Do Black Lives Matter to Leftists? Black Female Police Chief Driven Out by 'Woke' Seattle Politicians

Seattle is so very woke, it was able to force its black female police chief into retirement after months of attacks and undermining by the mayor and city council.

It was a long time coming for Police Chief Carmen Best, who was told to stand down as occupiers took over a portion of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, including a police precinct, during the CHAZ/CHOP debacle that ended after nearly a month of shootings, murders and destruction.

Even as the city was deeply embroiled in the chaotic uprising following the death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody in late May, the Seattle City Council attempted to hamstring Best’s police officers by prohibiting nonlethal methods for breaking up riots such as pepper spray. 

Then on Aug. 1, Black Lives Matter protesters descended on Best’s home, coming through the neighborhood with vehicles, carrying duffel bags of unknown contents and intimidating neighbors.

But it seems the final nail in her career’s coffin came Monday when the Seattle City Council voted to slash the police budget by nearly $4 million, shortly after which she announced her retirement effective Sept. 2, according to The Seattle Times. 

Best had served for nearly 30 years on the police force, becoming interim chief in early 2018.

She was initially passed over for the permanent position until an outpouring of public support convinced Mayor Jenny Durkan to confirm her, with the city council voting unanimously in favor of Best. 

Times have certainly changed for Best’s relationship with officials, however, and no doubt the events of the last couple months forced her hand, although the 55-year-old chief didn’t specifically say so.

“This was a difficult decision for me, but when it’s time, it’s time,” Best wrote in a statement.

Despite all of the obstacles she threw in Best’s way, the Democratic mayor — who had likened the violent, illegal occupation of her city to a “block party” and dubbed this the “summer of love” as many neighborhoods still smoldered — publicly wished her well.

“Her grit, grace and integrity have inspired me and made our city better,” Durkan wrote in a statement of her own. “These last months, I knew Chief Best was the person to lead our city through this challenging time, to reimagine policing and community safety.”

“For almost 30 years,” Durkan continued, “Chief Carmen Best has worked to serve and protect the people of Seattle.” 

“She rose through the ranks during a time when doing so was unprecedented and extraordinary for a woman – particularly a Black woman,” the mayor wrote. “She defied institutional barriers and always sought to lift others up along the way.”

Durkan apparently missed the irony as she and her woke city council forced Best out as they cut police funding and all but disarmed law enforcement in the name of ending racism. 

It didn’t escape radio host Jason Rantz of KTTH-AM, however.

“This news can’t be overstated: a black female police chief in a profession dominated by white men is essentially being driven out by ‘woke’ Seattle politicians,” Rantz tweeted Tuesday.

Best certainly ascended through the ranks, smashing the glass ceiling to become police chief as the people she would serve championed her cause.

Yet she became the victim of the woke crowd, which is crusading against law enforcement ostensibly in the name of protecting black lives.

However, the Black Lives Matter movement has repeatedly stood idly by while black lives are ruined or outright ended.

The seemingly endless riots have destroyed many major cities, with countless black-owned businesses and neighborhoods destroyed in the name of what, improving black lives?

BLM seeks to defund the police, already causing skyrocketing murder rates and plunging distressed cities into utter bedlam.

And now, the movement has helped to force the retirement of a competent, dedicated and — until five minutes ago — popular black female police chief in the name of their cause.

Perhaps it was because Best’s success destroyed the narrative that the paternalistic left set up for black people, that without the help of the white saviors on the left, they’re unable to be anything but poor, marginalized and unable to think for themselves.

At the very least, it seems Best’s life and livelihood don’t matter — despite the sloganeering — nor do the victims of all races who will go unaided as Seattle police are down $4 million and one stellar chief.

Black people and other minorities will continue to suffer as cities are destroyed and burned into poverty; as citizens are terrorized and killed; and as streets are left to criminals after police departments have been defunded and disbanded.

All of this comes courtesy of leftists who simultaneously pretend to be stalwart allies while implementing policies that will make streets unsafe for black people, all before returning to their insulated suburban safe havens and gated communities.

Only the most sadistic racists in the world could come up with a scheme like that — in other words, woke white liberals.