OIG

Updates on the U.S. surveillance state

/

Local News:

I wrote a piece about Seattle’s efforts to pull together a coordinated gun violence prevention strategy, which took some doing given the focus on Chief Barnes’s resignation during the time I was trying to research and write it. 

I also wrote about new Seattle legislation to ban algorithmic price discrimination, or surveillance pricing based on personal information, for Seattleites buying groceries. The committee vote on amendments to the ordinance will be on September 18. 

Speaking of Seattle’s police chief saga, here are a couple of interviews with interim Chief Andre Sayles. PubliCola reported on how much time Barnes spent out of the office (almost 40% of the time this year) and on how much his payout will be. And two of SPD’s command staff brought in by Barnes are leaving SPD.

Meanwhile, councilmembers are still angry that the press conference after the Bite of Seattle shooting was delayed for five hours, and the Mayor’s Office has asked the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to conduct an independent after-action review about communications. The review won’t be completed until mid-December.

In other news, there’s another hunger strike at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, and the conditions there continue to be terrible and shocking. ICE will be spending up to $20 million on torture gloves that deliver a painful shock at the press of a button. 

In better news, the Washington State Department of Revenue has performed a new analysis on the millionaires tax and thinks it will bring in more revenue than expected. The new estimate expects $3.1 billion in its first year (instead of $2.7 billion originally predicted) and $8.3 billion in the 2029-2031 biennium (instead of $6.9 billion).

Surveillance news:

The Community Not Cameras coalition toured SPD’s Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) this week, and it didn’t go so well. Coalition members left with many concerns in spite of a Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce poll that shows strong support for cameras. Reading the questions asked in the poll is instructive as to how seriously to take it.

Flock Safety’s PR disaster continues, with 404 Media reporting that they pitched a plan to put their license plate readers in the vehicles of Uber and Lyft drivers. In fact, the press around Flock has gotten so bad they’ve announced some changes, including shortening their standard data retention window from 30 days to 7 days. Their efforts at damage control aren’t stopping many cities from switching from Flock license plate readers to Axon license plate readers, which doesn’t permanently address the concerns many residents have about these cameras and the expanding surveillance state. 

Today Wired published a new story reporting that Flock has built an AI system/tool that can identify drivers and track vehicles by their patterns of movement alone, facilitated by the large network of Flock cameras across the country. It appears that the tool is currently in the testing phase. As Wired wrote:

“Privacy and legal experts say Flock’s tools already raise serious constitutional concerns by giving police broad, often warrantless access to a vast record of people’s movement. But the prompts WIRED examined go further, turning a tool for finding a known vehicle into one that casts suspicion on drivers based on where and how often they drive, regardless of whether they are wanted for a crime.”

Meanwhile, the federal government has gotten in on the act by monitoring viral anti-Flock social media posts and surveilling protest gatherings and meetings. And DHS has been using Clearview AI facial recognition to help infiltrate activist groups.

Google’s AI Overview, while gutting newsrooms left and right, is spreading false information about the amount of valuable gold and copper that are inside Flock cameras, thereby accidentally encouraging users to vandalize the cameras for profit.

And people are going around cutting down and destroying Flock cameras, acts of civil disobedience that appear to be receiving significant public support.

Andrea Pitzer, who wrote a book about the global history of concentration camps, wrote an analysis that looks at what the new electric-shock gloves being obtained by ICE and the proliferation of Flock license plate reader cameras tells us about how the concentration camp regime/institutionalization of the police state in the US is going

Housekeeping:

I’m going to be taking some time off starting next week, so you won’t be hearing from me for a little while. But never fear, I’ll be back on the beat in time to cover Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson’s proposed budget. 

Recent Headlines:

Updates on the U.S. surveillance state Read More »

Seattle looks to tighten its budget belt for 2027

/

Seattle News:

I wrote about how Seattle’s new drug ordinance is going about two and a half years in. It’s not good, to put it mildly. Drug arrests are up, LEAD referrals are down. Even Councilmember Bob Kettle thinks it’s a failure. Be on the lookout for a revamped drug ordinance later this year. And District 2 only had 2 LEAD referrals in a one year period. I checked in with Councilmember Eddie Lin’s office after the public safety committee presentation, but he hadn’t yet received any answers as to why that is the case. 

SPOG made an interesting X post last week, calling Kent Loux, SPOG’s new president, “Seattle’s top cop union boss” and blaming “what’s gutting downtown” on socialism. But hey, at least Loux hasn’t started up his own SPOG podcast…yet. 

Mayor Katie Wilson and her Budget Director Ali Pennucchi sat down with Brian Callanan on the Seattle Channel to discuss Seattle’s budget. 2027’s budget now has a $175 million deficit. Wilson has asked all city departments to prepare models for 5% and 10% cuts, and has said she wants to address the deficit through a combination of cuts and new revenue. 

Wilson said there’s no “silver bullet” when it comes to a new progressive revenue source that could provide a permanent fix for Seattle’s structural budget problem. 

