gun violence

SPD police chief loses his cool

/

Seattle News:

I’ve been closely covering the debate around universal school meals for students in Seattle, which you can read about here and here. Right now it looks like Seattle might get both universal school meals starting this fall and a voucher-based food program for weekends and school breaks. Today, Mayor Katie Wilson and the Seattle City Council released a joint statement indicating both branches of government are on board with the plan.

The City Council will be voting on a proposal to fund the universal school meals through the general fund on August 4 as part of their mid-year supplemental budget deliberations. 

I’ve seen a lot of speculation that one or more Seattle city councilmembers might have purposefully blocked Mayor Katie Wilson’s universal school meals proposal in order to tank her political capital and have a more successful mayoral run against her in 2029. I cannot say what lies in the hearts of the councilmembers, but something else to consider is the fact that the council isn’t particularly politically aligned with the mayor and might not be worried about crossing her in the same way they might have feared crossing Mayor Bruce Harrell, who helped many of them get elected. 

In the last few weeks, I also wrote about both the D5 Seattle City Council seat race and the 46th LD state representative race.

I’m sure you’re all aware of the tragic shooting at the Seattle Center during the Bite of Seattle food festival on Sunday. PubliCola reported that SPD Chief Shon Barnes was out of town at the time of the shooting, and indeed, was scheduled to be out of town until mid-August, in spite of summer tending to be a time of increased violence overall, and gun violence in particular. 

At a press conference about the shooting on Monday, Barnes snapped at a reporter from The South Seattle Emerald who was asking about his traveling habits, and his chief of staff Alex Ricketts had to step between Barnes and the reporter and escort Barnes away. You can watch the video clip here.

At another press conference today, Barnes was asked about the incident with the reporter and said it merely illustrated his passion for being a police officer. Someone has filed a complaint with the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) about the incident. Barnes was also asked again about his travel schedule, a question he tried to dismiss as quickly as possible.

Other News:

ICE is still getting Washington state data to assist in their immigration enforcement efforts, according to KUOW, meaning the state’s sanctuary law isn’t being fully enforced. This is in spite of the state denying tens of thousands of requests from ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, and Customs & Border Patrol. According to KUOW’s article:

““The records we’re getting show that the rejection doesn’t stop them from getting the data,” said Angelina Godoy, director of the UW Center for Human Rights. “They get rejected using one [Originating Agency Identifier] and then just submit their request under another one. There are thousands of still-open [Originating Agency Identifiers] they can use.””

Leaked video from the San Francisco Police Department’s drone program has shown one of the privacy risks of this surveillance technology. Ben Werdmuller, the senior director of technology at ProPublica, wrote an essay on his personal site about the more inherent problems with such ubiquitous surveillance. Furthermore, Werdmuller wrote that the police drones in San Francisco have had no impact on crime. 

Meanwhile, LAPD announced they will be letting their contract with Flock Safety expire. As 404 Media reported, “Notably, the decision came after an audit of ALPR technology found that, in a two-month period, the LAPD had improperly “investigated” 161 people whose cars were flagged as stolen in the LAPD’s ALPR system but were not actually stolen.” Here is that audit. 

Last week, the Renton City Council voted to continue to pause their use of Flock Safety stationary license plate readers in the city. However, they voted to resume use of in-vehicle license plate readers (these readers are from Axon, not Flock). It became clear during the councilmember discussion that in practice, the in-vehicle license plate readers will also not be used at present since they are not compliant with the new state law regulating the use of license plate readers (the same issue faced by the City of Seattle). While a technical fix might be possible to resume use of the Axon in-vehicle license plate readers, it is unclear if and when that will happen. 

Recent Headlines:

SPD police chief loses his cool Read More »

Surveillance cameras don’t prevent violence, or why I feel like a broken record

/

Seattle News:

Yesterday several elected officials – Mayor Katie Wilson, Council President Joy Hollingsworth, Councilmembers Debora Juarez, Bob Kettle, Maritza Rivera, and Dan Strauss, and Seattle City Attorney Erika Evans – along with SPD Chief Shon Barnes, held a press conference about the gun violence along Aurora Ave N. 

Mostly those named above talked about solving the problem with police and prosecutions, as well as by the strategic blocking of certain streets. Kettle touted the importance of the real time crime center and license plate readers, although there is no evidence that shows these technologies prevent violence. Interestingly, Aurora Ave N is one of the zones where CCTV cameras have been installed and operational in Seattle, and yet somehow there is still gun violence happening there. Hmm. 

Kettle also spoke of the importance of hiring more police officers. 

Evans said her office has asked for funding for a dedicated Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) prosecutor, which she says would help get guns off the streets. Her office is also aggressively pursuing businesses and properties that break chronic nuisance laws. 

Lastly, her office is working to have a dedicated, dually-deputized prosecutor in their office that will work on felony trafficking cases on Aurora in partnership with the King County Prosecutor’s office. I’m not really sure why having this prosecutor work in the Seattle City Attorney’s office (CAO) versus the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s office (KCPAO) makes a difference. Traditionally CAO only prosecutes misdemeanors and gross misdemeanors, while the KCPAO handles all felonies. It could be that this might improve collaboration between the offices or it might be solely an issue of money (who’s going to pay for this prosecutor’s salary). 

Evans stated unequivocally that SOAP and SODA orders do not work and that she will be pursuing other strategies. 

Not mentioned were the environmental changes made to Aurora Ave in Shoreline that seem to have helped deter violence there. Solutions such as increased social supports, a coordinated gun violence prevention strategy, and legalized sex work were also not emphasized. 

That being said (see below), Wilson is reportedly working on a gun violence prevention strategy, but unfortunately the details still haven’t been announced. 

Meanwhile, The Seattle Medium reported that Black girls represent between 44% and 52% of child sex trafficking victims in King County. 

Earlier this week, the Seattle City Council passed the one-year data center moratorium and related resolution, after which Washington AI resistance (WA-AIR) held a press conference announcing a new campaign for their People’s AI Bill of Rights, which will be a package of bills regulating AI introduced during the 2027 state legislative session. The campaign will begin with a state-wide listening tour. 

