What Should Seattle Do to Stop the Bleeding?

[00:00:10] Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Seattle Nice, the only podcast that tells you what's really happening in Seattle politics. I'm David Hyde with Erica C. Barnett of Publicola. Erica, how are you doing this fine Sunday morning? It's pretty dreary, but I am hanging in there.

[00:00:36] It is. Fall is here, Sandeep Kaushik of Kaushik and Company. Yeah, yeah. Is there a company? I didn't know that. But yes, fall is here. It's kind of dreary. I'm not to divert the conversation, but I've been having a super busy week. I got to say because I had my long-awaited, at least by me, piece about the Seattle schools finally came out about a week ago.

[00:01:02] And there's been a lot of reaction to it that I've been kind of dealing with. But in case people are interested and haven't seen it, it's called The Decade of Decline in Seattle Public Schools. And it's at educationprogress.org. And you can hear me bloviate for 8,000 or read me bloviate for 8,000 words about what I think went wrong over the last decade in Seattle. But anyway, if you're interested. Wow. A rare plug on Seattle Nice.

[00:01:32] Yeah. All right. I did work on the goddamn thing for six months. I want people to read it. Yeah. And that's why it's not on Post Alley. Don't worry, Eric. It is going up on Post Alley. Ooh, a Post Alley dig. All right. All right. Today, we're talking about public safety. We've had multiple shootings over the summer into September.

[00:01:59] Pressure on the mayor to try to step up and do more to stop the violence. A letter signed by Mucky Mucks at big corporations like Microsoft and Costco and Alaska Airlines calling for public safety improvements. A poll commissioned by the Chamber of Commerce that showed some frustration about public safety. Some members of the city council questioning the mayor's decision to fire the chief of police. We've been talking about that ad nauseum.

[00:02:26] And more recently, a proposal by city council member Maritza Rivera calling for something called focused deterrence. And we're going to get into that in some more detail in a minute. But, Erica, first, you wanted to start off by talking a little bit about all of this press coverage. You feel like the media, super fair to Bruce Harrell, unfair now to Katie Wilson. Now, I didn't say anything about Bruce Harrell.

[00:02:50] But I do think that, you know, when we when we had, you know, essentially a largely absentee mayor, they were nowhere to be seen. And I've written about, you know, his travel. And I've just kind of been thinking about that in in recent weeks as the media has really been hammering Katie Wilson. I mean, just kind of continuously about the fact that she fired the police chief, something she has every right to do. Bob Kettle, city council member, keeps putting out press release after press release.

[00:03:19] And every single time, you know, the Seattle Times dutifully serves as stenographer and says, I mean, they had a headline that was like, Bob Kettle still says that Katie Wilson needs to explain more about why she fired the police chief. Cairo Radio, Sandeep, your friends, Spike and Mike or whatever their names are going off. Jake and Jake and Spike. OK.

[00:03:43] Anyway, going off on almost a daily basis, you know, I just complaining that the mayor is to blame for everything. Gee and Scott also on Cairo, you know, just day after day hammering away in what I think is a really unfair way at the mayor. And I'll just I'll just, you know, go to your the stats you are citing or the the examples you are citing, David, of people just complaining and complaining about public safety.

[00:04:11] There is a story in the Seattle Times this morning as we are recording this about how crime is down downtown in the area where, you know, a lot of these muckety mucks and businesses are located. And I mean, dramatically down and we can get into some more of the citywide stats, you know, in a minute. But I mean, you know, Seattle crime is crime is down in Seattle. Violent crime is down in Seattle. We do still have shootings. We are city shootings in cities do not tend to go to zero, but they are quite low in Seattle.

[00:04:41] But kind of despite that, yeah, I mean, there's just been this like this endless drumbeat of, you know, it's incredibly dangerous in Seattle. Katie Wilson is to blame. And it's just like, man, I don't know. Like, are people getting tired of this? It just it feels it feels like if I was a regular media consumer, I would wonder why they're hammering away at the mayor so much.

[00:05:03] I mean, look, progressive media is unfair to more centrist mayors and less progressive media is more unfair to progressive mayors is all I would say. What progressive media? What do you think? Public only? Really? You just mentioned the Seattle Times having an article about how there is no crime, but OK. Or the stranger or whatever. Right. Yeah. I mean, I guess I don't think I would just agree that progressive media was unfair. I used to work at KUOW. I would lump them in with more progressive media. But yeah, no shit.

[00:05:33] Well, I mean, KUOWs were on some pretty inaccurate coverage of the bite of Seattle shootings and the and who's who was to blame for the communications failures. But anyway. But anyway, to weigh in on the media coverage here, I think there are several different threads here to unpack. For one thing, I think I'm pretty much in agreement with Erica that when it comes to the bite of Seattle aftermath, like that shit has just been flogged to death.

[00:06:02] Like I'm just tired of hearing more about the bite of Seattle and what happened at 942. And like, you know, we get it right. The mayor fucked up. SVD fucked up. They fucked up. That shit up. Like that's I've you know, everybody's processed that. Right. Like like. And so we don't need to like like like keep going down that that rat hole. I don't think. I don't think. Just to just to just to hold you up on that point for one second, Sandeep. So there was a little bit more news.

