(The Center Square) – Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is moving ahead with a plan to reduce gun violence while at the same time showing that she is in charge by skirting a City Council resolution offering a different approach to the problem.
Wilson’s plan puts the city’s Community Assisted Response and Engagement Department, which runs the Seattle 911 Communications Centers and provides crisis services to people in distress, in charge of stopping gun violence.
Wilson said community violence intervention workers will be part of the city’s emergency response system, acting in conjunction with law enforcement officials.
Other parts of the plan include increased police bike patrols and reviews of homicides to identify prevention failures and prevent future homicides.
The City Council’s plan, which would have involved executing a more than $400,000 contract with the National Network for Safe Communities to identify violent offenders and offer intervention such as counseling, would have needed the mayor’s approval.
Under the council plan, arrests would be made if those known to participate in gun violence did not change their behavior.
The council approved its plan on Tuesday by a 7-2 vote, on the same day Wilson announced her violent intervention plan.
“Seattle will not accept gun violence as inevitable, and neither will I,” said Wilson. “We have a responsibility to make sure that communities in this city feel safe, and today I am acting on that responsibility with a coordinated, data-driven plan that brings every tool we have to bear on this problem. We are acting together, and we are acting now to respond to gun violence and prevent it before it happens.”
City Councilmember Maritza Rivera, who sponsored the council legislation, argued that the Wilson administration’s proposal largely repackages existing programs from previous mayors rather than introducing a truly transformative framework.
“I’m not seeing anything new here,” said Rivera in a statement on the Wilson plan. “And I’m certainly not seeing a plan for focused deterrence. Let’s be clear, the mayor is getting pushback from activists who oppose any police involvement, but we know that making meaningful progress on public safety requires working with law enforcement.”
Wilson has characterized Rivera and other council members’ efforts on gun violence as “grandstanding and politicking.”
Wilson’s violence prevention plan comes as the mayor’s overall public safety plan has come under criticism.
Wilson pressured former Police Chief Shon Barnes to resign after the July 26 shooting at the Bite of Seattle food festival that left three dead.
Council members, including Rivera, questioned why Wilson was firing the chief when police statistics showed crime was going down.
A nearly five-hour delay in the holding of a press conference to let the public know that the area by the Seattle Center was safe after the shooting had also led to questions about whether Wilson was ineffective in addressing public safety issues.
Seattle Police Officers Guild President Kent Loux was critical of Wilson’s plan in an interview with The Center Square.
“Your reaction to gun violence is an unarmed response?” said Loux. “That seems like a miss to me. I’m not sure that is going to have the impact that you want.”
“What you need is you need officers that can go out and find people that are illegally carrying guns. That are involved in gangs and such like that and put these people away,” he added.
“If you want to have your prevention and you want to get into the youth, that’s great. But that is something that would pay off years down the road.”
“In the meantime, you want immediate results….tells cops to be cops,” he concluded.
Ultimately, Wilson will need the city council’s cooperation to implement parts of her plan, including a new Director and Coordinator of Gun Violence Reduction who will oversee and support the Gun Violence Plan at CARE.
Other parts of the plan are being implemented immediately, such as increased bike patrols and reorganized responses to violent incidents coordinated by the Community Assisted Response and Engagement Department, mayoral spokesman Alex Hudson said.
The Wilson plan also includes reassigning violence intervention programs, representing around $5 million annually in contracts across nine community organizations, from the Human Services Department to the Community Assisted Response and Engagement Department.
Those parts of the plan would take effect in 2027 and would be part of the budget approvals needed by the city council.
Wilson said the $5 million will be used for on-the-ground teams that help calm conflicts, support neighborhoods where shootings happen, including along school routes, and assist with recovery after violent incidents.
Mayor spokesperson Alex Hudson said in a statement to The Center Square that while the mayor is not ready to commit to additional contracts outlined in the City Council resolution, she remains committed to working with the Council to advance the shared goal of reducing gun violence in Seattle.
Reporter Carleen Johnson contributed to this report.