Wilson announced that the City would be turning on the CCTV cameras located in the Stadium District due to “general but credible threats to security during the games” provided to her during briefings with SPD and the FBI. Two days before the announcement, she publicly defined a credible threat in more narrow terms, that being the standard she had originally announced she was planning to use to inform her decision as to whether to turn on the cameras. To read more about it, check out the op-ed by Phil Mocek published by PubliCola.

The Seattle Auditor’s Office released a status report on implementation of their recommendations covering the time period through December 2025. Of note:

  • Re their 2024 Annual Surveillance Technology Usage Review (released in September 2025), SDOT has implemented two out of eight recommendations.
  • Re their Four Recommendations to Better Understand and Address Current Gun Violence Patterns in Seattle (released in March 2025), all four recommendations remain pending: “The Mayor’s Office reported that they have begun development of a comprehensive gun violence reduction strategy that will build on work begun by the Human Services Department and be led by the Mayor. Specifically, the Mayor’s Office has begun to assess existing gun violence reduction programs, identify gaps, and build a comprehensive strategy sponsored by the Mayor.”
  • Re their Addressing Places in Seattle Where Overdoses and Crime are Concentrated: An Evidence-Based Approach (released in July 2024), two out of eight recommendations have been completed: “The Mayor’s Office reported that components of the Downtown Activation Team’s (DAT) work, including its place-based problem-solving methodology, are moving forward under the Stabilize, Activate, and Invest (SAIL) Subcabinet. The Mayor’s Office indicated they will tailor crime and overdose strategies, and the corresponding deployment of resources, to more specifically defined and localized problems, beginning with implementation of the Phố Đẹp safety plan in Little Saigon and the expansion of the Seattle Police Department’s Neighborhood Resource Officer program to 12th & Jackson and 3rd & Pine. The Mayor’s Office also indicated that the current administration does not intend to evaluate the preceding administration’s work of the DAT and Seattle Restoration Framework, but will instead collaborate with public health, public safety, and community partners to establish agreed upon metrics for success for each location and reporting expectations.”

A quick update on an earlier item regarding the possibility of a special fire district tax: PubliCola has reported that the firefighters’ union is opposed to the idea so the Mayor’s Office isn’t pursuing it this year. This means one fewer tool to address the $175 million deficit for 2027.

In SPD lawsuit news, two gay SPD officers are suing the department alleging discrimination and being passed over for promotion. The City of Seattle is paying a $2.6 million settlement in the lawsuit of four female SPD officers alleging sexual harassment from former Chief Adrian Diaz. The Seattle Times reports that three of the four women remain employed at SPD. 

For more uplifting news, I wrote about the soil-turning and future plans for a new health center in Rainier Beach. If you want to read about community members coming together to make a difference, this is the article for you. 

Other news: 

I wrote about an inmate who died of an overdose last year while in custody at SCORE jail. I really encourage you to check this one out because the ongoing issues at SCORE are for the most part not being covered by mainstream media like The Seattle Times or the local news networks. I dove deeper into the quality of healthcare being offered by jails and prisons in general, and it’s an ugly story that has parallels to how people detained by ICE are being treated. 

I also dove into last year’s King County DCHS audit with an update on what’s been found and what measures are being taken to ensure accountability and transparency as DCHS goes about their work. 

King County Executive Girmay Zahilay gave his State of the County address this week and committed to investing “nearly $5 million” in the Regional Office of Gun Violence Prevention. I’m not clear on how much of this is additive, but as an important office that is perennially under-funded, this is good news. 

The City of Edmonds unanimously voted to cancel the City’s contract with Flock Safety for automated license plate readers.

Finally, Jeff Asher wrote that large police departments are beginning to grow their ranks again, after a contraction after the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020. 

Asher wrote, “The hiring environment still isn’t great for police officers, but it is far improved from where it was three or four years ago. Most medium and large police departments will likely be stuck at considerably smaller levels than they were pre-COVID, but the evidence suggests they might see slow and steady growth over the next few years.”

Recent Headlines:

Surveillance cameras don’t prevent violence, or why I feel like a broken record Read More »

Will Seattle run a ballot initiative next year to unleash the CARE team?

/

Seattle news:

I wrote about the imperilment of the Graham Street and Boeing Access Road light rail stations. The Sound Transit vote on the issue took place on Thursday, and the Graham Street station is back on track, mostly because Seattle stepped up to make it happen. Unfortunately, Boeing Access Road and three Ballard stations didn’t fare as well. 

I also wrote about the obstacles facing the CARE team. Yes, I’ve written about it before, but 1.there still seems to be confusion about it, and 2. I wanted to present a few new options on the table to address it. 

As we all know, Seattle is facing a significant budget deficit for 2027. One option on the table, reported on by PubliCola, is a special fire district tax that would move much of the Seattle Fire Department’s budget out of the general fund by raising property taxes to pay for it instead. Interesting idea, and only possible because of a law change earlier this year in the state legislature. 

Residents along the Aurora Ave North corridor have been putting up makeshift barricades to address the gun violence in their neighborhood. Mayor Katie Wilson has directed SDOT to replace these barricades with temporary traffic calming treatments expected to be installed sometime this weekend. 

Meanwhile, the Council will be considering a bill that would allow SPD and SDOT to close streets for public safety reasons.

At the same time, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office reports that deadly gun violence incidents in Seattle and King County have continued to drop. As Capitol Hill Seattle Blog reports: “In her office’s latest updates, Manion says the first quarter of 2026 marked a new milestone in the return to safer levels as deadly shootings dropped to “single digits” for the first time in nine years.” 

AI/Surveillance/Immigration news:

A new report from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights found that “without deliberate and outcome-oriented interventions, AI will likely amplify the racial wealth gap rather than narrow it.”

I reported on the large data center moratorium currently being discussed by the Seattle City Council. Committee votes are expected on Wednesday. 