[00:06:30] And since the press had been covering it forever, this letter has been released this week. So the media kind of had to cover that at some point. Right. Explaining a little bit about like why she fired chief Sean Barnes. And that takes us back to the bite of Seattle a little bit. No. I mean, it's sort of not. I didn't cover it. I didn't think it was that newsworthy. We cannot cover things. Well, I know this is where I'm going to disagree with Erica, because I actually think put the bite of Seattle stuff aside.

[00:06:59] I'm I'm you know, for what it's worth, I'm bored. I don't care anymore about the bite of Seattle. I'm done with it. But I don't think that that is the entirety of the kind of concern and media coverage we're seeing around public safety in Seattle right now. I think there is a significant public frustration. There have been high profile shootings that weekend in Belltown. What was it? Six people got shot. Three people were killed. That's pretty terrible.

[00:07:29] You know, obviously, there's a persistent concern about street disorder that's ongoing in in various parts of the city. So when you have, you know, the major employers and the big companies writing a letter and it was they were less carping about the bite of Seattle and more saying, hey, mayor, what's your public safety plan? What's your approach here? What's what are you going to do? And calling on her. Obviously, we've talked about the cameras issue.

[00:07:58] That was part of their letter. And they want to see more robust action on drug markets. Right. You know, open air drug markets. So those are legitimate issues for us to talk about. This seems so tired, though. I mean, that's that's that's literally what what they always say. I mean, sorry. I mean, just to interrupt for a second. What's your public safety plan? They know she's coming out with one next week. That's why they released this information.

[00:08:23] And, you know, in this letter and these complaints now, I mean, she has said in advance, I'm coming out with a public safety plan next week. And so for the media to sort of dutifully all cover these complaints from businesses and there's no public safety plan.

[00:08:38] Why doesn't she have a public safety plan without sort of even acknowledging that she has publicly announced that she is going to have a public safety plan next week that people will be able to critique then and say it's good or bad or not enough or goes too far. I mean, it just it just feels like, you know, there is a blatant political play and everybody falls for it because it's the narrative that the media want to project, which is that Katie Wilson is incompetent. She hasn't done anything. She doesn't have any plan.

[00:09:06] And, you know, I mean, it just it feels it feels like the media is being deliberately gullible to these narratives that businesses are putting out there. And you mean by media, you mostly mean TV news, which if you look at the politics of TV news, doesn't really reflect where most people in Seattle vote. Right. You're not talking about The Seattle Times, K.O.W., Publicola or The Stranger. You're talking about like Como and Cairo and that and and then that kind of thing. Right.

[00:09:33] No, I mean, the main ones I had mentioned before were The Seattle Times and Cairo Radio. Sure. I mean, yeah, TV media absolutely as well.

[00:09:40] But I mean, no, I mean, Publicola, which I run, I'm not going to like I mean, yes, I didn't like I said, I didn't cover the letter that Katie Wilson wrote about why she fired the police chief, because that letter was essentially in response to Bob Kettle carping and carping and carping about the bite of Seattle and essentially saying that she has no right to fire the police chief. Her letter said, by the way, I have the right to fire the police chief.

[00:10:07] And and yeah, I mean, I think that for the media didn't say, oh, my God, didn't it say? Yeah. Well, just just for clarification, didn't it say you have to notify the council again, bureaucratic, somewhat uninteresting to most people, including me. But isn't wasn't that what it was about? Hey, Seattle. Nice listeners. Seattle politics got you low.

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[00:11:05] That's Ikes dot com. Yeah, what Bob is what Bob is carping about is that he says that, you know, the letter of the law in Seattle is that the mayor is supposed to give the council a clear explanation of when they make a decision like removing a police chief. And that he doesn't think Katie has done so. Right. So that's what.

[00:11:34] But but but anyway, that that is kind of kind of down in the weeds and gets into the sort of council mayor dynamic that's been going on and that we've been talking about in public hola. But I think the larger issue here for me is I hear you, Erica, that that Katie's coming out with a public safety plan. And then next week we're supposed to hear, you know, more about where she is on focused deterrence. And we're going to talk about that in a little bit. But my fundamental thing is I don't quite know where Katie Wilson is on public safety right now.

[00:12:03] Like, I can't quite tell. She's a bit of a blur for me. Like, obviously, she came in as a kind of socialist lefty mayor. She has a track record dating back into that kind of 2020 era of being on board with what I would say was some of the dumb, radical, chic, performative shit that that progressives got on board with. She's back to her credit, backed away from a bunch of that stuff. Literally before before she was elected. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:31] We had her on the pod right after she wrote that that very interesting piece in The Stranger before she announced her mayor. And by interesting, I mean, and smart and good piece, I thought, that she wrote in The Stranger. It deserves a lot of credit for being thoughtful and thinking about how progressive should address public safety. And I want to credit her for that piece. But I still don't quite get it, right? Even in that interview, like back that was in like January, February of 2025 when she came on with us.

