Derailing the defund: How SPD manipulated the media narrative around the 2020 protests

While thousands of Seattleites took to the streets to protest George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police, calling for the Seattle Police Department (SPD) to be defunded by 50 percent, exclusive SPD documents obtained via public records requests reveal internal deliberations and backroom dealings designed to craft a counternarrative to those demands. As pressure to cut the department’s budget in half ramped up in June 2020, SPD’s top brass attempted to influence public perception of how cuts to the department might impact operations, employing scare tactics and warning of a public safety crisis, even as leadership staff within the department internally recommended civilianizing or eliminating a number of SPD units.