404 Media reported that the FBI wants to buy nation-wide access to automatic license plate reader data. The most likely vendors for this would be Flock Safety and Motorola Solutions.

Meanwhile, the city of Renton suspended their Flock contract and the city of Edmonds cancelled their Flock contract, following in the footsteps of Mountlake Terrace and Lynnwood. Everett and Stanwood have ceased their pause of their Flock networks, however, and are back to using them . 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation analyzed millions of police searches of Flock license plate data and found that “law enforcement agencies have moved beyond specific investigations to use these surveillance networks for virtually any whim.” Their analysis looked at police use of this surveillance for school district residency checks, background checks, and noise complaints. 

I reported on the temporary contract between the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma and ICE, which has lowered the standards for the facility. I also covered the new lawsuit the Washington State Attorney General filed against the GEO Group, who operates the center, to allow the state department of health to perform inspections of the facility.. 

Last week The Stranger reported that ICE transferred leaders of a hunger strike at the detention center away from the Tacoma center in what advocates say was retaliation.

Recent Headlines:

Will Seattle run a ballot initiative next year to unleash the CARE team? Read More »

Seattle City Council votes in favor of unavoidable advertising in public spaces and weakening their own ethics code

/

Seattle News:

Let’s start by talking about a couple of my recent pieces. First, I covered SPD asking to obtain StarChase GPS surveillance technology. Noteworthy in this piece is the public safety committee meeting during which this technology was discussed, in which SPD Captain James Britt said he didn’t know something that would be very difficult not to know if you were in fact in charge of the project of obtaining the StarChase technology for SPD. 

Second, I covered the recent community safety town hall led by Councilmember Rob Saka to address gun violence in the High Point, Snake Hill, and North Delridge neighborhoods. Aside from no city official advocating for investment in gun violence prevention programs in these neighborhoods, there is also an open question about why it’s been taking Seattle City Light so long to repair streetlights in High Point compared to other, wealthier neighborhoods. 

Earlier this afternoon the Council met to discuss the proposal to weaken their ethics rules and the proposal to install advertising kiosks in several Seattle neighborhoods, including downtown, Ballard, and West Seattle. 

The advertising kiosk resolution passed its committee vote 5-0 (committee members are Councilmembers Nelson, Kettle, Hollingsworth, Rivera, and Solomon). 

The ethics legislation passed its committee vote with Rivera and Solomon voting in favor, and Nelson, Kettle, and Hollingsworth abstaining. It will receive a full council vote on Tuesday, June 3 at 2pm. 

Mayor Bruce Harrell has announced his intention to confirm SPD Chief Shon Barnes in his role as police chief, at the same time as Barnes published an op-ed in The Seattle Times about “Seattle-Centric policing.” 

Meanwhile SPD has just committed to spending almost $6 million for yet another ad recruitment campaign.

DivestSPD published an important look at falling crime in Seattle in 2024 and thus far in 2025. Here is a relevant excerpt:

“Crime was way down in 2024 and continues to fall in 2025. Most folks consider that a good thing — unless they’re operating a protection racket that manufactures consent for raises by scaring the public with sensational crime stories. SPOG has been so bereft of good material that it has resorted to using “This is Seattle” to comment on incidents in other cities. According to the Seattle crime dashboard, the violent and property crime rates in 2024 were both lower than in 2018, when SPD had 400 more officers. These trends are continuing in 2025.” 

In June, Seattle will be launching a new “ambassador” program in the CID similar to that already in place in downtown, funded by $500,000 from the city and $500,000 from the Asian American Foundation over two years, with three ambassadors patrolling the area from 2-10pm.

Harrell also announced Seattle’s “summer safety strategy,” which includes limiting many park hours from 4am to 10:30pm and installing a gate at the beloved Gas Works Park, as well as increasing SPD patrols.

There is controversy over King County’s proposal to site one of the five new crisis care centers in Capitol Hill on Broadway and Union. Many residents and businesses signed a letter opposing the location. The proposal should go in front of the King County Council sometime this summer for approval. 

Earlier this year, a King County inquest was held about the SPD killing of Iosia Faletogo at the end of 2018. Howard Gale wrote that this “marked the first time in history an inquest juror found that an SPD officer engaged in criminal conduct.” He also details the biases and confusion built into the county’s inquest process. 

The Urbanist also reported that Inspector General Lisa Judge, who runs Seattle’s Office of the Inspector General, appears to have been paying for private parking with City funds. 

WA State News:

In better news: in 2024, Washington State reported the largest decline in drug overdose deaths in almost a decade, a 12% drop from 2023. Even so, nearly 3,200 Washingtonians still died from an overdose in 2024. Nationwide, overdose deaths dropped 27%. 

Governor Bob Ferguson finally signed the state’s operating budget this week. Here is a list of his vetoes, which are much less extensive than feared but do include programs like a study comparing domestic violence intervention models, an association to coordinate opioid treatment and prevention services, a nonprofit that operates a teen case management and housing connections support program, and grants to entities that provide digital navigator services, devices, and subscriptions, among many others. These changes remove $25 million from the state’s budget, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the total being spent. 

Ferguson also signed the bill that requires Washingtonians to get a permit in order to buy a gun and a bill that gives unemployment benefits to striking workers.

Ferguson signed the bill providing $100 million for a grant program to hire more police officers. It allows the grant funds to be used for other purposes besides hiring more police, including peer counselors, behavioral health co-responders, crisis intervention training, and community assistance programs. 

The legislature did not address the crowding issue at Green Hill School juvenile detention center: “While a new facility opening this year in Aberdeen could offer some relief, the failure to pass significant legislation on the issue means Green Hill is on track to continue housing dozens more people than it is designed to safely hold.” 

Brian Heywood has filed five new state-wide initiatives this spring. He wants to limit annual property tax increases to 0.5% and for all property to be valued at 50 percent of its true and fair value in money and assessed on that basis; he wants more money for homeschooling and private schools at the cost of public education; he wants to ban trans girls from school sports; and he wants to restore the parents’ bill of rights that was amended during the legislative session. What a laundry list of conservative ideas!

