that the, uh,

[00:21:53] King County prosecutor, uh, along with, you know, SPD, um, mayor Bruce Harrell was at the,

[00:21:58] at a press conference day as well. Um, city attorney and Davidson that they arrested 17 people,

[00:22:04] um, in connection with, I believe 34, uh, various counts related to graffiti. I think the, the charges

[00:22:11] involved mischief, felonious mischief or something like that. Um, and, uh, yeah, I mean,

[00:22:17] this is, this actually is another example of, of broken windows theory. I mean, you know, they,

[00:22:22] uh, had this, this huge press conference and it's pretty unusual to see that many sort of,

[00:22:26] uh, officials at that level standing up in a room and talking together. And, you know,

[00:22:31] I mean, they called it a scourge. They said it was destroying businesses. They had a guy from

[00:22:34] Belltown United there, you know, talking about how Metro won't even talk to him anymore because he

[00:22:39] complains to them all the time about graffiti. And, you know, he lives in a tower and I guess the, um,

[00:22:44] the bottom of the tower got graffitied over and over. And, you know, he feels that that is, you

[00:22:49] know, violation of his property rights. And so anyway, I mean, I mean, y'all know how I feel about

[00:22:55] graffiti. I, you know, I, the city is obsessed with this and, um, and I, I, I find it, I mean,

[00:23:02] you know, I would find it amusing except that, you know, they are spending millions and millions of

[00:23:07] dollars. They didn't quantify how much this, um, this investigation and the arrests took. And,

[00:23:13] you know, they're going to prosecute, you know, how long will jail take, how much money will jail

[00:23:17] cost, how much money will, you know, imprisoning these people possibly cost. Um, and, uh, yeah,

[00:23:24] so at the press conference, uh, they were up there talking about what is art and what isn't art. And,

[00:23:29] you know, and Lisa Mannion had a lot to say. She's the King County prosecutor. She had a lot to say

[00:23:36] about what is not art. And, uh, Bruce Harrell, mayor suggested that if they were wanting to paint

[00:23:41] sunsets or sunrises on the side of freeways, that would be okay, but not tags.

[00:23:46] I mean, some of this is funny, obviously graffiti is not the, you know, the, the, the biggest crime.

[00:23:53] I'm just talking about the, the stabbing, fatal stabbing of a bus driver. That's obviously a whole

[00:23:58] different level of, of stuff, but at the same time, I, I don't think they're wrong to say that,

[00:24:03] that there are, there are consequences. If you just allow this sort of stuff to happen unchecked,

[00:24:10] first of all, a lot of it happens all over the place. And it just creates a kind of streetscape

[00:24:16] and environment that invites, you know, more issues that you go back to the, you know, um,

[00:24:22] when I lived in New York city in the 1980s, right after I, in the late eighties, after I graduated

[00:24:26] from college, when, you know, there was like, everything was covered with graffiti. It's funny

[00:24:32] to look at the old photos of like the Williamsburg bridge and, and, and, and all the subway trains and

[00:24:37] all of that stuff. It was also a period where there was a lot of street disorder and, and a really,

[00:24:42] really, really high murder rate in the city of, uh, of New York, 2,200 murders in the year I live

[00:24:47] there. Um, way more than there are now. And, and so I do think there's something to be said.

[00:24:52] Like I, if they got rid of that graffiti, that, well, let me give you a Seattle example. Like on,

[00:24:56] on third Avenue, there's a sort of problem block where, uh, uh, you know, kind of right across

[00:25:01] from the big hole next to city hall on third. And what is that? Um, uh, uh, third and James,

[00:25:09] third and James. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Perennial, the perennial block that we talked about a million

[00:25:14] times in a million contexts. One side of that block where there's a lot of problematic,

[00:25:19] problematic activity was an old Plymouth housing building. That's not been in use. It's been

[00:25:23] boarded up and graffitied, um, uh, for a while now. And I think when you talk to people that kind of

[00:25:30] work on that block or they say that, you know, having that building, building abandoned there

[00:25:35] and covered with graffiti has not helped the, the streetscape and the environment over there.

[00:25:39] Well, having a building, having buildings abandoned in your downtown, um, is not a good thing.

