(The Center Square) – It’s been a week and a half since Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson unveiled her gun violence prevention plan and pressure is mounting on the office to explain a potential misrepresentation of support for the plan when it was released to the media.
Mayor Wilson released the plan Sept. 15, following the Bite of Seattle mass shooting and other summer violence, which led to the police chief being forced to resign and prompted members of the Seattle City Council to pass their own violence prevention plan.
Several prominent business leaders, including from Microsoft, Starbucks, Costco, and Alaska Airlines, also called on the mayor to take public safety more seriously. Among their demands was a time-bound, measurable plan with benchmarks to address crime and homelessness.
The business group also asked for coordinated strategies between police and the city attorney’s office to crack down on open-air drug markets, and restore and expand CCTV cameras in high crime areas.
Wilson’s plan puts the city’s Community Assisted Response and Engagement Department (CARE), which runs the Seattle 911 Communications Centers and provides crisis services to people in distress, in charge of responding to gun violence.
Wilson said the community violence intervention workers will be part of the city’s emergency response system, acting in conjunction with law enforcement officials.
CARE team members are social workers, and Seattle Police Guild President Kent Loux questioned whether that makes sense.
“Your reaction to gun violence is an unarmed response?” he said in an interview with The Center Square. “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 put these people away.”
King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office Communications Director Casey McNerthney told KIRO radio the office was not given a full copy of Wilson’s plan before its rollout, and Prosecuting Attorney Leesa Manion and her staff reported they first learned about it by watching the announcement on television.
Wilson’s office issued a statement to The Center Square saying they are working hard to communicate the plan.
“Mayor Wilson and her team are in constant, continuous communication and collaboration with stakeholders on the issue of gun violence,” wrote Alex Hudson, who is interim communications director for Wilson’s office. “The gun violence plan released last week is shaped by and a reflection of many conversations, listening sessions, strategy meetings, and best practices. And, it is the start, not the end, of the work to prevent violence from occurring and to hold accountability when it does.
“We regret that in the Mayor’s urgency to take forward action on reducing gun violence we were not able to reach everyone impacted by the issue,” the statement continued. “Implementation will take all of us, working collaboratively, and staying focused on what matters most – safer outcomes for everyone in Seattle. People who want to engage with us on implementation are welcome and invited to reach out.”
Seattle City Councilman Bob Kettle, who chairs the council’s Public Safety Committee, told The Center Square he also has concerns about the mayor’s gun violence prevention plan.
“I’ve reviewed the mayor’s plan….there’s a little bit of a divide here, and it comes down to the role of SPD and gun violence,” he said. “For me personally, it has to be balanced where you have SPD participating along with the community outreach groups and then kind of the oversight, which will now be with the CARE department and working together with community.
“I think looking at the mayor’s plan, they’re leaning more on the engagement outreach piece and maybe not as much with ensuring what SPD is doing,” Kettle added. “This is why we have to have officers engaged. Having that balanced approach with SPD there as well, I think we can get there.”
Kettle says making sure cameras are turned on in high crime areas – something Mayor Wilson says she’s waiting to make a final decision on until a report is returned to her office on camera impacts – would be extremely helpful.
“Like when the shooting at Rainier Beach at the bus stop [happened] in January, it was the fact it was caught on camera,” he said. “You know, when the cameras catch this gun violence, it helps in resolving it. And then it also sends a message to the community as well. And this is a challenge that we have because we haven’t hooked the CCTV cameras in near Garfield, like as called for by legislation….these things need to be in place as well.
Amy Barden, who heads up the Seattle CARE teams, told The Center Square she is also concerned about the need to balance reaching young people to prevent gang activity and holding criminals accountable.
“They’ve grown up in this environment,” she said. “They might choose something else if there was a safe way to do so.”
Barden, who has spent a lot of time working with children in foster care, said the law enforcement side and holding people accountable has to be part of making a dent in the city’s crime problem.
“We actually have stripped a lot of accountabilities and a lot of our opportunity to intervene out of the system,” Barden said. “We need to acknowledge law enforcement’s role, but also there has to be a legal and policy environment where they know what to do.
“We don’t want you to ever do this again,” she added. “And how are we going to change the way that you think. In a lot of our blue cities like Seattle, we do think it’s all about therapy. No, it’s not. I do not believe in doing what does not work.”