[00:12:58] At the end of it, I was kind of like, how much do I agree with her? Do we agree or disagree? I don't quite know, right? Like, and so I'm waiting to hear more from her too about like, spell it out for me, Katie. Like, where are you at? What's your guiding approach here? Like, obviously some lefties are kind of mad at her because they don't think she's like full on lefty on public safety. And I agree she's not to her credit. But I don't quite know where she's ended up, right? Like, so.

[00:13:28] And I got to say, like, I'm concerned that next week what we're going to get isn't really a plan. It's going to be like, we're going to study this, that or the other thing. Like, you know, are we going to get a plan or are we going to get a plan to study the issue? Erica? You know, I think that some of this criticism, like, okay, what I had started to say was, Sandy, I don't really understand what you mean when you say where is she on public safety? There are certain levers a mayor can pull on public safety.

[00:13:51] I mean, getting out of sort of the air where, you know, there's like a lefty idea of public safety and there's a conservative idea of public safety coming down to what a mayor can actually do. She can, you know, support and try to hire more cops. Well, they're doing that to the extent that they are able to. Now, they have slowed down hiring, I have heard, because of the budget reality that the city is facing with, you know, $200 million potential budget deficit. Okay, so that's one thing she can do.

[00:14:20] She can direct cops to go to certain areas of town where there are issues. She has done that. You know, she can turn on surveillance cameras or not turn on surveillance cameras, an issue that has come up, you know, and we've talked about repeatedly. Whether that influences public safety, I think is a big question. I don't think it does. But, you know, that's one lever she can pull.

[00:14:45] There, you know, and so when people are demanding a public safety plan, I really question whether that is a legitimate question where they're like, I want to see these five things done and the mayor is not doing them, or if it's a political critique saying, you know, we sort of don't know in this high up in the air sense, you know, whether the mayor is more conservative or more lefty, just to kind of overgeneralize.

[00:15:13] And so I feel like a lot of these critiques, and especially coming before she is, you know, going to introduce something that Sandeep is probably not going to satisfy you because you're right. It's probably going to be like, let's find out before we start implementing focused deterrence if it is the case that the small number of, you know, of gun tragedies that we do have in the city every year are committed by a group of people that know each other because that's what focused deterrence is for.

[00:15:42] So let's find, let's figure that out. Or maybe we already know that. But let's figure that out, figure out how we would implement that and go do it. I mean, but I just, I don't think that that whatever she comes out with, yeah, it's probably not going to satisfy you, Sandeep, because it's not going to be, you know, we need to crush crime or, you know, we need to be soft on crime, whatever. I mean, where it's conclusively one way or the other.

[00:16:10] You know, I think it is going to be studies and things like that. So let's get into this. We've got a proposal by city council member Maritza Rivera to fund a program called Focus Deterrence. And I'll just mention that Sandeep and I had a chance to interview criminologist David Kennedy about this.

[00:16:33] And part of the idea is based on the fact that a teeny, teeny percentage of any given city's population, something like less than 1%, ends up committing the vast majority of homicides. And so that's a fact that pretty much there's a consensus among criminologists that that's true. And also that Focus Deterrence in some fashion is or can be effective at addressing violence if you want to do it quickly.

[00:16:59] And Maritza Rivera then introduces legislation to start to fund a pilot program by David Kennedy. And the response to that by Katie Wilson is to basically say, stop the grandstanding. As opposed to, hey, you know what? I'm also into Focus Deterrence, Maritza Rivera. Let's talk about this legislation. Let's move forward.

[00:17:24] Instead, she picks a fight with the city council when she herself supports some version, she claims, of Focus Deterrence. And I feel like, once again, we have this mayor kind of creating an unnecessarily toxic relationship with the city council that she needs to work with for no good reason. And the mayor is saying, effectively, like, we need more time to kind of study the problem rather than spend the money on this particular program.

[00:17:49] That might be right, but I don't really get her using the word grandstanding to describe introduction of legislation. It's perfectly within a city council member's right as a city council member to introduce whatever legislation they want. So, Erica, what do you think? Well, I mean, Maritza Rivera's legislation is, I mean, categorically grandstanding.

[00:18:09] She, I mean, if you watch the meeting, she has repeatedly said that if Katie Wilson does not adopt her legislation to spend $418,000 on this specific group called the National Network for Safe Communities, then she is abandoning the city to, you know, to gun violence and doesn't care about the issue. And, I mean, it was definitional grandstanding. And you can read Publicola's actual coverage of this meeting to see why Katie Wilson responded that way.

[00:18:37] Now, obviously, you guys sort of don't trust Katie Wilson on public safety. I will say that— So, can we just talk about the grandstanding piece of it before you move on? Because you're telling me it's not grandstanding. And to me, grandstanding would just be showy actions with no intent to solve any problem. And introducing legislation is not grandstanding. It is. It is, in fact. I mean, OK, fine. If we want to get stuck on that point.