Recent Headlines:

Seattle City Council votes in favor of unavoidable advertising in public spaces and weakening their own ethics code Read More »

Crime falls in Seattle in spite of SPD’s “organizational weaknesses”

/

Seattle News:

First up, I had a new article out this week that covers continuing local developments from the Trump administration. I wrote about how both King County and Seattle are impacted, how various decisions from the Trump administration and Congress are likely to cause more homelessness, less affordable housing, and fewer services for those who are unhoused, and the worsening situation for unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children who lack legal representation when they face ICE in the courtroom. 

We’re also seeing eviction rates in King County skyrocket. KUOW reported that the King County Sheriff’s Office received 702 eviction orders this March, as compared to 317 eviction orders received in March of 2024. For 2025 so far, there has been a 30% increase from last year’s rate. 

Even though SPD only managed to hire a net ONE officer in 2024 (a gain that was immediately erased when former Chief Sue Rahr decided to fire Officer Kevin Dave on January 6), Danny Westneat reports that crime is “plummeting,” citing the following stats:

  • Shots fired YTD down 24%
  • Violent crime YTD down 15%, its lowest quarter for five years
  • 8 homicides through the end of March, the lowest figure since 2019
  • Car theft is down 30% from a year ago and 50% down from its peak

Looks like police department staffing really doesn’t have much to do with crime rates. 

Speaking of SPD, the OPA has recommended they institute an AI policy after one of their officers used ChatGPT and other AI tools to write his reports. SPD COO Brian Maxey made it into the news again this week. And SPD Captain Eric Greening reportedly settled his discrimination lawsuit with the City for around $1 million.

Seattle received its April revenue forecast yesterday, and the news is bleak. The revenue forecast council adopted the pessimistic forecast, given all the turmoil being caused by the Trump administration and Elon Musk. The total revenue forecast for 2025-2026 has been lowered by $241 million. This does not include the loss of $46.8 million of expected JumpStart revenue from 2024 (the tax only brought in $360 million in 2024 after being predicted to bring in $406.8 million). 

Seattle will need to make up that $241 million + $46.8 million gap this year during their mid-year supplemental budget process and their fall budget season. The revenue forecast could continue to grow worse during this time. And let’s not forget Seattle has already been projected to face an additional $78 million deficit for 2027, a number we can also expect to grow larger. 

It is really hard for me to emphasize enough how much trouble all of these budgets are in, from the Washington State budget to the King County budget to Seattle’s budget. They were already in deep trouble before any federal cuts, but the federal cuts will undoubtedly exacerbate the situation. Without significant new revenue sources, the current level of public services enjoyed in these localities is unsustainable.

That being said, it will be difficult for Seattle to pass enough new revenue sources, and especially to get them up and collecting quickly enough, to meaningfully address the problem. Thus far the city council has shown itself to be recalcitrant when it comes to passing any new revenue sources, but it remains to be seen whether this latest downturn will change any minds. 

One possible solution would be to move all JumpStart funds away from their originally intended purpose (affordable housing, Green New Deal, and equitable development) and plug it all into the General Fund. However, given what we know about how the Trump administration is already negatively impacting affordable housing projects and homelessness services, as well as how recessions generally further increase the unhoused population, pulling further large investments from affordable housing would almost certainly have disastrous consequences. Similarly, the longer the City postpones dealing materially with the climate catastrophe, the worse the fallout will be, and the less the City invests in addressing historical disparities, the more those inequities will continue to compound. 

Local journalist Guy Oron continues his reporting about homeless sweeps in Seattle, finding that the number of sweeps in 2024 was even higher than the record set in 2023 – there were 2,504 sweeps in 2024 and 2,205 sweeps in 2023. The vast majority of these sweeps were done without prior notice. 

Harrell clocks in with 5,633 sweeps performed during his three years and three months in office, by far the highest number of any Seattle mayor since at least 2008. Former mayor Jenny Durkan oversaw 1,781 sweeps during her four-year term, the second highest number. 

For the 2025-2026 biennium, the Unified Care Team that performs these sweeps is slated to get $66 million, a bump from their previous 2023-2024 budget of $52.5 million. 

Over the last year, at least 15 defendants at Seattle Municipal Court (SMC) have not been assigned public defenders to receive the defense services to which they are legally entitled. This particular issue does not seem to be resulting from the public defense crisis currently hitting the state, but rather seems to be due to errors on the side of SMC. Public defenders suspect this problem might be resulting from the Court’s expensive new case management system that originally rolled out a year ago and has been plagued by issues.

The Office of the City Auditor recently released a report on gun violence patterns in Seattle and then delivered a presentation about it to the council’s governance committee last week, which became unexpectedly heated when Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington appeared to feel attacked and disrespected by both the report and the process by which it came into existence. 

Politics aside, it’s an enlightening report that the Mayor’s Office doesn’t appear to have much interest in engaging with. It references a report delivered by the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy (CEBCP) to SPD in June of 2023, saying, “The report found that SPD does not follow many best practices for “investigative effectiveness” and that “even if the SPD returns to full personnel capacity, these organizational weaknesses will continue if unattended.”

The auditor’s report lists six specific weaknesses of SPD investigations found by the CEBCP and references SPD’s lack of public legitimacy as an ongoing issue. No one at the council meeting on this subject explicitly brought any of this up, however. 

WA State News:

The Washington State budget continues to wend its way forward. Governor Bob Ferguson’s budget director sent a letter to legislative budget leaders underlining his priorities. The letter underlines Ferguson’s desire to maintain strong reserves and acknowledges that “meaningful reductions alone will not fully address the budget shortfall.” It says new revenue sources should be “thoughtfully considered” but makes it clear that Ferguson remains opposed to the wealth tax, which is “untested in court.” 

More surprisingly, the letter goes on to list more than two dozen policies and programs that Ferguson would like to see receive more funding and attention. As the Washington State Standard reported, “Budget writers said this week that the level of granular detail in the letter didn’t surprise them. But the absence of advice from the governor on where they could make a bigger dent in addressing a multibillion-dollar shortfall did.”

