Free Republic

This is a bad time to be a police chief. It's really bad for black police chiefs, many of whom were elevated as part of diversity initiatives, only to find that major cities have moved from diversifying police to defunding them or calling for racial purges. Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best appeared stunned this week when confronted with City Council member Lisa Herbold’s suggestion that laying off police officers due to a defunding of the department could be done by a race basis rather than seniority. “It is illegal to make layoffs based on race,” Ms. Best promptly told a...

The Seattle City Council is facing something of a dilemma in its popular pledge to cut the police budget by 50 percent. To do so would require firing a significant number of police officers, which is also popular. The problem is that the firing would be done by seniority and many of the less senior officers are black. The solution according to City Council member Lisa Herbold is simple: fire officers based on their race. While that would be the definition of racial discrimination, Herbold clearly believes that it is discrimination for a good cause. The federal courts are likely...