Wilson also said she didn’t foresee winding down the work of the United Care Team anytime soon. 

You can read my live-posting of the budget presentation here. It’s worth noting that $175 million is close to 10% of the total $2 billion General Fund. 

PubliCola wrote about an Office of the Inspector General (OIG) audit on the practice of retiring SPD officers going on extended leave to take advantage of accumulated sick leave. A new policy requiring officers to provide verification for taking sick leave is supposed to go into effect later this year. 

Looking at this coming Tuesday’s public safety committee agenda, the OIG will also be doing an audit on SPD overtime usage in the future, so that should be interesting. 

PubliCola covered what appears to be some communication issues between the new Mayor’s Office and the City Council. The land use committee still ultimately approved Wilson’s shelter expansion proposal. 

Surveillance News:

The City Council of Shoreline cancelled a planned meeting with Flock Safety after residents expressed their dismay.

Both Tukwila and Renton had Flock Safety/ALPRs on their agendas for their Monday, 5/4 meetings. 

Issaquah has Flock on the agenda for their Monday evening meeting on 5/11. 

WA State News:

Last week I published a story all about the Washington State Supreme Court elections, with a majority of the seats on the Court being on the ballot this year. I spent a lot of extra time on this piece because I think so much is at stake with these elections, so I hope you check it out and pass it along to others. 

Oh, election season! The filing deadline for this year was Friday, May 8 at 5pm. In addition to the 5 state Supreme Court justice seats, all 98 state House seats and 24 of the 49 state Senate seats are up for grabs. 

Governor Bob Ferguson and Attorney General Nick Brown have filed a suit against The GEO Group, the private operator of the immigrant detention facility in Tacoma, and the GEO Group recently signed a six-month extension of their contract with ICE. I have a new piece covering this news, including concerning details about this new contract, that should be published any time now. 

Speaking of Ferguson, his tight rules on government agencies and departments’ communications with the press have led to delays on important communications to the public, such as bridge repair updates, public health vaccine guidelines, and the like. Agency officials have been repeatedly complaining about the impacts of these strict guidelines. 

The press also has less access to the Governor in general, with Ferguson holding fewer press conferences and general press availability periods. 

Recent Headlines:

 

Seattle looks to tighten its budget belt for 2027 Read More »

‘A horrific stain on our state:’ on Tacoma’s Northwest ICE “Processing Center”

/

Tacoma Detention Center:

I wrote about the recently filed lawsuit against the Northwest ICE Processing Center (NWICP), aka the immigration detention center in Tacoma. In addition to the lawsuit, I cover other reports that have found human rights violations and abuses within the facility, going back to 2008, as well as new legislation proposed by Seattle Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck to put a year-long moratorium on new or expanded detention centers within Seattle city limits. 

It’s worth noting that The Geo Group, the company that runs the private and for-profit NWICP, is making huge amounts of money right now, reporting an almost 700% increase in profits in 2025 compared to 2024. 

It’s also worth noting I was unable to determine the status of the contract between The Geo Group and the U.S. government. The last contract was set to expire last fall. 

State Senator Yasmin Trudeau told me she didn’t see what else we could call this detention center besides a concentration camp. She brought up that detainees are often held indefinitely, with no right or ability to contact their family or for their family to know where they are. She discussed the possibility that they can be deported to a country that isn’t even their country of origin. She talked about conditions in which people are starving, have feces in their food, put in solitary confinement (which I go into more detail about in the article). She talked about the lack of due process and basic rights.  

While it is horrifying to sit with the reality of what’s happening in this camp in Tacoma, and in concentration camps being stood up and already extant across the country, I urge all of us to refuse to look away. As Trudeau told me, the NWICP is “a horrific stain on our state.”

Seattle News:

I attended DESC’s grand opening of a new permanent supportive housing building called Clover Place. It’s just south of Woodland Park on 99/Aurora Ave. N.

I also sat down and chatted with Julie Kang, who is running for the open D5 seat this November. 

I heard from the new Seattle City Attorney’s Office that City Attorney Erika Evans issued a memo officially ending her predecessor Ann Davison’s policy of seeking blanket affidavits of prejudice, which Davison had instituted to prevent elected Judge Pooja Vaddadi from hearing most criminal cases at the Seattle Municipal Court. The ACLU of Washington and Evans have jointly moved to dismiss the litigation around Davison’s policy. 

The City of Seattle settled with the family of Jaahnavi Kandula, who was killed in January 2023 when then-SPD Officer Kevin Dave ran into her at 74mph while she was in a crosswalk. The City paid the family $29 million plus the $11,000 that then-SPD Officer Daniel Auderer joked about. Both Dave and Auderer were fired from SPD.  (Note: I originally incorrectly said the payment was $110 million, which was the original amount being asked for in the lawsuit. My apologies.)

In January, the City was found negligent in the death of Antonio Mays Jr. in the CHOP in June 2020 and instructed to pay $30.5 million. 