[00:25:44] True. I don't think that's caused by graffiti. Uh, and I mean, most of the, most of the stuff

[00:25:48] they were talking about, I mean, you know, they, they apparently caught some of these guys

[00:25:53] because they, uh, were, they appeared in a documentary and this was like, you know, I mean,

[00:25:57] a lot of the evidence that they sent to reporters was basically, um, and a couple of Instagram

[00:26:02] videos and this documentary, which I already watched because a friend recommended it, um,

[00:26:06] a few months ago. And, and that was like a huge part of their investigation. And in the documentary,

[00:26:10] they, the guys talk about, you know, how graffiti like is, it is art to them and how it's, you know,

[00:26:17] a way of expressing themselves and how, you know, when one guy talks about how it helped him get off

[00:26:21] drugs. Um, now I'm not recommending this graffiti as rehab, but like, but I mean, it's just, it's

[00:26:28] just kind of funny that like, I mean, they clearly, you know, I watched it with the sound

[00:26:32] off or something, um, and, uh, and used it to catch these dudes. And I, you know, I just, I just, um,

[00:26:41] man of all, I mean, we're constantly told that we don't have enough police resources to,

[00:26:45] you know, capture real criminals committing real crimes. And I do not think Seattle is on its way

[00:26:53] to being, uh, New York city in the 1980s. We invest a lot of money every single year. There's more money,

[00:27:00] um, for painting over graffiti and, you know, and, and murals and things like that. You know,

[00:27:05] Bruce Harrell talked about how they could do artistic murals, you know, with city permission,

[00:27:09] um, if they wanted to do, you know, sanction stuff like that, which is just like,

[00:27:14] I mean, I know he's the mayor, but my God, I mean, that's just sounds so square. Of course,

[00:27:18] that's not the goal of graffiti guys, um, to paint, you know, sunsets on walls.

[00:27:23] So you, so you saw this art. I mean, what did you think Erica was because some tagging is pretty

[00:27:28] awful. I mean, it's all in the eye of the beholder, but some of it's pretty bad. Did

[00:27:31] this stuff kind of rise to the level where you're like, yeah, that's great. I mean, what were you

[00:27:34] thinking? Man, here's the thing like having, okay. So some of it was the giant tags on the side of

[00:27:39] the freeway and those big, those big bubbly ones that can be kind of cool.

[00:27:43] Or awful depending on. Yes. And, and one of them is, and the documentary actually shows them making

[00:27:49] one of them and it's so complicated and, you know, and, and, and it requires quite a bit of,

[00:27:54] you know, dare I say artistic skills. Yeah. I mean, here's my thing about that though.

[00:27:59] Or like Mission Impossible, like they've got to do like a, you know.

[00:28:01] Yeah. Incredible acrobatics. Yeah.

[00:28:03] Maybe, maybe this is, this is, this makes me think it's a job for the design review board.

[00:28:09] Yeah. Basically they look at the graffiti, decide if it passes muster. If it does,

[00:28:14] if it's art, they celebrate them as an artist. And if not, they go to jail. What do you think?

[00:28:18] Yeah. That's the way to stop it. Right. They can, they can regulate it to death. Like it

[00:28:23] makes it impossible for anybody to actually graffiti anything. But

[00:28:26] I think that's what they're doing now. I think that's what they're doing now. I mean, it's,

[00:28:30] it's just, you know, it's incredible. I mean, I like, like I've said before, I mean,

[00:28:34] I love Berlin. Berlin is covered in graffiti. Graffiti goes on top of graffiti and some of

[00:28:39] it, I guess, you know, there's like stuff that is representational art that you would say, oh,

[00:28:44] that is a duck. And I recognize that duck as a duck. And so therefore that is art. And then,

[00:28:49] you know, it gets scribbled over with something abstract. And then I guess, you know, you would,

[00:28:53] the city or the county would say, that's not art because I don't understand it. And it's a scribble.

[00:28:58] Um, personally, I do not care if there is a giant tag on the side of a blank freeway wall that

[00:29:05] otherwise was going to be dirty, blank, you know, soot covered concrete. Um, I don't really

[00:29:11] understand what the value is in, um, doing these massive investigations spending, you know, God knows

[00:29:18] how much money, um, and God knows cause they wouldn't say they don't know they haven't quantified it,

[00:29:23] but, but just massive amounts of resources, you know, from the courts to the jails, to the cops,

[00:29:28] um, you know, just to let it grow. I don't know. I just, I, I, I mean, you know, I, I just,

[00:29:35] I don't care about graffiti. I truly don't. I think it sometimes looks really good. Um, and

[00:29:41] I know about our budget and I know the shit we spend money on in the city of Seattle.

