More than 200 Seattle police officers could lose their jobs over the city's COVID-19 vaccine mandate because they have either not received the shot or refuse to hand over their medical data to bosses, according to reports.
The department is still reeling from a 17% budget cut following a push by leftist activists to defund the police last year - with nearly 300 cops already quitting since the start of 2020.
Washington Governor Jay Inslee announced last month that most state employees will be required to get vaccinated by October 18 or face 'non-disciplinary dismissal'.
Seattle's Democrat mayor Jenny Durkan and King County Executive Dow Constantine made similar announcements which covered city and county employees respectively.
But the move could see the number of cops in Seattle slashed - despite staffing at the department already at lows not seen since the 1980s.
Just over 200 cops have either said they are not vaccinated, or have refused to turn over their data to bosses, according to KKTH's conservative host Jason Rantz.
That represents about 20 percent of the department's 1,080 deployable officers, who have to look over a population of more than 724,000 people.
In July, it was revealed that the department had already lost at least 280 officers due to what they called an 'anti-police climate' in the city amid Black Lives Matter protests and calls to defund the police.
A record 180 officers 'separated' from the department last year - nearly double the 92 that left in 2019. The numbers take resignations, retirement and dismissals into account.
Another hundred officers have left the department up to July this year.
Mayor Durkan addressed the crisis at a July 28 press conference, before the vaccine mandate was announced, saying: 'As a city, we cannot continue on this current trajectory of losing police officers.
'Over the past 17 months, the Seattle Police Department has lost 250 police officers which is the equivalent of over 300,000 service hours. We're on path to losing 300 police officers.'
The number of officers to leave Seattle Police Department has been in free fall since last year, but the trend started in 2015
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan told SPD to jab up or face termination when the department is already facing a record-low staff shortage.
Durkan had said in July she plans to submit a new plan to hire more officers to restore its numbers.
Under the vaccine mandate, city workers will risk losing their jobs if they do no get double-jabbed.
If a small portion of officers are terminated due to the mandate, the effect would spell disaster for local law enforcement.
The SPD is already at a record-breaking low staff shortage that hasn't been seen since the 1980s.
'We are at record lows in the city right now. I have about 1,080 deployable officers. This is the lowest I've seen our department,' Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz told KING-TV in April.
At times, there are only around 70 officers patrolling the city on a nightly basis, KKTH reported.
It comes despite violent crime in the city surging.
The city is on track to break last year's homicide rate, which was also a new high for the fist time in 26 years. There have been 30