What the letter does NOT do is give any specific advice about either cuts or new sources of revenue that Ferguson would support. 

The state’s capital budget proposals include more money for affordable housing compared to the last biennium, with the House proposal including almost $724 million for housing and the Senate proposal including $770 million.  

Meanwhile, hundreds of Washington state workers, who have been threatened with varying furlough plans by both Ferguson and the Senate, protested at Olympia on Wednesday. It’s possible that Washington State Federation of State Employees (WFSE) workers might strike over the proposal.

Recent Headlines:

 

Crime falls in Seattle in spite of SPD’s “organizational weaknesses” Read More »

Seattle revisits less lethal weapons after SPD received 15,000 complaints in 2020

/

Seattle News:

On Tuesday, Seattle’s public safety committee met to discuss SPD’s 30×30 initiative to hire more women officers and the new proposed less lethal weapons legislation transmitted from the Mayor’s Office. 

In the presentation and discussion about 30×30, topics discussed included providing more mentorship opportunities for women, providing places for them to pump breast milk, and providing more flexible childcare options. But what was more striking was what was not discussed, namely, the findings in last year’s 30×30 report that SPD is often a toxic working environment for women due to harassment and an old boys’ culture. Indeed, women officers said they wouldn’t recommend other women join the department.

The less lethal weapons legislation would allow SPD to use less lethal weapons when SPD officers judge there is imminent physical risk of injury to anyone or significant property damage. As written, it would allow any officers ranked lieutenant or higher to be able to authorize crowd dispersal. It removes the private right of action for people injured by crowd control weapons; while there are state and federal rights to sue, they are less robust and make taking legal action more difficult. It also allows SPD to begin using newly developed weapons and change their crowd control policy without any outside oversight.  

SPD’s current draft crowd control policy is in conflict with two pieces of legislation about less lethal weapons from 2020 and 2021; even though neither of those ordinances were able to go into effect, the City can’t submit the crowd control policy to the Court overseeing the consent decree until and unless they resolve the discrepancies. City leaders are pushing for this new legislation to be passed in the expectation that they will then finally be released from the consent decree.

Councilmember Cathy Moore expressed concerns about this new legislation, particularly about the use of blast balls and relying on SPD policy instead of having fortifying legislation. Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck, who does not sit on the public safety committee but was attending the meeting, also expressed concerns.

Any amendments to this bill will most likely be due before the council’s winter recess, meaning by Friday, December 20. The bill will be heard in committee again on Tuesday, January 14, with a possible full council vote as early as Tuesday, January 21. 

You can read more coverage on this legislation here and here. 

Meanwhile, people are responding to Councilmember Tammy Morales’s announcement last week that she is resigning from the council effective next year. An op-ed ran in The Stranger this week, entitled Tammy Morales’s Resignation Exposes a Pattern of Institutional Abuse Against Southeast Seattle Electeds. And The South Seattle Emerald interviewed Morales: here is an interesting quote: 

“According to Morales, the silencing of District 2 constituents is disenfranchising the South End. “It’s not just anti-democratic, it’s also disenfranchising the South End. It’s one thing for me, as a duly elected member of the city’s council, to not be able to get my work done on behalf of my constituents — that’s one thing. It is also an issue, though, when community members show up in chambers and are also gaslit, which is what’s happening,” explained Morales. “There is no acknowledgment that [City Council’s] behavior, their proposals, are leading to this dissatisfaction. Instead, constituents get blamed for being misinformed or just confused or disrespectful. That is the classic definition of gaslighting — manipulating [by] not acknowledging that it was [the council’s] own behavior that led to this in the first place, and just blaming the public.””

Since the Seattle Fire Department’s new Buprenorphine Pilot Program began, 48 patients have been treated with buprenorphine.  

In the seemingly never-ending stream of legal action brought against the City related to the Seattle Police Department, SPD Lt. John O’Neill brought a tort claim against the City last week saying he’s experienced discrimination and retaliation by command staff and leaders. O’Neill was a named party in the lawsuit filed by four women SPD officers alleging gender discrimination and sexual harassment this past summer. The Seattle Times reports that “the claim says interim police Chief Sue Rahr, Deputy Chief Eric Barden and “several other members” of police leadership and of the K-9, media and crime scene investigations units were involved in or witnessed the treatment alleged by O’Neil.”

The Seattle Times had an interesting article this week about results of Mayor Bruce Harrell’s downtown activation plan, which appears to have moved many unhoused people and drug-seeking people to the Chinatown International District (CID) instead. There is speculation that folks might ultimately try to return to “the Jungle,” the greenbelts south of the CID, which were cleared out in 2016. The state later fenced off most of these greenways in an effort to remove homeless encampments. 

King County and WA State News:

The next WA state legislative session begins in January, and a few gun control efforts are being lined up now; namely, putting an excise tax on bullets and firearms, passing a permit-to-purchase bill, banning open-carry in parks and public buildings, and Governor-elect Ferguson’s idea of a gun buyback program.

In good news, gun violence in Seattle and King County is on the decline this year, following national trends. But it is still a pressing problem.

There is a lack of detox beds for teenagers in Washington State. There is currently no law guaranteeing youth have access to detox programs. As a result of this dearth, many kids end up trying to detox at home with their families instead. The Seattle Times found there are currently only two detox beds for youths available state-wide.

Recent Headlines:

Seattle revisits less lethal weapons after SPD received 15,000 complaints in 2020 Read More »

How the democratic process in Seattle is being undermined by the City Attorney’s Office

/

There hasn’t been a huge amount of news as we all recover from the long weekend, but let’s look at what we’ve got this week.

Seattle News:

This weekend there was follow-up on a story I wrote last March about Seattle Municipal Court Judge Pooja Vaddadi. If you remember, the City Attorney’s Office (CAO) announced they would file an affidavit of prejudice against Vaddadi on all criminal cases going forward. Six months later, this tactic to prevent Vaddadi from hearing criminal cases is ongoing. 

