♪♪
-Hello, I'm your host, Brian Callanan.
Seattle has a new police chief
who's hoping to bring some stability
to a law enforcement agency
that's had a challenging last five years.
-Public safety certainly is a priority for everyone.
-Shon Barnes, Madison, Wisconsin's former police chief,
takes over the same job in Seattle,
a city with some rocky recent history to get past.
-I want to thank the men and women
of the Seattle Police Department for their hard work.
-Barnes' predecessor, Adrian Diaz,
was asked to step down following allegations
of discrimination and harassment.
-What's going on? [ Bang ]
Get down!
-And the chief before that, Carmen Best,
resigned in the wake of the George Floyd protests
and the abandonment of SPD's east precinct.
-This year, Chief Barnes will begin implementing
the Stratified Placing Initiative.
-Seattle leaders are counting on their new chief
to make a new start.
Increasing officer hiring, especially for female cops,
and helping the city's newly expanded 911 alternative teams
to thrive.
-Designing alternative response in a city
of this size and complexity is not a small undertaking.
-Plus, there are the hurdles
of ending a federal consent decree
that's hung over the SPD for 13 years,
and implementing a controversial new surveillance system.
-There's no panacea. We have to piece things together.
-We're going one on one with Chief Shon Barnes
to learn about his top priorities.
-A big part of my job is to make sure
that we establish trust with the community.
-Getting behind the badge with the SPD's new chief,
next on "City Inside/Out."
♪♪
Welcome once again to "City Inside/Out,"
here on the Seattle Channel.
I'm Brian Callanan and with me, I am joined by Seattle's
new police chief, Shon Barnes.
Chief, thanks a lot for being here.
-Thank you for having me. I appreciate it, Brian.
-Well, Chief, I want to get into this right away by asking
why you took this job.
Because, I'm sure you're aware,
the SPD has been through a bit of a rollercoaster
over the last five years
when it comes to chiefs resigning
or being asked to resign.
What was it about this job that said to you,
"I want to go there"?
-Well you know, here's the thing about rollercoasters.
You have your ups and your downs, your highs and your lows.
And right now I see a police department
that's certainly on its way up.
I see a place department that's really
looking for a little direction
and to really amplify the things that the department does well.
I've known about the Seattle Police Department all my career.
I've had friends who have gone through the ranks
here at the police department.
I have friends who were former chiefs and executives here,
and they all speak very highly of the police department.
When the opportunity presented itself,
I did my due diligence, and the thing
that really put it over the top
was speaking with some members of Council,
speaking with the Mayor, looking at the staff,
and I knew that this was a place where I could grow
and I could also grow the police department.
-Okay. And I want to talk about the main priorities
you're bringing to this job,
because back in February, you talked
at the City Council's Public Safety Committee about this.
You were talking about these five main priorities here.
Crime prevention, community partnerships,
retention and recruitment,
employee safety and wellness, and continuous improvement.
I heard the professor in you coming out on that one,
and it was good to hear.
Let's start with this crime prevention piece,
because the Mayor called this out
in his recent State of the City address, saying
you're going to be implementing something called
"stratified policing."
I want you to explain what that is, if you could,
and how it would provide different results
than the hot spot policing or the emphasis patrols
that Seattle's used in years past.
-Yeah, so stratified policing
really has been around for a while.
We will adapt some version of it,
but it will be for Seattle specific.
So we're calling it "Seattle Centric."
That will be the name of our crime reduction strategy,
our crime plan, Seattle Centric.
And what it does is
it combines the things that most police departments do well,
which is problem solving,
when it's assigned to a certain group or certain person
to be responsible for that.
And we'll be going through that particular process.
And so stratified policing simply means
that we understand the priorities of a community,
of a neighborhood, at that level,
and that we understand how to identify those crimes or things
that are contributing to disorder
and that we're working in partnership with other people
to prevent those or to solve those.
And so the idea is the prevention of crime.
-Got it. And I'm going to talk about
the community partnerships in a little bit.
But I feel like you might be going down a path
that I did want to touch on here,
working with the CARE department.
This is new for the city of Seattle.
The Community Assisted Response and Engagement Department
is one of the city's three public safety departments
along with police and fire.