Ben Noble of Council Central Staff is officially retiring in March and will be replaced by Lish Whitson. Whitson’s new deputy director will be Calvin Chow. 

HardPressed has been doing a steady stream of investigative reporting this month, revealing the existence of a secret CCTV camera belonging to SPD that sits on top of the 12th Avenue Arts building in Capitol Hill and another major step taken in SPD’s mission to launch its own drone program. HardPressed also documented SPD’s assistance in providing arrest records for an ICE detention. 

An Office of the Inspector General (OIG) sentinel event review was conducted for the SPD response to counterprotesters at an anti-trans rally held by an extremist group in Cal Anderson Park last spring. The report found that SPD had multiple failures in their response to the counterprotesters. The review process was cut short because DivestSPD published an article about a specific event at the rally with information from the panel, which was supposed to be confidential. 

This leak not only cut the process short, but apparently deeply upset SPD, putting the future of sentinel event reviews in question. However, PubliCola reminds us that SPD has a history of ignoring the recommendations from these reviews, which means their value remains debatable. 

As Glen Stellmacher said on Bluesky, “The specific underlying purpose of the Sentinel Event Review process is to “enhance police legitimacy.” It is not a method of accountability, that’s why it’s conducted in secret. Its whole purpose is to manufacture recommendations that enhance police legitimacy.”

WA State News:

I wrote about why civil rights, privacy, and LGBTQ+ advocates are concerned about the current societal push for age verification systems for social media platforms. In particular, I focused on HB 1834, a bill designed to protect kids from “addictive algorithms” that are common in social media platforms. There was a legal argument about whether the wording in the bill would encourage big tech companies to implement age verification systems in order to avoid liability. 

In an update on Monday, the Attorney General’s Office has said they’re going to stop trying to pass the bill this session. Because HB 2112, another bill that explicitly called for age verification, is also dead for the session, privacy advocates can take a little breath. SB 5984 seems to be avoiding pushing for age verification for now, although it still bears watching. 

Also on Monday, the Senate passed the so-called ‘Millionaires’ tax, which will now head to the House. Governor Bob Ferguson had some additional requirements for the new tax, which he’d like to see implemented before signing. 

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen and Rep. Shaun Scott–who represent the same Seattle district–had a public spat in the middle of a Stranger article. Scott said his Well Washington Fund, which would levy a statewide payroll expense tax, could be implemented and start being assessed by 2027 or possibly even late 2026. Pedersen said this wasn’t true. 

So The Stranger checked with The Employment Security Department, who said Scott was correct. Oops. Both lawmakers are up for election this November. 

State Democrats are also considering backtracking on an increase to the estate tax they passed last year, with the proposal passing the Senate on Monday. 

The new state revenue forecast came out on Monday, and in pleasant news, it’s not looking quite as terrible. The state’s revenue is up $1.855 billion from the last forecast in November. This forecast covers the bienniums of 2025-2027 and 2027-2029. 

Finally, in surveillance news, Amazon-owned Ring canceled its contract with Flock Safety after a controversial Super Bowl ad. However, it seems like their contract with Axon might still be on, at least for now. 

Recent Headlines:

About ICE:

About Everything Else:

 

‘A horrific stain on our state:’ on Tacoma’s Northwest ICE “Processing Center” Read More »

Is there a budget bloodbath in the offing?

/

Personal News:

I’ve been a bit quieter than usual lately because my beloved little dog Nala died last week. I took several days off to spend some quality time with her beforehand, and I’ve been slowly gearing back up. I miss her terribly, of course, and am also very grateful that she lived such a good, long life (she was nearly 18!) and that everyone is being so kind to me as I adjust to this huge change.

Amy in a coat, hat, and scarf holding a cute little dog in a red jacket, the sandy beach and sunset behind them

Seattle and King County News:

I wrote about the Seattle Public Schools school board vote last week on a year-long pilot to bring a police officer back to Garfield High School. Things didn’t go the way I thought they would, as the board rejected the pilot proposal.

I wrote about Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposal to use part of the new public safety sales tax money (which Council just passed in an 8-1 vote, Councilmember Maritza Rivera the sole nay vote) to double the number of CARE alternative responders. The CARE alternate response teams have been struggling since their inception due to an overly restrictive MOU with SPOG. I also wrote about a “mysterious” and sudden drop in police referrals to the CARE team, which coincidentally happened right after SPOG members had trouble with their paychecks due to the City using faulty new payroll software. Hmm. 

The Seattle Times published a similar story with this great lede: “Leadership with Seattle’s new police alternative has become increasingly frustrated with what they view as “a pattern of subversion” by street-level officers who seem to be routinely rejecting or ignoring assistance from civilian responders, records show.”

Relatedly, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) just released a report on the CARE team.

And I wrote about the new SPOG contract that Harrell has said he is almost done negotiating. Will it drop before or after the election? I’m fascinated to find out. 