[00:29:46] And there's a lot of stuff that, um, you know, could use more funding and we made a lot of cuts,

[00:29:51] you know, the city made a lot of cuts this year. And, uh, yeah, I don't think an ever expanding

[00:29:56] graffiti eradication budget is, uh, is the way I will say the one place they better take care of.

[00:30:01] Like every day I commute through the tunnel, right. You know, the, don't tell Mike McGinn.

[00:30:08] I love the tunnel is a great example. Right. And so a few weeks ago on one end of the tunnel,

[00:30:14] it was like a shit ton of graffiti, you know, got the, the, um, pioneer square side of the tunnel

[00:30:21] got totally graffitied up. But then just the other day I was driving through and the, um, um,

[00:30:27] South Lake union entrance to the tunnel had a whole mass of going in about, I don't know,

[00:30:34] 50, a hundred feet of, of just the walls totally covered with like lots and lots of graffiti all of

[00:30:41] a sudden. And I'm like, man, they better clean that shit up, man. My, my beautiful tunnel is getting,

[00:30:45] getting, getting, getting, selling. You know, and it's so funny what, what, what I think,

[00:30:50] cause I've seen, I've seen the exact, I drive through the tunnel too. And I was driving through

[00:30:53] there the other day and I was like, and I said, you know, this is like, just imagine how hard it

[00:31:00] was like to just the, the feats of, you know, you can call it crime. Um, but you know, just the

[00:31:06] feet that it took to get in here, paint that stuff, get out. And like the further it goes into the

[00:31:11] tunnel, I'm kind of, the more impressed I am. And the more I want to know, like how they get away,

[00:31:15] how they do that. Yeah. How they do it. It's incredible. I mean, it is a good question.

[00:31:19] I got, I, you know, I mean, it doesn't sound very safe. It doesn't sound very safe.

[00:31:24] No, it doesn't. That's the thing. And like, and I, I don't know that like, I, you know,

[00:31:30] want to fund, you know, the, the world being, you know, more safe or more orderly for people

[00:31:35] driving through the fucking tunnel that I think we shouldn't have spent billions and billions of

[00:31:39] dollars on in the first place. You know, I just, I don't know priorities, man.

[00:31:43] Yeah. I mean, I will ask the question to you, Erica, which is we kind of know from history that

[00:31:48] the public has some expectations about order and disorder that, you know, Sandeep's words,

[00:31:55] basic expectations of public safety. That's not just about people feeling safe on the subway. It

[00:32:01] might also extend to some people who are less sophisticated than you are to expectations about

[00:32:07] the physical environment. And when they see graffiti on the walls, they go, who's doing that? Why are

[00:32:12] they being allowed to do that? I'm not allowed to do that. Am I? So, and in that case, they might vote

[00:32:17] for Richard Nixon basically is what the, is what the history kind of shows us. So, so what, yeah.

[00:32:23] So what about that concern? So you might not care about it. I really don't care about it either much

[00:32:28] myself, unless I don't like the graffiti, like in New York, when they changed to the metallic

[00:32:34] toaster, like subway cars that you couldn't graffiti up, people ended up scratching, you know,

[00:32:38] into the windows and stuff. It just looks awful. It's like terrible. So some stuff's bad,

[00:32:42] some stuff's good. That's really my thing. But I, but you know, what about that? Just concern

[00:32:45] about backlash, political backlash and being strategic and saying, if we want good things

[00:32:50] to happen, like better policing, more constitutional policing, et cetera, we need candidates to get

[00:32:55] elected. And so some of this stuff.

[00:32:57] Not every city is as, as, as obsessed with cleanliness and order as Seattle. Seattle is

[00:33:05] astonishing to, to, to visit. I mean, just as, as somebody who sort of moved here as an outsider,

[00:33:12] the, the sort of the obsession with like everything being clean and neat and orderly felt really weird

[00:33:19] to me. And it's been a very long time now since I moved here, but it still feels weird. I mean,

[00:33:23] I don't think that, I think that there are gradations and Seattle is not the only model

[00:33:27] for, you know, how to run a city. And, and to your question about whether, you know,

[00:33:32] unsophisticated, unsophisticated people coming into the big city for the first time might be upset

[00:33:36] by graffiti. I mean, like, you know, should they, should they be exposed to books that they don't

[00:33:42] like, you know, at the library on displays? Should we hide those so we don't scare away our visitors?