So CARE operates the 911 center, as you know.
Has these teams of community crisis responders,
mental healthcare experts who are going out in the field there,
911 calls come in,
they're screened, dispatchers say,
"Alright, let's send out the crisis responders."
They go with police.
Can you tell me about how this system might be a game changer?
It just spread city-wide very recently,
before we're having this interview.
How's that going to change things, do you think?
-So I'm familiar with this process.
In Madison, where I came from, we had the same thing.
It was called CARES, a little bit different.
-You can learn this one.
-Yeah, certainly. Yeah.
But I think when it comes to crime prevention,
quality of life issues, there are certain things that we know.
And we know that when police work in partnerships
with professionals who are specially trained to deal with
certain community problems, we get a better result.
And so we're not replacing police officers,
we're not replacing the work of police officers,
we're supplementing that work with people
who are licensed and trained and professionals,
and we're working hand-in-hand.
I can list probably maybe 10 other things
that I would like for people to go out with us on.
I'd love to have people from code enforcement working
with the police department when we go to issues.
I'd love to see people from social services
or from Child Protective Services or people
who are there to provide information to go with us.
Because sometimes we have to do research
and give people the answers.
So that's really my vision,
I think for Seattle Centric policing,
is that we're going to be working more in partnerships,
but we're not here to replace, I think, the police.
We're not here to replace the job that we do.
I don't want my police officers coming to work every day
only to deal with things that require a badge and a gun.
-Yeah.
-I didn't sign up, no one really did,
to take people to jail.
You know, we'll do that from time to time,
but this job is really about helping the community.
This job is really about showing people
who we are as human beings.
I spoke with a group of people today from Before the Badge.
-Yeah. Mm-hmm.
-And one of the things that I told them is,
I want you to continue being the person that we hired.
-And Before the Badge is the police academy
that the SPD puts on. -It is, absolutely.
And I said, "Continue being who you are.
You know, we hired you because you had a heart to help people.
Then continue to do that."
And so I need to do my part and provide a police department
where they can do just that.
-One wrinkle here -- I know there's been some talk about,
"Hey, maybe we should send out these CARE responders
by themselves, solo dispatch,
rather than dual dispatch with police."
Have you reckoned with that piece of it yet?
-I really haven't, because, you know,
I think that gets into the politics of who should do what.
-Yep. -And to be honest with you,
I'm really about the work
and making sure that our community is safe.
-Okay, alright. I'm sure we'll touch on that one
again in the future at some point.
I wanted to go back on this idea of community partnerships,
if I could.
You're in a city now that's more than twice as big as Madison,
where you left.
You're probably going to need a lot more partners,
I would think.
What are some of the partnerships
you want to build on?
Which do you see as the most valuable to you and the SPD?
-Well I think the biggest partnership is partnerships
with our elected officials.
People want to know, when I show up to places,
who has access to resources.
They want me to show up because they know
that I have access to moving police resources,
but I can't change the fact that there is no sidewalks.
-Right. The built environment --
-Yeah, I can't do that.
And so, building those partnerships is important
because one of the things
that you will see with Seattle Centric policing
is that we're really going to get down
to a grassroots kind of level of understanding
when it comes to crime and public safety in the community.
And a lot of things that they want
or that they think are related
to crime and disorder, we quite frankly have no say in.
But, we can always work as a good partner
and let people know what the community is saying,
and I want people to be informed.
I want them to know what we can and what we can't do
and what we're working on. -Got it.
And I wanted to talk about some
of the community nonprofit groups that you work with too.
I keep thinking of groups like We Deliver Care,
which out there on 3rd Avenue,
really trying to help clean up some of the street disorder.
Can you touch on that partnership?
Because I think that's an important part for police too.
-Sure, so in my former life, I came from a city
that has over 3,000 nonprofits,
5% of which has a budget of over $1 million.
And at first, it was this competition for resource.
It was like, well, you know, don't fund the police, fund me.
And what I was able to do was to create partnerships to say,
"You know, with our data,
with our grant-writing program,
we can help you get the funds that you need,
and we can work together."