[00:19:02] I mean, it is, in fact, grandstanding to direct an order—I mean, it's a resolution that says that in the budget, the mayor shall spend $418,000 on a handpicked by Marissa Rivera no-bid contract for this group. And I will get into in a second, if we get off this point, that, you know, the reasons why this particular group is perhaps not the best one even for focused deterrence at this point.

[00:19:29] But if I can talk about the—you know, you're saying that focused deterrence works in every city and it's the most effective. I mean, I'm sure David Kennedy says that. That's not what I said. OK. Davina Briscoe, who was the public safety gun violence advisor to Bruce Harrell, wrote a letter to the city council in response to this proposal saying,

[00:19:52] look, I have studied this a lot and we need to not put the cart before the horse with forced deterrence. We need to first figure out, is this the right strategy for Seattle? Because, I mean, it is not the case that across the board in every single city, you can identify 10 people and focus on them or 20 people or 100 people. You have to determine, is that true in Seattle and who are the people?

[00:20:19] And then say, you know, if we are going to apply focused deterrence, who is it going to apply to? How are we going to apply it? Who says we have to do that, criminologists or activists? I don't know what you mean by activists. But in any case, I mean, this is, you know, the gun violence advocate for Bruce Harrell, who worked for the city of Seattle, saying like, look, we need to be deliberate about this instead of just saying we have to give all this money.

[00:20:46] I mean, it's a very large contract in a budget deficit, half a million dollars almost to this one particular organization. And, you know, I would encourage people to read this letter. I'll publish it on Publicola. But it's, you know, it's important to just sort of look at the context instead of just saying like, well, David Kennedy says this is this is true. And therefore, we should give David Kennedy's group money. I mean, I think that that's a little bit of a circular argument.

[00:21:15] That is not what I said. I said that there's a there's a consensus around the idea that a teeny percentage of people commit the vast majority of homicides and that some sort of targeted approach is effective and that his approach has been shown to be more effective than any other approach. So I guess flipping the question, what's a better approach than focus deterrence is one that we maybe should ask later. But OK, so I find this debate really, really interesting. And I think it's actually substantive.

[00:21:44] Like there is a interestingly, there is a debate that has developed around focus deterrence. So let me refer people and I think we should put this in the show notes. There's a really good article from a couple of years ago from Vital City. Vital City is a very well-respected urban policy ideas, you know, think tank in New York City. They mostly focus on New York City policy founded by Liz Glazer, who is Bill de Blasio. So very progressive mayor's public safety advisor.

[00:22:13] But it's a good piece that goes through kind of why focus deterrence has become, you know, what the what the debate is around it. And but just to very quickly summarize, David Kennedy is the guy who actually developed the idea in the mid 90s, right? He's this criminologist at John Jay College and then applied it in places like Boston and stuff like that with results. And there's a big body of evidence that shows that while it doesn't work everywhere and all

[00:22:41] the time or forever, that it does produce good results. And so he's sort of the the the focus deterrence guy. Right. But about 10 years ago, some more progressive people in this space have sort of challenged both the idea of Kennedy's idea of focus deterrence itself, largely because it integrates

[00:23:05] police usage, along with social service interventions and community interventions. It's those three parts of the stool, the community, the social service agencies and the cops working in tandem together to actually intervene with this small group of people that they have identified and to tell them, we want you to get out of the life, the gang life, the drug crew life, the whatever it is that's sort of fueling the beefs on the street that lead to the violence. And if you do that, we will help you.

[00:23:35] We will help you get a job. We will get you drug treatment. We will do everything we can to make your life better if you go in a different direction. But if you don't, we know who you are and the cops are going to bust your ass. Right. That's the basic idea that that that they use for focus deterrence. So there's been this criticism of kind of, yes, it's too police heavy. It's too much about the carceral state, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:23:59] And the alternate strategy that I think we've been using in Seattle has been one that focuses on violence interruption. Right. And it's the idea that you get people, former gang folks and people who have been in that life to become kind of ambassadors to the community to try to do that. And the vital city piece is really interesting because it's there like we need to do both. Right. Like both of these things work. So anyway, that's just sort of the baseline of what we're arguing about. Right. That's that's super helpful.

[00:24:29] I you know, and I and I guess I will say that, you know, in Seattle, lead is asking for the mayor to actually do some analysis to figure out if this is the case here in Seattle. If we have a situation in Seattle where focus deterrence would be an effective strategy. And as Sandeep said, you know, integrating. I mean, I don't think anybody in Seattle and maybe I'm wrong, but I'm saying in 2026, not

[00:24:55] in the 90s, not 10 years ago, I don't think anyone in Seattle is currently saying that the police should not be involved. Lead certainly isn't saying that. Davita Briscoe, the former gun violence advisor to Bruce Harrell, is not saying that. But they're saying, how do we integrate all these things? And is focus deterrence a part of that? Or would that be, you know, essentially a waste of money? Because if that is if the if the conditions do not pertain here that, you know, make focus

[00:25:22] deterrence an effective strategy, then it would be a waste of money. And they're also saying, look, we have offers of free assistance from John Hopkins. So why spend four hundred eighteen thousand dollars on a contract with this specific group that Maritza Rivera has identified? Why not just do a little analysis before we throw money at this? I don't necessarily disagree with that. I never have.

