(The Center Square) – Angry Seattle City Council members questioned Tuesday why Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson doesn’t have an answer as to why it took five hours to hold a press conference after the Seattle Center shooting that left three dead and four injured.
Wilson announced Tuesday morning in a press release that she had asked the city’s Office of Inspector General to conduct a review, but that review won’t be completed until late September.
The outrage by council members is the latest turn in the controversy over why there was no comprehensive communication for more than five hours after the 6 p.m. shooting at the Bite of Seattle food festival on July 26.
The aftermath of the shooting led to Wilson demanding the resignation of former Police Chief Shon Barnes, who resigned after just 18 months in office.
Wilson had admitted to making mistakes in the communications on July 26, but has insisted a comprehensive review is needed.
The police department stated in a social media post at 6:30 p.m. on July 26 that there had been a shooting of multiple persons, and Wilson posted several hours later a post that falsely stated that there had been two arrests, when there had been only one.
But the public had to wait until an 11 p.m. press conference to know that the incident was part of a gunfire between gangs and that a mass gunman randomly killing people wasn’t on the loose.
Council members said at a meeting of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee that an OIG report wasn’t needed to find out why communications failures occurred after the food festival shooting.
“But we could answer these questions today,” Councilmember Dan Strauss told Alison Holcomb, executive operations manager for public safety in the mayor’s office.
“I’m sorry,” responded Holcomb.
Strauss continued. “Well, I mean it doesn’t take an OIG investigation to be able to answer these questions today.”
Strauss said the mayor’s office should be able to offer immediate details of what went wrong.
Holcomb said that was impossible.
“There were dozens of people texting and calling each other with lots of information that evening,” she said.
Holcomb said the mayor didn’t want to give the city council a “knee-jerk reaction.”
“We would be rushing to judgment about what really happened, what the facts were,” she said.
Strauss then questioned the mayor’s lack of information on a variety of issues since taking over in January, including her demand for Barnes’ resignation.
Councilmember Debora Juarez joined Strauss in demanding Wilson and her office provide immediate answers, while Public Safety Committee Chairman Bob Kettle and Councilmember Rob Saka continued to criticize the mayor and her response.
Wilson in her statement said she was committed to letting Seattle residents know what happened on July 26.
“The people of Seattle deserve timely, accurate information after major public safety events, and I want to understand clearly how the process can be improved,” Wilson said.
“The Inspector General’s office is the right entity to conduct this review, and I am directing every department to give them full cooperation.”
Wilson has asked the city’s OIC to conduct a review of why it took five hours to hold a press conference after the Seattle Center shooting the timeline of public communications following the shooting, identify any delays and their causes, and recommend improvements to coordination and communication protocols during future critical incidents, according to the release.