Seattle’s first Black female police chief announced her resignation after the city council voted to cut the department’s budget and ax dozens of jobs

The police chief of Seattle announced her resignation on Monday, hours after the City Council reduced her department’s budget by nearly 1%.

In a department-wide email, Chief Carmen Best — who was the first Black woman to lead the Seattle police — said her resignation would be effective September 2.

“This was a difficult decision for me, but when it’s time, it’s time,” Best wrote in the email, according to KOMO.

Best went on to say that she is “confident the department will make it through these difficult times.”

“You truly are the best police department in the country and please trust me when I say the vast majority of people in Seattle support you and appreciate you,” she said, according to KOMO.

Black Lives Matter protesters face off with police in Seattle, Washington, on July 25, 2020.

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Earlier Monday, the Seattle City Council approved amendments to the current city budget, reducing the police departments $409 million budget by $3.5 million, according to Reuters.

The cuts were made to top officers’ salaries and eliminated the Navigation Team and SWAT Unit, according to KOMO.

“Why on Earth – for the people who’ve worked so very hard – would we ever consider not having the best of the best and compensating them fairly?” Best said at a press conferenceabout the cuts last week.

“I find that absolutely shocking and quite frankly – I think it’s punitive and not well thought out. And that’s exactly how I feel about it.”

These cuts amounted to less than 1% of the police budget, which is far less than the 50% Black Lives Matter protesters have been calling for. However, City Council members have suggested that bigger cuts are on the way for 2021.

The latest cuts could result in about 100 officers being eliminated through layoffs or attrition, according to KIRO 7.

A counter-protester holds a sign calling for the defunding of police during a rally in support of the Seattle police on July 15, 2020.

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Best’s resignation comes after months of turmoil in Seattle, which became a focal point of Black Lives Matter protests after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the end of May.

For weeks in June, protesters took control of the area around the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct building and designated it a police-free zone, which they named the Capitol Hill Organized Protest, or CHOP.

In late July, President Donald Trump sent federal agents to the city to quell the unrest, but they were removed within days.

On August 1, protesters also tried to stage demonstrations outside of Best’s home, where they were met by her armed neighbors.The demonstrators told local news station KING 5 they did not want to cause trouble, but wanted to ask Best about the police’s method of crowd control.

While Best did not explicitly explain her reasons for leaving the department after 28 years, she is expected to speak about it more at an 11 a.m. local time press conference with Mayor Jenny Durkan of Seattle on Tuesday.

Chris Daniels, chief political reporter at KING 5, attributed Best’s resignation to “council actions, including a proposed massive pay cut, plus the council’s refusal to denounce marches to her house.”

*story by The Insider