And in my last year, we had at least $1.2 million
in pass-through grants that we applied for,
but we gave that money to other nonprofits
so that they can do the work. -Okay.
-And so, pass-through grants is really one of the things
that I want to elevate in our police department.
Because a lot of times, the government will give grants to us
and then we can give that to other people
and help with some of the work that we want to do.
-Thank you for breaking that down, too.
I wanted to jump back to crime rates,
if I could, with you real quick.
Seattle was a bit of an outlier
for a while in criminal activity,
our violent crime rates were remaining higher
than several large U.S. cities after the pandemic.
They're starting to come back down now,
but the King County prosecutor recently reported on this,
some alarming stats on gun violence.
I wanted to talk about this.
Victims under 18, the report says,
made up 15% of all shooting victims in our area in 2024.
That number has doubled since 2019.
The report also shows people of color
feeling the brunt of gun violence.
They made up 76% of shooting victims last year.
Can you talk about what those numbers say to you
and what you can do about them?
-Yeah you know, we've been here before.
We've seen gun violence go up and go down.
I think right now gun violence is certainly trending down,
but certainly not acceptable by my standards
or anybody else's standards.
What we know about gun violence
is that there is a way to reverse gun violence.
The first thing you have to do is identify those persons
who are, if you will,
influencing other people to commit gun violence.
Like, what is it about their presence
that's causing them, and we have to identify them,
we have to hold them accountable,
or we have to get them the help
that they need to stay off of it.
Then we have to look at those persons
who may be in or around them,
and we have to make sure that we give them
something to do and a direction.
If these kids don't believe that Seattle is a place for them,
they're going to pick up a gun.
If they don't believe that Seattle is a place
where they can be successful,
where they can have the same opportunities
as your kids and my kids, that's what's going to happen.
There is a way to reverse that,
and we're going to be working that
as part of our crime reduction plan.
-Got it. And I think you're going down a path
that I'd like to keep going, if I could.
Because I remember, during your final days as chief in Madison,
you had to respond to this awful shooting
at the Abundant Life School there,
the Christian school where 3 people died,
including the 15-year-old shooter, 6 were wounded.
After that, you talked about wanting to have police officers
in our public schools, but you know
that's been a contentious issue here in Seattle
for the school district and its families.
I know you've been a public school teacher too,
so I wanted to try to have an understanding of this.
You've been a teacher, you've been a school resource officer,
as I understand it.
Should we have SROs in Seattle schools?
-I'm sitting here today
because of my school resource officer.
As a public school teacher, I lost a student to gun violence.
One of my most promising students
decided to pick up a gun with another person,
and they committed a homicide, and I lost him forever.
And it bothered me so much that the only person
I could turn to, to talk about it with
was my school resource officer.
We sat in my classroom, a history classroom,
and we talked about what we can do to help kids
and to keep them out of trouble.
At the end of that conversation, he says,
"You should be a police officer."
I was like, "Really?"
He was like, "We need more people
who think the way you do."
And the rest is history.
I do believe that, when done correctly,
a school resource officer program
certainly can benefit our students.
And the key word is "resource" and not "officer."
-Yeah, what does that look like?
-It looks like someone who is in the school system,
perhaps not in uniform,
or a softer uniform, is what they sometimes say.
-Yeah, yeah.
-It looks like someone that has the resources
and the understanding to identify kids
that may be in crisis or may need help.
It looks like someone that has a cellphone
full of phone numbers that I wish every police officer had.
-Yeah.
-But maybe they have a special resource list
that can get things for people.
As my experience as a school resource officer,
you know, I was able to get food, clothing,
things like that for kids.
And I have an amazing story, next time.
I can't tell you now. -Okay.
-It's long, but it's a good one.
-Yeah. -About my experience.
It's a road I would love to share with you.
And just briefly, I got a letter from prison.
-Hmm.
-From a lady who said that she was in prison
and that she had prayed
that someone would take care of her kids.
And what had happened was, I saw the kids with no coats
during one of our famous ice storms...
-Yeah. -...in North Carolina.
I was able to get them a coat, and I remember her
because we had the same last name.
-Oh, wow. -Her last name is Barnes.
-Okay.
