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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32440 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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Remember Seattle's CHAZ/CHOP? After the place was cleared, a bunch of local businesses and property owners sued the city and now they all reached a settlement. One part that definitely didn't help Seattle were tens of thousands of deleted text messages:

The city of Seattle has settled a lawsuit that took aim at officials’ handling of the three-week Capitol Hill Organized Protests and further ensnared the former mayor and police chief, among others, in a scandal over thousands of deleted text messages. The Seattle City Attorney’s Office filed notice of a settlement Wednesday in U.S. District Court, just three weeks after a federal judge levied severe legal sanctions against the city for deleting texts between high-ranking officials during the protests and zone that sprung up around them, known as CHOP.

[...]

Attorneys for the more than a dozen businesses that sued the city, led by Seattle developer Hunters Capital, sent a series of letters to the city in July 2020 — after another lawsuit over the violent police response to the protests — demanding that any evidence pertaining to the city’s alleged support and encouragement of the zone’s creation be retained, according to the court docket and pleadings.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly concluded last month that officials ignored the notifications, sending the so-called Hunters Capital lawsuit to trial on two of five claims and dismissing three others. In doing so, Zilly issued a blistering order that leveled crippling sanctions against the city for the deletion of tens of thousands of text messages from city phones sent between former Mayor Jenny Durkan, former police Chief Carmen Best, fire Chief Harold Scoggins and four other ranking city officials during the protests.

The judge found significant evidence that the destruction of CHOP evidence was intentional and that officials tried for months to hide the text deletions from opposing attorneys.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly concluded last month that officials ignored the notifications

The city didn't ignore notifications, officials did.

Mayor Jenny Durkan, former police Chief Carmen Best, fire Chief Harold Scoggins and four other ranking city officials during the protests.

Don't sanction the city, sanction the people. The city didn't delete texts, people did. Throw those people in jail, fine them until they are destitute, and make an example that misconduct is punished personally.

Don't sanction the city, sanction the people. The city didn't delete texts, people did. Throw those people in jail

I said it with regards to a suggestion last month about making examples of gain-of-function researchers for Covid, and I'll say it again here: you can't fine people for fucking up on high-skills jobs, because if you do you'll never get competent applicants for those positions - they'll go study a discipline with a career path that doesn't carry a jail risk, instead. So then you'll only get incompetent applicants who didn't have the brains to switch to a less risky career, having incompetent people in the position is more dangerous than having criminal people in the position.

This sort of thing is one sphere of human activity where holding people responsible for their crimes is actively detrimental to the greater good.

Sorry, but the current (terrible) practice of punishing a faceless organisation is nevertheless the least terrible of all the options. Well, aside from encouraging voters to stop electing crooks, but no-one's cracked that problem since Pericles.

Huh? If I committed even unintentional negligence in my private sector business I could be fined and lose my licenses and my industry has no shortage of applicants - why would it be different for public sector employees?

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