[00:25:47] But if you look at what Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is doing, Boston is actually the city that was kind of the test case for focus deterrence in the first place back in the 90s and where they had a lot of success, but her model in Boston is, in fact, more of a hybrid model that includes more of this kind of progressive approach. So I'm hopeful that, you know, that's the kind of thing that, you know, Mayor Wilson is going to be looking into and maybe she will will.

[00:26:13] But, you know, again, I think like referring to Maritza's legislation as just grandstanding to me is the wrong approach politically to try to bring the city together around an approach to public safety. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me to to further kind of toxify that relationship. And also, I respect this mayor. I came in really wanting her to be the kind of mayor who pursued her like more compassionate

[00:26:43] socialist agenda and actually got some shit done. So I'm still hopeful that that's what we're going to get. But I also think that, you know, what we've seen from this mayor, what we've talked a lot about on this podcast is that she'll there's a tendency to study things to death or sort of talk about things to death and not make decisions. And so, yes, we should try to figure stuff out based on like what criminologists actually tell us. And I think the consensus of criminologists as opposed to handpicked criminologists tell us is maybe the best approach.

[00:27:13] At least that's what I'd like to see. But I also think there's a risk here of a kind of analysis paralysis on the part of this mayor. And so, you know, let's hope that we don't study it to death or study it away, you know, where we're basically studying it to the point where we don't actually pursue it and pursue kind of more of progressive status quo approaches, which haven't been that successful. Well, I think that, again, I mean, it is LEED, an organization that we've had on the podcast

[00:27:40] a number of times that is saying that we need to do this analysis. That is not the mayor's office saying, I want analysis paralysis. And I would really encourage people, if you have time to go watch the meeting where Maritza Rivera grandstanded quite at great length about the mayor and made quite a few accusations about the mayor. And, you know, and compare that to one offhand comment on KUOW.

[00:28:06] I think that to say that the mayor created this toxicity really defies the fact or, you know, just sort of ignores the fact that Maritza Rivera introduced this legislation, which is quite confrontational to find this one group. And I do want to say about the NNSC. I mean, first of all, crime trends have been down in cities across the country for a lot of reasons post-pandemic.

[00:28:33] But one of the cities that Rivera pointed to, both in her meeting and on KUOW, was Baltimore. And Baltimore had two rounds of efforts at focus deterrence with the NNSC, the group that Maritza Rivera wants the city to contract with, and they both failed. And they later went on more recently and did focus deterrence, a type of focus deterrence

[00:29:02] with another group that included the University of Pennsylvania and saw gun violence, I believe, cut in half. It's, you know, 23 per 100,000 residents now, I think. And I mean, that's quite a dramatic reduction from where it was before. I will also say, I mean, in Seattle, it's about a tenth of that. We don't even rank in the top 100 cities. So there is an extent, I mean, I understand that every single, you know, every single shooting,

[00:29:30] every single fatal shooting is a tragedy, but we are quite low on the list. We're not Baltimore. We're not Baltimore. But we're also not most cities. I mean, we are an extremely low crime city. People, you know, here don't like to acknowledge that, but it is true. Um, and so, I mean, if we're going after, you know, 20, 30, 40 shootings in a year, that's way different than, you know, hundreds and hundreds. Um, Maritza Rivera also claimed, by the way, that there were 541 fatal shootings a year.

[00:30:01] Um, in, and, and I think she perhaps misspoke, but, um, but she was, uh, vastly exaggerating by an order of 10, um, how many shootings there are. She was, she was alighting, she clearly misspoke and was alighting shots fired with, with, um, with, with, with actual fatalities related to homicides. But I mean, Erica, your original point here, crime obsessed local reporters, whether they're TV reporters or radio reporters or whatever, you're exactly right.

[00:30:28] And, and we, you know, there is a tendency to exaggerate crime, even when it's a problem. I completely agree. Yeah. And, and so I, I, look, I, David, to your earlier point, I do think we all know, and we've talked about sort of ad nauseum on the podcast, that there's been this real breakdown of kind of trust and communication and collaboration between the mayor's office and really widely across the council. This is not just like between Maritza Rivera and the mayor, but this is like the council and the mayor.

[00:30:58] And this too is kind of getting snagged and caught up in that. It seems like they ought to have been able to kind of sit down, you know, back channel and figure out like, what's our unified. If the mayor does agree, we need to try out focused deterrence. And that is what she said she wants to do. And Maritza wants to do focused deterrence. Like there needs to be a conversation here, but there seems to be this kind of lack of communication and trust that's going on.

[00:31:24] And again, I've, I've heard it from more than just Maritza on this too, right? Like that, that their justice, they don't quite know what the mayor's alternative proposal is. She hasn't really shared it with them. I guess we're going to see it next week. I'm kind of waiting to see what the mayor is going to propose to, to kind of try to come at it with an open mind and, you know, kind of judge it on its merits. But there's just something like, like, yeah, it's frustrating.