Now Judge Vaddadi, recently returned from maternity leave, has published an op-ed in The Stranger sharing her perspective on this unprecedented step on the part of Davison. 

In her own words: “This behavior has a significantly negative impact on the Court and our democratic process. If prosecutors can effectively nullify a sitting judge this way, we do not have real elections. To my knowledge, this is the first time in Washington history that a prosecutor has made it so a particular judge will never hear any criminal cases.”

Vaddadi claims every detail named in the memo written by then-Criminal Division Chief Natalie Walton-Anderson, who now works for the Mayor’s Office as the Director of Public Safety, is false, and many of its false claims, even were they true, do not reflect the bias of which Vaddadi has been accused. Neither Vaddadi nor any reporter has been able to obtain the details for the cases cited in the memo. Vaddadi is blunt in her op-ed: “The CAO has failed to provide any evidence of this case simply because it does not exist.”

The memo in question was circulated only a few weeks after Vaddadi had disqualified a prosecuting attorney from a case due to a “potential ethics and evidentiary issue,” the only decision made by Vaddadi that the city has appealed. Her decision was later held up by the Superior Court. 

As budget season quickly approaches, it is also relevant to point out that not only do these blanket affidavits undermine the democratic process of electing judges in Seattle, they are also costing the city additional money, as it now needs to hire pro tem judges to cover the cases Vaddadi is not able to hear. 

In other news, Seattle kids returned to school on Wednesday, and there is a report that on the first day of school, an SPD officer sat in Garfield’s parking lot most of the day. Two security guards were also observed patrolling, and some members of Community Passageways were present at lunchtime. 

King County News:

Following the King County Council’s vote last week to support a non-binding motion to keep its youth jail (The Judge Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center) open, The Stranger reported on how Councilmember Girmay Zahilay’s vote in favor of this motion seems to contradict his 2019 platform to “dismantle our current youth prison model.” The article speculates that Zahilay might have chosen to vote in this way due to a desire to become the next King County Executive; if he’s preparing for a run next year, he might benefit from distancing himself from the “radical” left. 

However, Zahilay  told The Stranger that his position on youth incarceration hasn’t actually changed that much, and that the community groups that helped him develop his platform back in 2019 were in favor of his amendments to the recent motion, which was originally put forward by Councilmember Reagan Dunn. 

Current Executive Dow Constantine, on the other hand, is sticking with his decision made in 2020 to work towards closing the youth jail. He told The Stranger, “The youth justice system does not produce the outcomes we all want, which are safe communities and healthy kids.”

As the narrative of increasing youth crime begins to spread both locally and elsewhere in the nation, The Stranger provides an important counterpoint by looking at local case referral numbers: juvenile crime at present seems about on par with pre-pandemic numbers. Bookings into the youth jail are now also about on par with pre-pandemic numbers. Both these numbers had dropped in 2020 due to the pandemic.

The main difference between pre-pandemic and now appears to be that youth are more likely to be using guns, which is a strong argument in favor of investing more heavily in the County’s  gun violence prevention programs that are perennially underfunded. 

King County’s budget season begins at the same time as Seattle’s, with Constantine’s proposed budget dropping on September 24 and council budget briefings beginning on September 25. 

While King County usually does a biennial budget, for this budget cycle they will only be preparing a budget for 2025 in order to avoid budget season overlapping with elections for county offices. Voters recently approved elections at the county level to move to even years, which means those elected for office in 2023 and 2025 will only serve three-year terms. Four-year terms will resume beginning for those elected in 2026. 

Recent Headlines:

 

How the democratic process in Seattle is being undermined by the City Attorney’s Office Read More »

Seattle City Council to decide whether to keep promise to students

/

Seattle News:

Interim SPD Chief Sue Rahr announced she decided to fire Officer Daniel Auderer, who infamously laughed and mocked the death of student Jaahnavi Kandula last year. 

At this week’s public safety committee meeting, councilmembers unanimously voted to confirm Amy Smith as permanent Chief of the CARE department. Her confirmation will now move forward for a full vote from Council. 

Also at the meeting, Rahr gave a presentation about her first two months as interim police Chief, focusing on staffing, technology, accountability, and criminal justice partners. She mentioned SPD would need additional funds for their new proposed Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) software. She spoke of the need to differentiate between minor and major misconduct in the service of changing SPD’s culture because of how slow the OPA is to process cases. She also wants to make the officer entrance exam “much more low barrier and faster” and spoke about the department still being 400 officers down. 

I wrote more about Rahr’s decision to fire Dave and her remarks at the public safety committee meeting in an article for The Urbanist, coming out soon, so keep an eye open for that!

Following this presentation was a discussion led by City Attorney Ann Davison, Rahr, and Smith about the criminal justice ecosystem. As Publicola reported, “members of the Seattle City Council outdid each other calling for more police, more jail, and harsher punishments for people, like those who sell drugs, who “need to be contained,” as Councilmember Bob Kettle put it.”

There were also a few fact checks necessary for statements made by Rahr during her brief tenure. Axios reported that Rahr issued a directive this month explaining that a 2021 state law doesn’t prevent police from questioning juvenile witnesses after saying the law was impeding SPD’s investigation of the June 6 shooting at Garfield High School. PubliCola clarified that in spite of a statement by Rahr on Tuesday that “it takes multiple convictions of firearms laws before juveniles are held in detention and held accountable,” juveniles are in fact held in detention for firearms offenses, even without a conviction. Whether they are held in detention is at the discretion of the judges.

Mayor Bruce Harrell announced some new public safety investments in his proposed mid-year supplemental budget, including an additional $800,000 for police recruitment marketing.

Harrell also announced the new SCORE jail pilot program that will allow Seattle to send a limited number of misdemeanor offenders to the Des Moines jail, which has an unusually high inmate death rate. The agreement would authorize Seattle’s use of at least 20 beds at the facility at a cost of between $1.5 million to $3 million. The legislation will need to be approved by the Council before being enacted.