SPD and Chief Shon Barnes have been engaging in some questionable promotions, as PubliCola has reported: Marc Garth Green, who was demoted after making offensive comments about sex workers, was promoted to commander of the West Precinct, and Mike Tietjen, who has several worrisome disciplinary actions on his record, including allegedly harassing a trans woman, was promoted to be in charge of the East Precinct. Barnes later walked back Tietjen’s new assignment, seemingly due to PubliCola’s coverage, blaming “internal leaks” and “a lack of comprehensive input from those involved in employee assignments.”

The King County Council approved the plans for the new crisis care center in Capitol Hill at the old Polyclinic building. 

I have been industriously listening to both Seattle and King County budget meetings. King County has successfully bridged their deficit for the 2026-2027 biennium with the new public safety sales tax, although they’ll be struggling to deal with federal impacts on services. Seattle will be receiving its revenue forecast on Monday, which might lead to a bit of a bloodbath for the budget depending on how bad the forecast turns out to be.

Surveillance news:

The Seattle Metro Chamber recently conducted a poll with this statement: “Recently passed laws, such as installing closed circuit cameras to capture real -time information about crime on our streets and keeping people out of areas where they have previously committed crimes are making Seattle safer and reducing crime.”

51% of respondents agreed (with only 17% strongly agreeing), while 46% of respondents disagreed. 

In local journalism circles, SPD is known as a place where you send public record requests to die. However, recent reporting from Hardpressed reveals that SPD is fulfilling public record requests for ICE in less than four days. The article further states:
“The initial six pages of records provided by Mayor Harrell’s office show that ICE is requesting information on people the SPD has charged with lowly crimes such as drug possession and fourth degree (gross misdemeanor) assault, which can be charged with no injury and for something as simple as a push. It is unclear based on the limited information and redactions made by Harrell’s office within the released records if the individuals SPD arrested were ever convicted of a crime.” 

404 Media has followed up on their reporting about Flock Safety and their ALPR database. Flock’s database was searched by law enforcement in Texas looking for a woman who had self-administered an abortion. It turns out that said law enforcement had considered charging the woman they were searching for with a crime.

Meanwhile, 404 Media discovered that ICE, the Secret Service, and the Navy’s criminal investigation unit all had access to Flock’s huge data network. This news prompted US Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon to write a letter to Flock, in which he said, “I now believe that abuses of your product are not only likely but inevitable, and that Flock is unable and uninterested in preventing them. Cities around the country, including in Oregon, are currently reevaluating their decision to install Flock cameras. I commend and support this reexamination. In my view, local elected officials can best protect their constituents from the inevitable abuses of Flock cameras by removing Flock from their communities.”

The City of Mountlake Terrace, which voted to purchase Flock automated license plate recognition (ALPRs) back in June, has been continuing to discuss the issue. Councilmember William Paige, Jr. originally voted in favor of the technology, but he has changed his mind and now wants to cancel the contract. It’s possible the most recent news, along with the letter from Wyden, might sway more councilmembers.

The Flock cameras haven’t yet been installed in Mountlake Terrace. 

A few more recent articles about surveillance you might be interested in checking out:

Recent Headlines:

Is there a budget bloodbath in the offing? Read More »

Seattle Mayor’s Race Remains a Dead Heat in Polling

/

Seattle and King County News:

First off, I took a closer look at the upcoming Seattle City Attorney election, with a particular focus on incumbent Ann Davison’s signature policies, for Bolts Magazine.

For The Urbanist, I wrote about the nuisance property and graffiti legislation recently passed by the Seattle City Council, as well as Council President Sara Nelson’s proposal to allocate some of a not-yet-proposed sales tax bump to pay for addiction treatment. I also gave an update on how Donald Trump’s recently passed budget reconciliation package, which includes large cuts to Medicaid (Apple Care) and SNAP, will impact Washingtonians, and how Seattle and King County are responding to the current national funding and policy threats.

We have a primary election coming up next Tuesday, August 5, which means it’s time for some new polls. The two frontrunners for Seattle Mayor, Bruce Harrell and Katie Wilson, are still statistically tied. In the Seattle City Attorney’s race, incumbent Davison is ahead, closely followed by Erika Evans. 

And a recent poll on Washington Governor Bob Ferguson’s job performance found that only 32% of voters think he’s been doing an “excellent” or “good” job during his first six months. 

We also have a new Seattle councilmember, the returning Debora Juarez, who has been appointed to fill Cathy Moore’s empty D5 seat. That seat will not be up for election until November of 2026. 

Coming up this week, we have a select budget committee meeting tomorrow morning with a possible vote on the Seattle Shield Initiative, which has picked up a whopping 17 proposed amendments. Then on Thursday morning, there will be a special public safety committee meeting to discuss the proposed expansion of CCTV cameras to three new locations, which will cost over $1 million. The updates would also allow SPD to view and record footage from SDOT traffic management cameras.

