CNN
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan plans to sign a new city budget that includes an 18% cut to the city’s police department funding, according to a statement issued by her office Tuesday.
A vote by the Seattle City Council approved the budget Monday 8-1, with Councilmember Kshama Sawant voting against. She had pushed for the full 50% cut to the police budget that protesters had demanded over the summer following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The budget comes after months of clashes between police and demonstrators that included the takeover of a precinct in the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Since then, scores of officers have resigned, and the former chief of the department retired amid proposals to defund the Seattle Police Department.
In September, a total of thirty-nine officers quit or retired from the department, CNN affiliate KIRO reported. Over 100 have left this year, higher than in any year since at least 2012, the department told the affiliate.
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