Less than a week before this announcement, Department of Public Defense Director Anita Khandelwal withdrew from the stakeholdering process around this new pilot, saying it didn’t feel like anything she said in those meetings would have any impact on the decision-making process. Khandelwal raised several concerns about the city contracting with SCORE in this way.

A day after the SCORE pilot was announced, the news broke that the King County Jail is lifting some of its booking restrictions for people arrested in a specific geographical zone called the Downtown Activation Zone, which includes parts of downtown, the CID, and Belltown. It will accept bookings for some simple misdemeanors such as public drug use and possession. Thus far it doesn’t appear this change will impact Harrell’s decision to contract with SCORE, which could be used to book people who are arrested for misdemeanors outside of the designated zone. 

Tensions between the city of Seattle and King County continue to grow, with Executive Dow Constantine pushing back against Davison’s claim that the King County Jail booking restrictions are compromising public safety in Seattle, reported by The Seattle Times:

“In a message to Metropolitan King County Council members, sent on behalf of Constantine Wednesday, Penny Lipsou, director of council relations, said Davison’s claims are misguided. The jail makes exceptions to booking restrictions when there is a compelling reason, the message said, and Davison’s office has been ineffective at making those arguments in court.

“Rather than attacking the jail (and in past months, the judges), she should first get her own shop in order,” the message said.

The message goes on to invite Seattle to cancel its contract with the county for jail space.”

The invitation for Seattle to cancel the jail contract is particularly spicy, perhaps reflecting the growing frustration between the two municipalities. The message also mentions that the County is currently subsidizing misdemeanor bookings, meaning Seattle is already not paying their full cost.

Following up on last week’s news, Pierce County will not be charging SPD Deputy Police Chief Eric Barden in a domestic violence criminal case. Barden is still at least temporarily on Pierce County’s Brady list and currently being investigated by the OPA for allegedly asking a Pierce County deputy to lie on a police report.

Gun Violence Initiative:

King County recently kicked off their 100 Days of Action against gun violence, and Councilmember Girmay Zahilay introduced $1 million of funding in the county’s supplemental budget to assist in developing a comprehensive strategic plan for combating gun violence. I wrote about this over at The Urbanist, as well as giving an update on the $20 million allocated in Seattle’s budget process last year for student mental health. (Spoiler: Mayor Bruce Harrell only wants to invest half of it this year.)

Councilmember Tammy Morales pushed back on the plan to only spend half the allocated money on youth mental health, suggesting the council contract directly with schools and community organizations on programs that would help youth in the city thrive, including investing in free third spaces, skill building, jobs and apprenticeships. The council will have to decide whether to pursue this investment strategy when they vote on amendments to the supplemental budget in early August. 

King County News:

King County recently won a $450,000 federal grant to improve youth outcomes and expand alternatives for secure detention in King County. Next month, the King County Council will be considering legislation introduced by Councilmember Reagan Dunn that would declare their intention to keep the youth detention center open. Meanwhile, the youth jail is already understaffed, and the recent move to halt intakes at two of the major long-term state-run youth detention facilities is likely to add more pressure to the population of King County’s youth jail, which isn’t designed for longer-term stays.

Recent Headlines:

 

Seattle City Council to decide whether to keep promise to students Read More »

License Plate Reader Expansion Moves Forward in Seattle; if Approved, Will Represent the Largest Deployment of the Technology in Washington State

/

Seattle News:

At the public safety meeting on Tuesday, councilmembers voted to pass the legislation to greatly expand license plate readers (ALPRs) out of committee, with Councilmember Moore abstaining. In a blast from the past, I live tweeted much of that agenda item of the meeting. 

The legislation will now head to full Council for a final vote. CM Moore indicated she would be putting forward separate legislation that would limit the license plate data storage to 48 hours. As the legislation currently stands, SPD would retain the data for 90 days, which would be a reasonable timeframe for outside entities to subpoena for the data from Axon, who will be storing the data. It is unclear how much support this legislation will garner from her colleagues.

One of the more bizarre moments of the meeting was when Chair Bob Kettle stated that if there were going to be any privacy problems with the license plate data, mainstream media such as the LA Times, Seattle Times, New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN would have reported on it. Data provided by the ACLU and UW appeared to be unacceptable. This seems to indicate a fundamental misunderstanding about how the mainstream media and university research operate. 

He also stated Seattle has the best accountability system in the country, which is a bold thing to say given this very system has been crippled since its founding by the SPOG contract.

Andrew Engelson of PubliCola conducted an interview with new interim Chief of SPD Sue Rahr last week. Some key points:

  • Rahr said it breaks her heart that SPD officers don’t feel they’re being embraced by the community: “The officers were—I don’t know how to describe it. I don’t want to say hurt, that sounds a little bit melodramatic. But they want to work with the community and they feel like the community is rejecting them.”
  • She said she wasn’t making command staff changes right now, but would make them if she felt it necessary. She didn’t appear to hold much credence for accusations that command staff were retaliating against officers or weaponizing OPA complaints.
  • She said that because we live in a sexist society, of course our police department is sexist, but didn’t acknowledge any particular issues that might make police departments more susceptible to misogyny than any other institution. She said she wants to focus on the staffing crisis.
  • She doesn’t know what her decisions regarding Officers Auderer and Dave will be, and she said she hasn’t read the reports yet.
  • She said she would support a city contract with another jail (besides King County Jail) if that’s what’s needed to allow for booking of minor misdemeanors that officers feel are necessary.

The death of the student shot at Garfield High School last week, Amarr Murphy-Paine, has rocked the community. There will be a Unity Walk this Thursday at 6pm starting at Jimi Hendrix Park and ending at Garfield High, organized by Pastor Lemuel Charleston and Apostle James Sears. Sears is the Murphy-Paine family’s pastor. 