Guy Oron recently published a great piece about the ballooning settlements the City of Seattle has had to pay related to SPD actions. He includes some illustrative graphs as well, and I recommend taking a look. Overall, the City spent nearly twice the amount it had budgeted over the last ten years (2014-2024) on SPD settlements etc. The most recent figure: in 2024 the City spent $15.1 million on police litigation. 

The Urbanist has a piece from Carolyn Bick documenting the poor public record practices of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). 

The Seattle City Attorney’s Office is still refusing to allow Seattle Municipal Court (SMC) Judge Pooja Vaddadi to hear domestic violence and DUI cases. SMC Judge Damon Shadid vigorously criticized this decision in open court earlier this month.

The King County Prosecutor’s Office has paused youth felony diversion due to a limited analysis that showed a recidivism rate of 53% for youth being referred to Restorative Community Pathways for felonies. Some of these cases will instead be referred to court-supervised diversion programs, but these programs are currently lacking in capacity and also lack other benefits provided by community-based programs. An audit of Restorative Community Pathways is due later this summer. 

Last week, a meeting of Seattle’s housing and human services committee was unable to convene due to a lack of quorum after both Nelson and Councilmember Rob Saka didn’t show up. Nelson apparently gave a day’s notice about her absence, and Saka was reportedly in his office at City Hall at the time of the meeting. 

As a result, the committee was unable to vote on many appointments that would finally fill the City’s renters commission, which former committee chair Cathy Moore appears to have deliberately let languish as she pursued the idea of including landlords in a body meant to advocate for renter rights. The committee was also supposed to report on accepting $16 million in federal HUD grants. 

Neither Nelson or Saka has given much explanation for what happened. If they deliberately skipped the meeting in order to thwart the renters commission appointments, doing so would be an undemocratic act, the seriousness of which is only magnified by the active erosion of democracy right now at the federal level.

The committee’s business is now supposed to be heard at the full City Council meeting later today, when the renters commission vacancies will hopefully finally be filled. 

Recent Headlines:

Seattle Mayor’s Race Remains a Dead Heat in Polling Read More »

Yes, surveillance technology IS helping ICE and allowing law enforcement to hunt abortion seekers

/

Seattle News:

First up, I published an article this week on the debate over bringing police officers back to Seattle Public Schools…and the related debate as to whether the forthcoming FEPP levy should help pay for it. The next school board meeting to discuss the district’s proposal around police in schools, including a potential new Memorandum of Understanding between the district and SPD, will take place on Wednesday, June 4 at 4:15pm at the John Stanford Center. There will be a rally ahead of time at 3:45pm. 

Meanwhile, the City Council’s Select Committee on the FEPP Levy met on Thursday morning and discussed many possible amendments. Several councilmembers signaled that they would like to see police back in schools. 

There has been lots of concern over what data ICE may be accessing in its quest to deport people. Recent record requests show that data collected from Flock’s license plate readers has been shared with ICE for immigration purposes. Uncovered data also shows police in Texas used Flock data to perform a nationwide search for a person who had an abortion. 

Many local municipalities are giving information to ICE in return for funding from the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP). The United States government has collected the DNA from 133,000 migrant children and stores the data in a criminal database.

Locally, Mountlake Terrace City Council is deciding next week whether they should sign onto purchasing Flock’s surveillance services as well. One can only hope someone shares the news of Flock’s data being used to assist ICE and hunt down people who received abortions with the councilmembers prior to the vote on June 5.

The Northwest Progressive Institute released a couple of widely discussed polls this week and last week. One poll showed the mayoral race, and Katie Wilson’s candidacy in particular, is more competitive than some people assumed. Another poll showed how unpopular Seattle’s elected officials currently are. 

Perhaps recognizing the especial unpopularity of the recent proposal to weaken the city council’s Code of Ethics, Councilmember Cathy Moore announced this morning that she withdrew the bill. However, she signaled that she might well revisit the issue again in the future.  

There were a few great investigative pieces this week. Real Change discovered that both SPD and the FBI used confidential informants during the George Floyd protests of 2020. The FBI was also conducting surveillance during that period. As the article says, “Technologies used by the FBI to surveil Seattle protesters could be seen as a way to circumvent Seattle’s surveillance ordinance if the output of that surveillance was fed directly to SPD.”

And in reporting at The Urbanist, it appears that the City was trying to bury an independent report on allegations raised against the OPA and OIG about obtaining and disclosing a protester’s private medical records. According to the Urbanist, the report found that Andrew Myerberg, who was the head of the OPA at the time and now works for the Mayor’s Office, “improperly disclosed the protester’s private medical information, and improperly interpreted the meaning of those medical records, despite not being trained to do so. Improper disclosure means that Myerberg violated state medical privacy laws, and therefore violated City policy.”

However, Jeremy Racca, who works as Mayor Bruce Harrell’s chief of staff and general counsel, in consultation with Pacifica Law Group, LLC, as outside counsel, formed a second opinion that actually what Myerberg did was fine.