[00:31:52] What was the council's proposal though, Sandeep? Well, I mean, I mean, Maritza's made a very specific proposal and we kind of don't know what the counter is, right? Like, yeah, we're going to hear from- Do you see this as like the whole public safety proposal is spend $418,000 on this whole thing? No, no, of course not. But, but, but just since we're talking about this piece of it, right, are we going to do focused deterrence or not? The mayor said she wants to do it. You know, the council says they want to do it. Why can't we get on the same page? They shouldn't study it.

[00:32:19] I mean, that, that like, and David, that this would be analysis paralysis to like figure out if this is a good use of our money. I don't know. I mean, we, we, we have limited tax dollars. I didn't say we should, I didn't say we should necessarily do it. What I said was it's not grandstanding to introduce the legislation. It should spark dialogue. Exactly what Sandeep's saying between her and the mayor moving forward with some hybrid involving focus deterrence and more spending. Well, I mean, that's what should happen. I'm a citizen. I'm a citizen. This bullshit about grandstanding and whatever Maritza did to inspire that.

[00:32:49] I don't like any of it. I mean, you know me, I just want them to fucking get it done. And it's, I find this kind of thing, you know, I don't think it was helpful to go on KW and call it grandstanding when she's introducing legislation that might be something we should explore. But also I do. Yeah. I do think that they should study it, but I, I, I'm, I'm, I questioned because I think some people want to study it insofar as they want to reject it. And so we should also talk about some of the moves that they want to reject it. I mean, cause that's where I don't know the answer to that.

[00:33:19] I don't know the answer to that. I don't think, well, I've talked to Lisa Dugard and she certainly has not said that we want to reject this out of hand. I mean, I think that they are a very measured group that works with police. They're law enforcement assisted diversion. They're not a radical lefty group. And like, and I, and I, and I, and I don't think that they're just trying to kill. But I think what we're hearing here is that there is going back to the, the original conversation about, um, yeah, has the media like kind of flogged the bite of Seattle stuff like to

[00:33:48] death or too much or whatever. I, I do think that's been the case, but I also think there's a fundamental kind of sense of look, crime is down overall. That is true, but there's still, there, there really is pockets of the city where, you know, there's this kind of eye popping levels of sort of street disorder and issues going on. And then we do have these flare ups like what happened the other weekend in Belltown where

[00:34:15] it's kind of, you know, shocks the conscience that six people are getting shot in the space of like 24 hours. Right. Can I bring up something else? I want to bring up something else too, which is Erica, you reported that, uh, Mayor Wilson is hired Marcus Harrison Green to be the public safety advisor, new public safety advisor to public safety director, Alison Hocum. So for folks who don't know who are these folks and what kind of approach will they take to public safety?

[00:34:44] I know Alison Hocum cause we had her on all the time as somebody who was the ACLU engineer behind, uh, pot legalization, cannabis legalization back in the day. And Marcus Harrison Green is a respected journalist in town, but he has a point of view. So, so how would you characterize their approaches to public safety, Erica? Yeah. I mean, Marcus is a friend of mine. Um, he, uh, started the South Seattle Emerald, which is a publication that focuses on, you know, South Seattle, obviously, um, Southeast Seattle.

[00:35:14] And, you know, he's a progressive, uh, journalist, um, longtime columnist wrote for the Seattle Times, a stranger. Um, and he, you know, announced that he is leaving journalism, um, in the South Seattle Emerald last week. And that this is, you know, how he's going to make a difference, um, working on public safety. So he's going to be working under Alison Holcomb, who is, you know, is the mayor's basically public safety chief. So she's going to be the one kind of advising on and implementing all the stuff that we've

[00:35:44] been talking about today. Um, so, uh, yeah, I mean, I, I, I think it's a little premature to say, you know, what, um, Marcus's approach is going to be. He's going to be working for Alison. So I don't think he's going to be necessarily directing, um, policy in the way that she does. Um, but, uh, but yeah, this just got announced, um, last week and I just reported the sort of basic news on public Ola. Yeah.

[00:36:10] Marcus, it seems like a, I, I don't, I, I, I probably met Marcus in passing, but we are, we have not, we're not at all, you know, um, um, it's not someone I know personally. I wouldn't say, but, um, but it seems like a lovely person and also seems like a unusual pick. Uh, you know, it doesn't have a traditional public safety background. Right. And so, again, I think that's the sort of thing that, you know, I, it's going to be interesting to see again.

[00:36:39] I don't quite get where they're going on public safety. This is what I mean when I say, I'm not sure where the, what the mayor's views are in public safety. Marcus is somebody that was kind of associated with being pretty, you know, lefty anti-cop during that kind of like defund the sort of period when that was in the ascendancy. So where is he now? I mean, I, I, you know, I know Alison and I quite like Alison.

[00:37:07] I'm a, I'm, I'm a fan of hers, but yeah, I, I still don't quite get where they're headed on public safety. I just, I need to hear more from them about what their, what their, what their direction is. I mean, Marcus has been, um, you know, involved in, um, in gun violence prevention for sure and involved in, you know, in gun control organizations. I wouldn't say anti-cop. Um, but you know, I mean, I think that probably. Cop skeptical maybe?