-But here's where it gets interesting. I arrested her.
And I had no idea that those were her children.
So I say this to say, the program, when done correctly,
does really provide a service to our children,
making sure that they're safe.
You mentioned what happened at Abundant Life.
-Yeah.
-I can't tell you that an SRO would
or would not have made a difference in that, right?
That was probably one of the worst days
in my professional career.
But it was one of the best days
because I had a well-trained,
well-prepared police department
that handled it with the best care
that I've ever seen in police,
and they did an amazing job that day.
And so, yes, I am in support, if it's done well,
if it's done in cooperation with the community,
if there's an MOU about what they are
or are not supposed to do,
and if there's any ambiguity about that,
they know who to call to get an answer.
-The Memorandum of Understanding, thank you.
-Absolutely. -Yeah, there's a lot of acronyms
that always fly around here.
Thank you for that.
Chief, let me jump back on one more issue
with crime prevention.
I want to talk about the new technology
that SPD is bringing on board,
the Real Time Crime Center, things of this nature.
Twenty surveillance cameras will soon be going up,
as you know, in the Chinatown ID area.
The city's also planning to have cameras on North Aurora,
3rd Avenue too.
Do you support the use of surveillance cameras?
Have you seen them be effective in other places
where you've held leadership roles?
-Well, I don't know what a surveillance camera is.
-Okay.
-But I do know what a public space camera is.
-Alright, alright.
-Public space cameras are in places
that there is no expectation of privacy.
You are out in public.
There's not a lot of places that you can go,
in this city and many others,
where you're not on camera somewhere.
I will tell you, in my former employ,
we used a lot of public space cameras
to solve a lot of crimes,
including a horrific stranger rape and kidnapping.
And so yes. But if they're not manned properly, if there's not,
you know, good oversight, and we're going to make sure
that we have a policy that everyone agrees on.
-Yeah.
-Because I don't want them just to be reactive.
Because that means that something has already happened.
-Mm-hmm.
-But if we can get resources in the area
because we see something that doesn't look right
or we see someone who's about to get hurt
or we see someone that may need medical attention,
I think it will certainly be a benefit for our community.
Certainly there's no panacea to crime and social disorder,
but we have to piece things together
and create one strong system
that's going to keep people in Seattle safe.
-I just wanted to go down this path a little further.
-Sure. -Because you've seen research on this.
The ACLU has done this and said,
"Well, this doesn't really help with violent crimes."
It might help with property crimes a little bit,
but they did a pretty massive longitudinal study about this.
-Yeah.
-Do you have some concerns about that in just --
in bringing this program to Seattle, I guess.
-I really don't, and I don't disagree
with preventing violent crimes.
It's tough.
Because when people are intent on doing bad things,
no camera or sign will do anything.
You know, I worked in Greensboro --
-Where didn't you work? Okay, yeah.
-Yeah, that's where I started my career.
-Okay.
-For almost 20 years, in a time
where things were really, really rough.
And I've seen people commit shootings
where they knew police were in the parking lot, right?
-Yeah.
-So, when people are intent on doing bad things,
there's very little you can do.
So it could be a little unfair to say it doesn't prevent crime,
but if we can stop someone from doing one thing
that turns to two, two becoming four, four becoming eight,
then maybe it is a good thing to look at.
But again, there's no panacea.
We have to piece things together in order
to create a safe Seattle, and I think that's what people want.
-Yeah, that's an interesting new tool.
I know a lot of people are going to be paying close attention.
They're also paying close attention
to officer retention and recruitment.
-Oh, yes. -If we can move on here.
So, for the first time in five years,
we've been talking about this in the city quite a bit,
the SPD did not lose more officers than it hired in 2024.
The margin there was just one officer,
so clearly there's some work to do there, still to do.
The City Council raised salaries for officers last year.
That was a big deal.
Helped bring more interest to the job, certainly.
What plans do you have to hire and retain more officers?
-You know, I think it's about telling the story
of the Seattle Police Department.
I went to a briefing today,
and I spoke with some officers, and an officer said,
"You know, Chief, what we want from you
is can you tell the community
about the good things that we do?