Finally, SPD delivered its quarterly sworn staffing, overtime, and performance metrics report to city council this week. SPD is estimating it will need an additional $6.8 million to $10 million by the end of the year to pay for all the extra police officers they are hiring. 911 call response times have gone down because last year CARE and SPD had a project to re-prioritize call types, which moved a bunch of Priority 1 call types down to Priority 2. 

Recent Headlines:

Yes, surveillance technology IS helping ICE and allowing law enforcement to hunt abortion seekers 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 »

SPD has a new chief and the Seattle City Council and the King County Council have new councilmembers

/

Seattle News:

We have a new police chief in Seattle! Today was Chief Shon Barnes’s first official day at SPD. I expect to go into more depth about this next week, but this week I highly recommend reading the excellent interview with Barnes at PubliCola. The Seattle Times also shares some interesting information about Barnes.

We also have a new City Councilmember. The Council appointed Mark Solomon, a crime prevention coordinator at SPD, to fill the District 2 seat, which was vacant following the resignation of Tammy Morales. Solomon ran against Morales in 2019 and lost by 21 points. He doesn’t intend to seek reelection to the seat this November.

PubliCola reported that Solomon said he intends to address the drug market at 12th and Jackson through Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. From the article: “CPTED is a set of strategies designed to send signals that a location is hostile to crime, such as bright lights, surveillance cameras, tall fences, and the removal of trees and bushes that people might be able to hide behind.”

Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck proposed the creation of a Select Committee on Federal Administration and Policy Changes. In a statement, she said, “I am proposing a dedicated select committee to identify strong local responses to changes in the federal government which threaten funding to the City of Seattle.” 

Council President Sara Nelson has agreed to set up this new committee, but its first meeting won’t be until March.

DivestSPD reported that West Precinct Captain Steve Strand violated SPD’s crowd management policy last July: “The OPA pointed out that Strand escalated things by kicking over protest props, tearing down banners, and opening the road to traffic without attempting to resolve the situation through other means outlined in the policy. Instead of attempting “to use organizers and monitors to gain voluntary compliance,” Strand arrested one of the two police liaisons.”

Strand, who has been with SPD for more than 30 years, received training referrals as a result of his actions.

This is particularly relevant given the discussion about SPD’s crowd management policy and use of less lethal weapons going on in City Council right now. The final vote on the less lethal weapons legislation has been postponed and will not be held next week; instead it will probably take place at the full council meeting on Tuesday, February 11 at 2pm. 

Real Change reported that Seattle Public School students still aren’t feeling like their mental health is well supported at school and haven’t noticed any promised changes. In December, the City announced a new pilot program for youth civic engagement. 

This week the City announced seven local provider partnerships to provide more mental health services to students, both virtually and in-person. These new partnerships should begin to provide these services early this year. 

We also have a couple new lawsuits against the City to talk about. First is a lawsuit filed two weeks ago by Lacey Gray, who used to be the records manager at the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). Gray was fired last November, and she says it was in retaliation for her raising concerns that Inspector General Lisa Judge and the office might have engaged in illegal actions in handling and distributing records pertaining to former SPD Chief Adrian Diaz. 

And second is a lawsuit filed by independent journalist Glen Stellmacher, alleging that SPD illegally withheld records requested under the Public Records Act. He sued SPD last year as well for similar reasons.

Lastly, some late-breaking news from The Seattle Times on Pierce County’s new sheriff, Keith Swank: “If he were still with the Seattle Police Department, former Capt. Keith Swank would have been fired for inflammatory social media comments he made in 2023 disparaging transgender people and defending the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to a disciplinary report released Friday.”

King County News:

King County Council selected De’Sean Quinn to be their new councilmember this week, taking the District 5 seat of Dave Upthegrove, who left to become the state’s Commissioner of Public Lands. Quinn was an Assistant General Manager at King County Metro and a member of the Tukwila City Council before this appointment. 

The Urbanist reported that Quinn said the following about public safety in the County:

““I think we need new revenues, because I think right now more than [at] any time, people need to feel safe. I think now more than any time as a community, looking out for one another, safety should be at this also at the center of our communities and their growth,” Quinn said, noting that cost is a significant hurdle in being able to advance non-police alternatives that improve public safety. “I think continuing to advance [public safety] alternatives is an idea that one is a kind of a difficult one, I would say. And I think we’re all experiencing that as well, because a significant portion is personnel cost.””

WA State News:

My latest piece at The Urbanist goes over some of the interesting public safety bills being discussed during the state legislative session this year. I should highlight the word “some” in that previous sentence, as I didn’t have space to discuss half of what’s on the table. However, I did include the police officer staffing grants, the potential assistance to the public defender crisis, several gun control bills including a gun tax, the Traffic Safety Bill, and the Public SAFE-T act, known last year as the judicial dismissal bill. 

In other interesting state legislature news, the House Democrats passed new rules that will allow filibusters to be ended by a simple majority instead of a two-thirds vote. This matches a similar rule already in place in the Senate and takes away a major tool of the minority party to stall, thereby meaning less overall legislation can be passed in a given session. 

