Seattle Police, Fire staffing critically low and the vaccinated are getting COVID
The Seattle Police and Fire Department are still dangerously understaffed, COVID is spreading among some employees, and city dwellers are not fully protected. The city is refusing to give in to its vaccine mandate, even as it brings back the guidelines previously used to house staff before the vaccine was available.
The SPD has hundreds of open layers in every district of the city. In one area alone there are almost 100 shifts by the end of the year. If you remove new hires and recruits who aren’t ready for the patrol, last week’s updated staff numbers only show 888 total deployable officers.
The situation at the Seattle Fire Department is now so dire that the city only had to take six units off the grid and convert engines into auxiliary units. Despite deployable staff who fully complied with the city’s vaccine mandate, SFD had recent COVID cases that forced the department to revert to the procedures the city claimed it couldn’t use to protect the unvaccinated.
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The nightmare of the police occupation
As a result of historical separations of officers and a vaccination mandate that put almost 100 officers out of action, the SPD is struggling to maintain the basic staffing minimum. These minimum requirements are based on what they believe are sufficient personnel to protect both the public and the officials on a given shift.
There are dozens of open shifts where non-patrolling officers, like detectives, volunteer for open shifts. There is not a single guard or precinct in Seattle that is capable of reaching a minimum of personnel without increasing patrols.
In the Southwest Precinct alone, both 2nd and 3rd guards are on duty in nearly 100 shifts between December 20 and December 31.
Seattle Fire makes drastic staff moves
The SFD had cut 19 employees on Saturday, December 18, forcing the city to drastically cut services.
As a result, the department took two auxiliary cars, a ladder truck, two engines and an air unit out of service. But they also had to change the configuration of other units to keep the department from half functioning. SFD took three engines, which are regularly manned by four firefighters / EMTs, and converted them into auxiliary vehicles with two firefighters / EMTs.
An SFD source warned that emergency vehicles “are not equipped with the personnel or equipment to conduct a rescue or put out the fire”.
While confirming all these details, a spokeswoman for the SFD noted that “the members who occupy these units can wear their operational equipment and react to fires with other units”.
“[If] Should a fire break out in one of these districts, which is instead manned by an auxiliary truck, the nearest engine companies and trucks would respond to cover that area, ”the spokesman said in an email to the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH.
The spokesman attributed the staff shortage to “employees on leave (sick leave, vacation, extended parental leave, etc.), retirements and special events”. She admits that the vaccine mandate plays a role in the staffing shortage, but “It would be incorrect to attribute all of our staffing shortages to the mandate as we occasionally had to shut down facilities before the mandate deadline in October. ”
Prior to the mandate, the SFD suffered from a staff shortage. The vaccination mandate made it worse. It seems to have been in vain.
COVID is spreading and old practices are returning to SFD as Omicron hits
Although the remaining SFD staff fully comply with the vaccination mandate, the staff are still developing COVID.
Eight SFD employees tested positive for COVID-19 in November 2021. All eight were vaccinated according to a disclosure request.
Omicron is now the dominant COVID variant in the USA. While studies and anecdotal evidence suggest that Omicron is significantly less dangerous than Delta, causing symptoms of a mild cold in most people, it’s more contagious. More problematic from a personnel point of view, omicron seems to be escaping our vaccines.
As a result, the SFD has introduced new measures to protect staff from omicron. It goes back to the guidelines that were adopted at the beginning of the pandemic.
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New SFD process ruffled feathers
SFD chief Harold Scoggins described a return to old procedures in a December 17 memo. It reads (in extracts):
To protect one another, members should return to the vigilance exercised in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic with immediate effect. Masking and social distancing are crucial. In addition, members are entitled and encouraged to use the POCCT tests in the ward at the beginning of each shift to add another layer of protection. These tests are offered on a voluntary basis and are not a substitute for masking and distancing. No test is perfect, but the POCCT tests detect contagious people almost 80% of the time.
This memo does not go down well with some vaccinated and unvaccinated firefighters.
To justify firing firefighters who did not adhere to the vaccination mandate, staff were told that these guidelines could not be a substitute for the unvaccinated.
But if omicron eludes the vaccine and the city says the best protection is to adhere to procedures that were in place before a vaccine was even available, what is the point in firing unvaccinated personnel? They are just as susceptible to the dominant variant as the vaccinated.
Unethical negotiating strategy with the union?
The city is negotiating with the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) over what to do with the sidelined officers who were denied housing requests to avoid the vaccine.
A source tells the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH that Mayor Jenny Durkan is not considering allowing frequent testing for those who do not want to be vaccinated, even though that option was available prior to her term in office.
Seattle city leaders have also refused to meet to bargain until the end of this week, according to another source on the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. It’s an obvious move to pressure officials who blow accrued sickness or vacation time to see if SPOG can close a deal.
When they run out of free time and don’t have a job to move to another department, officers can give in and hand in their papers. While this ensures their return to work, it can also lead to considerable resentment. They could leave the department as soon as they are offered another position in a different department.
Meanwhile, firefighters are reportedly still being laid off. A source tells the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH that some firefighters are disabled to handle medical problems that have arisen on the job. As soon as they leave the disability behind, they will be fired if they are not vaccinated.
Radio silence from the city and the media
Despite a clear and worsening crisis, the city guides say practically nothing.
Durkan leaves Mayor-elect Bruce Harrell with a staff crisis that he will have to deal with on day one. If he stays with the campaign comments, Harrell will not withdraw the mandate.
The Seattle media, like city guides, are silent.
Local TV stations and newspapers are mostly silent about the crisis. In general, the Seattle media outlets either don’t understand the occupation of the SPD or SFD, have no sources to provide the information, or simply don’t mind a deficiency (especially if it occurs with the SPD).
By not highlighting the crisis, local outlets are missing out on an opportunity to put public pressure on city guides to address the crisis. We are only a public safety emergency away from catastrophic outcome. It is a shame that no one except the police, fire brigade, rescue workers and KTTH employees seem to be very interested.
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