Other News:

In King County Executive Dow Constantine’s State of the County address yesterday, he proposed “100 Days of Action” to prevent gun violence. The relatively new King County Regional Office of Gun Violence Prevention will be coordinating this work. He said Mayor Bruce Harrell is in agreement and will be making an announcement later this week to advance the collaboration, which would include supporting youth mental health. As always, I am interested in how many resources will be allocated by the county and city to this initiative, as more investment in gun violence prevention is urgently needed.

In a large Washington Post investigation, journalists identified at least 1,800 law enforcement officers who were charged with crimes involving child sexual abuse between 2005 and 2022. “​​When pressed by The Post, some police officials, prosecutors and judges admitted that they could have done more to hold officers accountable in the cases they handled. But nationwide, there has been little reckoning over child abusers within the ranks of law enforcement.”

Nearly 40% of convicted officers avoid prison sentences, and many used threats of arrest or physical harm to make their victims comply. A national tracking system for officers accused of child sexual abuse does not currently exist.

Recent Headlines:

License Plate Reader Expansion Moves Forward in Seattle; if Approved, Will Represent the Largest Deployment of the Technology in Washington State Read More »

Are $230 Million in Seattle Budget Cuts Even Possible? Budget Director Says No.

/

Seattle News:

This week at Seattle’s Public Safety committee meeting, the committee discussed SPD testing, recruiting, and retention. Then on Thursday night, Mayor Harrell hosted a public safety forum at the Seattle Public Library. He plans to hold more informal public safety forums by precinct in the month of April.

Fascinating things were said at both of these meetings, and I’m currently working on a longer piece analyzing them more thoroughly. More on this, hopefully next week! 

City Council is teed up to vote on a resolution at next week’s 3/19 meeting that appear to eliminate several Statements of Legislative Intent (SLI) passed by last year’s Council. One of the SLIs not appearing on the new list is the request for an evaluation of Seattle’s current gun violence prevention programs. More specifically, the SLI requested that “HSD and CSCC/CARE perform a gap analysis of the City’s current and priority investments in gun violence prevention as compared to the recommendations in the King County Regional Community Safety and Wellbeing (RCSWB) Plan, and identify complementary, duplicative, or gaps in services provided by the City and King County.” 

It is ironic that at a time when the city is trying to pressure through three concerning surveillance technologies with the justification that the city is struggling with gun violence, they are not willing to even finish a basic evaluation of already existing investments that won’t cost a penny.

Following up on the news about the City Attorney trying to disqualify Judge Vaddadi from hearing cases, the Seattle Times reports that certain defense attorneys are independently trying to find a way to fight back by having Vaddadi sign subpoenas and then arguing her signature on these documents means she shouldn’t be unilaterally removed from hearing the cases:

“In an interview, Vaddadi confirmed attorneys had sent her “fewer than a hundred” subpoenas to sign, which she did, but said she was unaware of any strategy by attorneys to get her back on the calendar. She, and at least some of her colleagues, interpret the court’s rules to mean that any judge can sign any subpoena sent to them.

“I would never strategize with one party or another, that would be incredibly unethical,” she said.”

Regarding Seattle’s upcoming enormous budget deficit, Crosscut recently reported that Julie Dingley, the city’s budget director, had said they will not be able to make $230 million worth of cuts by the beginning of 2025, and has suggested they will have to come up with one-time strategies to stagger implementation of such a large amount of cuts. It’s worth noting that Seattle is required by law to have a balanced budget. 

The same article reports that Councilmember Kettle supports having JumpStart tax funds go directly to the general fund to help balance it instead of honoring the spending plan for the tax that is currently in city statute. The JumpStart tax is currently the top source of funding for affordable housing in the city, so redirecting it in such a way would have consequences to the already meager store of affordable housing. 

Election News:

Tanya Woo has officially declared her candidacy for the Seattle City Council seat that she currently holds as an interim appointee. No other candidates for the seat have yet filed.

Perennial state lawmaker Frank Chopp has announced his retirement, and Shaun Scott has announced his candidacy to take over the 43rd Legislative District seat. And he is coming out swinging! Here is the first paragraph of his press release announcing his candidacy:

“The past four years have dealt a lifetime of challenges to residents of the 43rd Legislative District. The working class has seen costs of living increase, while major corporations dominate local elections and evade taxes. Renters can’t afford rent. For young people, the reality of a permanently altered climate lingers like smoke. Students are punished for attending state universities with a life sentence of debt. Disabled and immunocompromised Washingtonians enjoy few public accommodations, and Long COVID looms as a public health emergency. While Washingtonians hope a Democrat-controlled State Legislature and Governor’s office will support staple programs such as special education funding and the resumption of free meals in public schools, MAGA Republicans in cahoots with the billionaire class have launched initiatives to rollback recent state-level wins on climate sustainability and fair taxes.”

Scott is the Policy Lead at the Statewide Poverty Action Network, which is the advocacy arm of Solid Ground, which was founded by his predecessor Chopp. He is known for his run for City Council for D4 in 2019, a race he lost to Alex Pedersen by 4 points while being wildly outspent. Scott also authored the state-level guaranteed basic income (GBI) pilot in 2022.

King County News:

The Washington State Bar Association recently passed new standards for public defenders that will reduce their caseloads. While these standards will affect the entire state, they particularly impact King County because attorneys in King County are required to follow standards that the WSBA adopts.

Publicola reported that Executive Constantine was “alarmed enough” about this possibility that he had his general counsel send a letter to the WSBA asking them not to adopt these new standards. It is likely he is concerned about how this will impact funding for public defense, given the County is currently facing a two-year $100 million budget deficit. 

Publicola said: “According to DPD director Anita Khandelwal, that means the county must either hire enough attorneys—along with support staff like paralegals, social workers, and investigators—to meet the new standards or invest in alternatives to prosecution and incarceration, reducing caseloads by reducing the number of cases.” But Khandelwal argues it doesn’t have to be a budget question, as the County has three years to potentially ramp up alternative programming that would reduce their dependence on the traditional criminal legal system.

Recent Headlines:

 

Are $230 Million in Seattle Budget Cuts Even Possible? Budget Director Says No. Read More »