In Praise:

I’m watching several movies available streaming online through the Sundance Film Festival this weekend. It’s early days, but so far my favorite is the movie Bubble & Squeak, which is a screwball comedy in the tradition of Bringing Up Baby combined with absurdist sensibilities and many, many cabbages.

Recent Headlines:

SPD has a new chief and the Seattle City Council and the King County Council have new councilmembers Read More »

“Prince” Diaz out, Barnes in, and the outgoing governor wants to tax the rich

/

Housekeeping:

As we reach the end of 2024, I’d like to thank you for joining me for another year of local news, politics, and analysis. And a special thank you to my financial supporters on Patreon, who help to cover Notes from the Emerald City’s hosting fees. 

I’ll be taking the next two weeks off to rest, rejuvenate, and get ready for whatever 2025 brings! I hope all of you have a wonderful end to 2024. 

Seattle News:

I had two stories out in The Urbanist this week: one is an interview with Seattle City Attorney candidate Rory O’Sullivan, and the other is an analysis of the new less lethal weapon crowd control legislation being voted on by Seattle City Council next month.

Big news this week is that Mayor Bruce Harrell fired former SPD Chief Adrian Diaz, who was removed as Chief earlier this year and given a “special assignment” within SPD, continuing to collect his generous salary. You can read about the whole sordid saga at The Stranger, PubliCola, two articles at The Seattle Times, two articles at KUOW, Cascade PBS, or you can go straight to the source and read the Office of the Inspector General’s investigation report.

Diaz had “an intimate or romantic relationship” with his chief of staff, Jamie Tompkins, who he hired and directly supervised. Tompkins didn’t have previous law enforcement experience. A romantic card written by Tompkins featuring an Ewok was found, in which Tompkins compared Diaz to a Disney prince and talked about his kiss. 

How to express true love

Investigators also found multiple SPD employees who said Diaz often talked and bragged about having a sexual relationship with Tompkins. 

The relationship and Diaz’s denials of it violated several SPD policies. Harrell fired Diaz as a result of the investigation’s findings. 

In June, soon after he had been demoted, Diaz went on Jason Rantz’s talk show and said he was “a gay Latino man” to defuse rumors of the romantic relationship with Tompkins. Diaz is now denying allegations of the affair with Tompkins and saying the investigation was flawed.

KUOW also published an interesting piece on how they broke and developed this story.

In another SPD shake-up, SPD Deputy Chief Eric Barden, interim Chief Sue Rahr’s second in command, announced his retirement last Friday, effective immediately. Rahr said Barden is leaving after 38 years to take care of his sick mother. You might remember Barden from a controversy earlier this year when it came out he’d been accused of domestic violence and had allegedly asked a Pierce County deputy to lie about it, a move that resulted in him being placed on the Brady list for dishonest police officers. 

Rahr is appointing Assistant Chief Yvonne Underwood as acting deputy chief and will soon appoint Capt. Lori Aagard to be the acting assistant chief over professional standards.

In MORE big news, Harrell has announced the new permanent SPD Chief: Shon Barnes, the police chief of Madison, Wisconsin, who got some press this week after a shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison left three dead. Barnes will need to be confirmed by the City Council before assuming leadership of SPD. You can read more about it at The Seattle Times, Cascade PBS, KUOW, and the City’s press release. 

I will note three red flags that go along with this news. First, there was no public process that went along with the selection of the new Chief. While the public process has often seemed performative to me in the past, I think not having it at all is an unfortunate step in the wrong direction. 

Second, it sounds like Barnes is a proponent of police in schools. In fact, Barnes was at one time a history teacher, and talking to the school resource officer at his school at the time played a role in his decision to enter policing. School resource officers were removed from Seattle Public Schools in 2020 in response to the George Floyd protests. 

Third, Erica Barnett of PubliCola found a 2022 article from Madison about its disparity of arrests: “Less than 7% of Madison’s population is African-American, but Blacks made up 47 percent of those arrested during the first quarter of this year.”

In other news, the CARE alternative response expansion is running behind schedule. Originally CARE was supposed to be covering the entire city by the end of the year. Now it sounds like they won’t be covering that much area until the end of June.

There is more news in the case of SPD Officer Kevin Dave, thanks to The Stranger: “On Wednesday, Seattle Police Officer Kevin Dave admitted to driving negligently when he struck and killed 23-year-old college student Jaahnavi Kandula in a crosswalk last year. In exchange for Dave admitting to the citation, agreeing to pay a $5,000 fine, and attending driving school, the Seattle City Attorney’s Office (CAO) asked the court to waive a 90-day license suspension for Dave.”