[00:37:37] Like police, you know, law enforcement. I don't know. I mean, but sorta, you know what I mean, right? I mean. Well, what I was going to say is, I mean, I think that probably the reason that, I mean, one of the reasons that he was hired is to, you know, to sort of bring somebody who is from, uh, Southeast Seattle into the mayor's office and to bring that perspective to, you know, to the issue of public safety. Um, because, you know, I think the mayor has gotten, um, some criticism for sort of, and

[00:38:04] especially from Joy Hollingsworth, um, city council president for kind of having, for not having voices of community for lack of a better term, um, you know, in her, uh, in her orbit. And we should make clear that Marcus is African-American. Right. And from the, from the, from the, from South East Seattle. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and so, I mean, I think that is, that is part of it. Um, and yeah, I just, I, I don't know, man, I would not, I would not call, uh, Marcus,

[00:38:31] you know, reflexively, uh, anti-cop or, or, um, you know, are, are far leftist. Just in terms of signals though, Alice, Alison Holcomb, you know, um, sort of the, the, the person who's largely responsible for successful pot decriminalization in the United or legalization in the United States, but also supported decriminalization as head of ACLU Washington just a couple of years ago, like full on decriminalization.

[00:38:58] So, you know, it sends a certain message, I guess, in terms of the, the, the, who you want at the top of your public safety team in the city. I mean, you know, well, I think she's better known as ACLU. What they come up with next week. Yeah. I mean, I, I think, I think probably among, among younger people, um, she's probably better known for being, you know, criminal justice director at the ACLU for many years. Um, the pot legalization thing. I mean, I don't know, like, I think everybody's. But she supported drug decriminalization a couple, just a couple of years ago at the head

[00:39:28] of ACLU when Oregon was doing it and Washington was thinking about doing it. Um, you know, so I think it gives us some indication of her priorities. Yeah. I don't think that that's going to be a priority in the mayor's office, um, one way or another, but, um, but point, point taken. She was for, she was definitely for decriminalization. Yeah. I mean, we're going to, I mean, obviously they're both strong progressives. Yeah. Yeah. Strong progressives. That's fair to say.

[00:39:52] Um, and so, um, yeah, I, I mean, again, I'm, I, I, I want to give them every, you know, opportunity to kind of, kind of make the case for what their, what their public safety agenda is. I don't want to prejudge it, but, but we don't. Uh, but I think we're kind of, kind of waiting to hear whether it's on this focus to turn stuff or look, I, there's also, I praise the mayor at the time when she's announced that an enforcement

[00:40:19] initiative in little Saigon and they've been pursuing that. I don't think quite with the level of resources that is required to really make a significant difference down there, but they've, I, as I understand it, detail four cops who, um, and had, they have been making some arrests. Now they haven't been touting any of that. I think because of divides within the mayor's office itself, some of the more abolitionist

[00:40:45] types in the mayor's office are pretty, um, are, are, are, are pretty leery of kind of them sort of saying like, Hey, like look at the progress. We're making a little Saigon. We actually arrested this many drug dealers or whatever they're doing. Right. Like, so we haven't heard an update on that though. I'm hearing from people like Lisa Dugard that there is stuff going on. And so again, like they're, where are they on that and what's going on? Are they going forward? Like, well, yeah, yeah.

[00:41:13] I mean, I guess I, I guess I would just ask, I mean, the stuff that Katie Wilson has been doing has been quite similar to what Bruce Harrell did. Um, and, um, and I, and I guess I just wonder in all this hand wringing about what is her public safety agenda? What was Bruce Harrell's public safety agenda? I mean, is that, is that something that is, I mean, is that something that is clear? Cause I think that there are demands being made of this mayor that, um, that go beyond the

[00:41:39] demands that anybody made of the previous mayor, you know, who was likely largely an absentee mayor, you know, out of town a lot. Um, not real vocal on anything other than these kinds of one-off initiatives. So what was his overarching agenda or, or Jenny Durkin's? Well, I will say this. I, I think the, the Herald administration screwed the pooch on public safety. I think that's a big part of the reason he lost his, his reelect is that he kind of ran on it and then he sort of half-assed it.

[00:42:07] And he did like, yeah, they would park the mobile precinct van down at like little Saigon for three weeks and kind of curtail some of the activity. But then it was all kind of mostly a PR op and like, they didn't really sustain any of that stuff. Now that's certainly true. Like, and I, Bruce was, you know, there were divides within Bruce's office too, in the early part of his tenure when Manisha Harrell was in charge of public safety. She's a lefty on it. That way she was in a different place than say Tim Burgess, you know, like who was in that office.

[00:42:36] So there was a lot of internal divides in the Harrell administration too, that led to kinds of the kinds of paralysis that I think bit him in the ass in the end. And I, and Katie's in danger of ending up in the same place, I think, but I'm hoping that, that she can kind of figure out a clearer pathway forward on this stuff. Can I agree with you? I don't think the Harrell administration did a good job on this. I agree with that too.