[00:33:46] I mean, what else will we sort of quote unquote clean up? I mean, I think that does lead to

[00:33:51] homeless encampment sweeps in the, you know, the interests of aesthetics rather than helping

[00:33:55] people. And I think we are there. Right. But do we care that much? Are we going to die on the cross

[00:33:58] of, of defending graffiti when politically it might end up hurting progressive causes? It's a little

[00:34:03] bit of an abstraction because I'm not sure that that's true, but we know that this is kind of

[00:34:07] what happened in cities like New York in the 1970s when people, you know, part of it was white flight,

[00:34:11] but part of it was like concerns about basic order and disorder that led people to vote in Giuliani

[00:34:16] and to. Yeah, but I don't think we're anywhere near there. I mean, I, like I said, we spend,

[00:34:20] it's not quite Giuliani time. We spend a shit ton of money on graffiti removal already every single

[00:34:25] year. More gets added in the budget, even as money gets taken away from social services.

[00:34:29] And so we're talking about these arrests. I mean, no, I don't think this was probably,

[00:34:34] I mean, I, I don't know if it cost a hundred thousand dollars, maybe it was worth it. I suspect

[00:34:38] it cost a lot more than that because they were talking about these months long, you know,

[00:34:42] operations involving tons and tons of people. Um, I don't think that's the best use of, uh,

[00:34:47] of the criminal justice system resources. I will say, look, just last week we were talking about,

[00:34:52] uh, and, and I think we should emphasize here how far Seattle has evolved in just 20 years. Like

[00:34:57] last week we were talking about, you know, this sort of somewhat sort of lame and pathetic attempt

[00:35:02] in some neighbors in Ballard to stop a kind of burlesque, you know, strip club on Ballard Avenue

[00:35:07] and stuff. But, you know, 20 years ago, right. We were talking about the fact that there were things

[00:35:11] like Seattle was a very prudish, uptidy, whitey kind of town, right. Where, where, you know,

[00:35:18] where it was very, no strip clubs and you can't have, you know, there was a poster band or team

[00:35:25] dance ordinance or all of these kind of no Sunday liquor sales or all these kinds of ridiculously,

[00:35:31] you know, but I think we are going towards a poster band type of environment.

[00:35:34] I don't think, I think we've got to come along. We we've come a long way, baby.

[00:35:39] Stickers today. They're talking about how bad stickers are and how they, how they have to

[00:35:42] remove stickers.

[00:35:43] Well, I like the stickers. Really? Stickers are kind of cool.

[00:35:45] Stickers or graffiti, David. It's exactly the same thing.

[00:35:48] I love the stickers.

[00:35:49] Well, hopefully they won't go too far. And Margaret Pageler is not, you know,

[00:35:53] going to be holding a press conference anytime soon to, you know,

[00:35:56] ban teens from doing stickers on stuff or I don't know what, but like, yeah.

[00:36:02] Yeah. Well, that's apparently, that's apparently already illegal Sunday. So,

[00:36:06] you know, you can, you can expect to see actually John Scholes from the,

[00:36:09] from the downtown Seattle association was talking about how much money they spend removing stickers.

[00:36:14] I will tell you the, the, the city with the, with,

[00:36:17] with a really good sticker game is new Orleans. I was in new Orleans,

[00:36:21] I think last year and there were some bad-ass stickers.

[00:36:25] When are they going to clean up the fucking gum wall? I mean,

[00:36:28] what about the gum wall? We're going to let that go.

[00:36:30] The gum wall is a national treasure, David. I don't know how you could,

[00:36:33] how dare you sacrilegiously, you know, besmirch the gum wall. I love it.

[00:36:41] I won't defend the gum wall. You can send police after that.

[00:36:46] I'm all, all for the gum wall. The gum wall is not what we're talking about.

[00:36:50] Uh, right into us. We are planning to do, and we've said we're going to do it.

[00:36:54] We're going to do a listener question episode next time, right?

[00:36:59] Yes. Friends. We're going to do that. So write in with your good end of the year,

[00:37:04] or just questions about what's happening here in the city, Seattle. No question.

[00:37:09] There are no dumb questions. Is that the right way to put it? There are no dumb questions.

[00:37:12] It's not really true, but we're going to say, we're going to say,

[00:37:15] we'll make fun of. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:37:17] Don't send us dumb questions and that's good questions. But, but David, where should they,

[00:37:21] um, where should they send their question? Uh, you could send it to real Seattle nice at

[00:37:27] gmail.com. You can also find all our contact information on our show notes. That's it for

[00:37:32] another edition of Seattle nice. She's Erica C. Barnett. He's Sandeep Kashuk. I'm David Hyde.

[00:37:37] Our editor is Quinn Waller and thanks everybody so much for listening.