Boarded up Seattle businesses beg city leaders for help as crime surges: 'Defund the police has failed'

Residents of a Seattle neighborhood plagued by rising crime are speaking out and begging their local government to address the issue while slamming the push to defund the police.

"I care a lot about this place," Alysson Holt, an employee of Vixen Collection Boutique and Spa in Seattle’s Magnolia neighborhood, told KOMO News about the recent surge in burglaries in the area. "I’m very angry. I’m sad. I want to see change. There are no consequences."

Holt told the outlet that the boutique was recently broken into for the second time, and Courean Napolitano, the owner of Vixen Collection, said police officers took hours to respond but pointed out that she does not blame them due to the current staffing crisis in the department.

"I want to say that your experiment in trying to defund the police has failed miserably. We are here paying taxes and, in my case, supporting my community in big ways. We're not supported whatsoever," Napolitano said. 

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Seattle recently reversed course and increased funding for police for the first time since slashing funding in 2020, which was followed by a surge in crime that included a 24% rise in homicides, 30% rise in motor vehicle thefts and 4% rise in overall crime last year.

Additionally, Seattle’s police force fell to a 30-year low last year as officers left the department "in droves" in large part due to defunding and the demonization of police, the president of the Washington State Fraternal Order of Police told Fox News last fall.

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Deb Bluestein, who owns Modele’s Home Furnishings in the neighborhood where boarded up shop windows are becoming commonplace, told the outlet that "there's a sense" in the community "that nothing is going to be done" and "nothing is going to happen."

"Our leaders, please help the small business community."

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Fox News Digital reached out to the office of Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell for comment and did not immediately receive a response.