The Office of the Inspector General released an audit this week of “Disciplinary Determinations for SPD Sworn Personnel.” PubliCola reported it found that the majority of the time, officers receiving discipline have punishments at the minimum or below of recommended punishment, due to Diaz’s decisions. The same finding was in the 2021 audit, meaning previous Chiefs leaned in a similar direction discipline-wise. It will be interesting to see if Shon Barnes bucks the trend in this regard. PubliCola reports: “The audit also found that there is still a massive backlog of 106 officer appeals awaiting arbitration, with most of those (82) still unresolved since the 2021 audit.”

Washington State News:

Governor Jay Inslee is going out with a bang by proposing a state wealth tax, a 1% annual tax on worldwide wealth of more than $100 million. Just to be clear, anyone who has more than $100 million is very, VERY rich. He is also proposing to raise taxes on businesses, with a temporary 20% tax increase on about 20,000 businesses with high revenues, followed by a 10% across-the-board business tax increase. 

Here is a flavor of the arguments in favor of the wealth tax and against the wealth tax. I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about this in 2025. 

Inslee’s budget also includes $5.5 million for additional security for Seattle during the World Cup in June of 2026.

Recent Headlines:

“Prince” Diaz out, Barnes in, and the outgoing governor wants to tax the rich Read More »

What would Seattle do without JumpStart?

/

Seattle News:

Budget Chair Dan Strauss released his balancing package for the 2025-2026 City budget this week (presentation here). This new budget proposal actually increases the amount of JumpStart dollars moved from JumpStart spending priorities to the General Fund, which now clocks in at a gobsmacking $305 million. 

As The Stranger reports: “Strauss’s balancing package proposed two new tiny shelter villages, additional funding to the storefront repair program, four new 911 dispatchers, another $10 million for the Seattle Police Department (SPD), Council Member Rob Saka’s goofy proviso to remove the traffic barrier on he compared to former President Donald Trump’s border wall, and much more.”

You can read more about Saka’s plan to remove a traffic calming measure right next to a preschool here. Not only is the amount he put under proviso for this project a stunning $2 million, but at the budget meeting, Strauss announced that Saka had told him this self-serving measure that will actually decrease safety for those in the neighborhood was his top priority for the budget. You can’t make this stuff up.

You can read my op-ed at The Urbanist about the Mayor’s proposed JumpStart legislation that would remove the guardrails on JumpStart tax revenue spending, permanently siphoning it into the General Fund as needed. The proposed legislation also gets rid of the JumpStart oversight board that was meant to provide much needed oversight and transparency to the expenditures of this major source of progressive revenue for the City. Unsurprisingly, I argue that these are both poor ideas. 

Before we get to this week’s SPD drama, some Seattle Municipal Court news: the ACLU of Washington is suing the Seattle City Attorney over their blanket policy to file affidavits of prejudice against sitting Judge Pooja Vaddadi for all criminal cases. The ACLU states: “The city attorney’s actions go beyond a mere impediment to functionality – the city attorney has effectively removed a sitting judge from the bench.”

On Monday, former SPD Chief Adrian Diaz and SPD Communications Director Jamie Tompkins were placed on paid administrative leave. Diaz is still receiving his annual “chief’s” salary of $339,000, and KIRO reports he hasn’t been seen at Police Headquarters in weeks. 

KUOW reported Diaz was placed on leave for allegedly lying during an investigation. The investigation in question was conducted by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) around a complaint that Diaz had hired a romantic partner to a top-level position at SPD, assumedly Tompkins. KIRO reported Diaz also potentially violated department policy.

Diaz responded by filing a $10 million tort claim against the city, Mayor Bruce Harrell, and Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess. The claim alleges Diaz was discriminated and retaliated against, as well as harassed, when he expressed his sexual orientation to Harrell and Burgess, and also alleges Diaz refused to commit an “illegal act.”

Regarding that illegal act, The Seattle Times reports: “While he was chief, Diaz was also directed to take actions he believed would violate police officers’ due process rights and other regulations, Downs said, declining to share specifics.”

In other news, PubliCola reports that SPD officers have a demonstrated pattern of speeding, even when they’re not responding to high level emergency calls: “The data shows that SPD officers regularly drive at speeds higher than 80 mph and sometimes even over 90 mph, on streets with speed limits between 25 and 30 mph. Officers consistently drive well over 70 mph on perennially dangerous streets such as Aurora Ave. (which accounts for 20% of Seattle’s traffic fatalities) and Martin Luther King Jr. Way S, where the SPD dataset showed at least 270 instances of speeds exceeding 70 mph.”

One noteworthy example is former SPD officer Daniel Auderer, who made international headlines when he was recorded mocking the death of pedestrian Jaahnavi Kandula. On the night he went to assess whether Kevin Dave, the officer who hit and killed Kandula, had been driving impaired, he was driving consistently at 90mph and sometimes over 100mph. This was not, of course, in response to an emergency call. 

King County News:

King County’s 100 Days of Action against gun violence is officially over as of October 18. Gun lockboxes are still in the process of being distributed, with several events planned for November. Next, the Regional Office of Gun Violence Prevention will develop a five-year plan.

Recent Headlines:

 

What would Seattle do without JumpStart? Read More »