[00:42:59] And I think we were pretty fair in our coverage of the Harrell administration, meaning super critical for the time that he was in there. And, you know, there's been some criticism of the Wilson administration so far. I mean, that's what, that's what, that's what journalism is to some extent, right? Like that's, if you're going to take that job, you're going to face some criticism and some of it's going to be unfair and some of it's going to be fair. I think, you know, Harrell faced both fair and unfair criticism, but plenty of criticism on this podcast. Well, absolutely.

[00:43:29] I'm not saying, I'm not saying I was zeroing in on a specific point, which is this question of what is Mayor Wilson's overarching high level public safety agenda. And, and I guess, I mean, the other question is like, what is, when you talk about, you know, sort of wanting to get to a point, Sandy or, you know, or David, like, I guess, you know, if crime continues to go down, if murders continue to go down, if, you know, if everything

[00:43:55] continues to get statistically better, but things happen that, as you said, like shock the conscience, where there's, you know, a large number of people who are shot and killed in one place. I mean, is that Katie Wilson's fault for not having a public safety plan? Or is it an unfortunate reality of living in a city that things like that happen? I mean, is it, is she a failure if crime doesn't get to zero? And I mean, obviously I don't think either of you are arguing for that, but I, but I do

[00:44:21] think like, you know, crime went up during Bruce Harrell. He didn't really get blamed for that. Um, and crime is going down during Katie Wilson and she is being treated as though crime was skyrocketing. And I, and I do think there is a bit of a double standard there. I think that's a fair point. I actually think, you know, if crime continues to go down under the Katie Wilson administration, um, and, um, you know, she's, she's implementing, you know, her agenda and her strategies on this

[00:44:50] and it's showing some results over time. She deserves credit for that. Right. I, I, I mean, I think right now, anyway, yes. So we'll, we'll see, right. I mean, we'll see how all of this stuff plays out, but, but yeah, I, I mean, I think that's a fair point. Let's at the end of the day, right. Mayors get judged by how people perceive conditions in the city in terms of their quality of life

[00:45:18] and what they see happening and going on and how they perceive it of what's going on on the streets. Right. Like, and I, I've said before, I thought Bruce Harrell came in with doing some smart stuff where he rolled back some of the silliness that we adopted during the pandemic when that was, I think, contributing to kind of crime spikes and a lot and lots of really significant street disorder in places like downtown. And he cleaned some of that shit up and then I didn't see a second act from them.

[00:45:48] Right. And, and, and then as you say, things kind of devolve back to this unsatisfying, you know, and maybe even unacceptable status quo. Uh, and that, that hurt him. I mean, Katie, Katie, when she ran last year, she would point at little Saigon and say, Bruce Harrell, this is unacceptable. And you've had four years. Why didn't you fix this? Well, she's the mayor now, right? She's got four years. She, you know, she needs to fix it.

[00:46:17] She's not responsible for the bite of Seattle shooting. I, you know, back to it. I don't care whether or not she had a press conference or when, uh, and if the city thrives under her leadership, when it comes to violence and everything else, she's going to get credit for it. And if it doesn't, she won't, uh, or she will, sorry, get credit for the decline if that happens. And it's, it's unfair. It's unfair for every mayor that they're, they're blamed for that. But I personally, you know, how much does a mayor have to do with the crime rate?

[00:46:46] I don't think that that much, but I do think the policies that she implements need to be credible and explainable and kind of make sense in terms of what the consensus among say criminologists is about what's the best approach. And if she's pursuing approach that, that doesn't meet those kinds of standards of evidence, that's how I'm going to judge her. And, and, you know, we'll see what happens with crime, but I think she should pursue the best possible approach. And I think that, I think that, you know, criminologists disagree about what the best

[00:47:15] approach is and where it applies. Um, but I also think like David, you might be looking at that, but going back to sort of what we talked about at the beginning, I think that the perception, I mean, I think this idea that Katie Wilson is going to get credit if crime goes down is, um, is pretty laughable given the way the media is incredibly hostile to her. I think they're hostile because she is unusual because she is progressive and because she is a young woman.

[00:47:41] And I think if you, if you look at the headlines that are going on that are Cairo right now that are in the Seattle times, um, I think that that is a preview of what it's going to look like, even if crime continues to go down because, and, and that is where perception comes from just as much as walking around the streets of downtown. Um, you know, if you drive by little Saigon and you don't see people there, um, you know, on that corner around 12th and Jackson, that, that will improve your perception.

[00:48:08] But if you read the Seattle times and, you know, and Danny Westney is, you know, is crying about, uh, his perception or how Katie Wilson doesn't seem to have a plan or she seems unserious or whatever that also contributes to that perception. I just don't think that Katie Wilson is, I think she's going to get no credit. But in terms of media coverage, I mean, she won. So we'll, we'll see like how it works in the next, well that we're gonna have to leave it there. That's it for another edition of Seattle. Nice. He's Sandeep Kaushik. She's Eric C. Barnett. I'm David Hyde.

[00:48:38] Thank you everybody so much for listening.