By Mike Carter and Sara Jean Green
The Seattle Times
SEATTLE — U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced Thursday that Seattle will receive $1.5 million to fight human trafficking.
Lynch, in Seattle for a daylong visit, said the money will be dispersed over three years. A total of $44 million will be provided to 16 U.S. cities and to various agencies to “eradicate” human trafficking, Lynch said.
Lynch’s visit is part of a national Community Policing Tour to highlight collaborative programs and innovative-policing practices designed to advance public safety, strengthen police-community relations and foster mutual trust and respect.
During her Seattle visit, Lynch also met with Seattle Police Department officers and held a roundtable with youth at the Northwest African American Museum.
Lynch, joined by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole, made brief remarks at the museum before meeting with the youth. Lynch said Seattle is at forefront of police reform and is becoming a model for law-enforcement agencies around the country in light of deadly police encounters in Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore.
“In many cases, these tensions have their roots in a long and difficult history of inequality, oppression and violence and they speak to issues that have tested our country’s unity since its inception,” she said.
“They will not be overcome with easy solutions or simple strategies. Sweeping progress will not occur overnight. But as Seattle’s recent experience can attest, real progress is possible — when we engage with one another, when we summon our goodwill and good faith and when we work collaboratively as partners with a mutual and shared interest in ensuring the safety and security of the communities we call home.”
O’Toole said that Ferguson and Baltimore have demonstrated that police reform is “no longer a Seattle mandate, it is a national mandate.” but the consent decree has ensured that “we are well down the road.”
Murray acknowledged there was “more work to do,” but police reform remains a top priority of his administration. He said police officials from Baltimore, Dallas, Milwaukee, New York and Portland have visited in recent months to see how Seattle’s police reforms are working.
“All of these cities have experienced profoundly challenging police-community relationships,” Lynch said. “But through hard work and collaboration — between civic leaders and public-safety officials like the ones here with us today — all of them have made important strides in creating and sustaining meaningful change.”
Her appearance in Seattle coincides with a visit by Vanita Gupta, acting assistant attorney general of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. Gupta on Wednesday met with the city’s Community Police Commission.
Lynch became the nation’s first black female attorney general earlier this year.
Copyright 2015 The Seattle Times