About the times we de-escalate
and about the time we use our good training and tactics
to keep people safe?"
And it is about branding,
it's about letting people know
that this is a different Seattle Police Department,
a different time.
You know, we're made up of the same people who are resilient,
who are tough, who want to do the right thing,
and let that be the story.
I had an opportunity, of course as chief,
to swear in new police officers.
The first police officer I swore in was a lateral from Madison.
And I spoke with him,
and he sent me his resignation during the time I was announced.
I thought he was playing. -Interesting.
-And he's like, "No, I'm actually going to Seattle."
-You're like the college coach.
He's following you to the other team.
Okay, yeah. -He wasn't following me, but...
He was following the city, because he had come to visit,
fell in love with it.
He's like, "I want to work there."
And so him and his wife moved here.
I think it's going to be an excellent police officer force,
and, you know, I've gotten calls from all over the country.
I got a call from Atlanta, a friend of mine
that I went to Southern Police Institute with said,
"Hey, my son wants to lateral to Seattle."
And so people know that this is a great place to come and work.
But on the retention piece, I don't want to skip over that.
-Yeah.
-I want the officers to know, number one,
they are supported not only by me,
but by an amazing community, by our elected officials,
and that we're going to give them the resources
that they need to do the job
and we're going to invest in them
to do the job the right way.
-And this sounds a lot like the safety and wellness piece
that I know was part of your presentation back in February.
-Absolutely.
-Trying to make sure you're improving that
for sworn officers and non-sworn staff too.
I want to talk about this,
this balance between making sure your team feels supported,
which is very important here,
so people don't want to leave, et cetera.
But also, balancing that and officer morale, et cetera,
with this need for officer accountability.
This is a balance, Chief,
and I wanted to know about that and how you approach that.
-I believe accountability starts
before an incident happens.
That's how you support people.
You support people by making sure they have the tools,
training, technology, team to get the job done.
That's my definition of accountability.
-Mm-hmm.
-What you're talking about is corrective action,
and people get the two mixed up. -Okay.
-Yes, we're going to correct your action,
if your action is improper. They know that.
But if I don't do that,
then I'm not supporting my police officers.
If I don't let them know that, hey,
you missed the mark on this, let's figure out how to fix it,
then I'm not supporting them.
And if I'm not supporting them,
then we can't have the type of community
and the type of police department
that we truly need and deserve.
-Okay. Let me move on to another piece here.
We're getting short on time,
but we've got so much to cover here.
I want to talk about keeping officers safe
and the public safe too,
with this whole topic of crowd management,
the use of so-called "less lethal weapons."
The Council passed a measure last month,
as you know, allowing officers to use weapons like tear gas,
pepper spray, blast balls
to manage crowds, in limited situations here.
Another contentious issue here,
a split vote for the Council on this.
What do you want the public to know about the way
you're going to handle when and how
officers use these kind of tools?
-The idea is to never have to use these tools
on American citizens or on community members...
-Mm-hmm. -...at large. That is the key.
Doing things like using community dialogue officers,
using our POET teams,
using community members or anyone else who wants to help,
to make sure that people know,
"Hey, if you're upset, you have the right to protest,
you have the right to assemble,
but we have to do that safely
and we have to do that peacefully
without the destruction of property
or without people being hurt."
You know, I tell people, you know,
2020 is really not a good example
of crowd management,
because you know, we never,
I think in the history of certainly
since I've been in police,
have we seen things come together
like the frustration of a pandemic,
the frustration of an economy, the frustration of the police...
-Yeah, all at one time, yeah. -...at one time.
Where police are the subject of the actual protest.
And I hope we never see that again.
But I will do everything in my power to prevent that.
Part of my job, a big part of my job,
is to make sure that we establish trust
with the community so that we can let people know
what's going on with certain things,
that we can speak out about things too.
I mean, a lot of police chiefs,
when something happens in another part of the country --
I see stuff that shocks my conscience.
I don't mind speaking out and saying,
"Hey, not only is this wrong,"
but what the community wants to hear is,
"Chief, what are you going to do prevent this
from happening here?"
And too many chiefs didn't say anything,
they didn't talk about their policy.
We've had a policy in North Carolina
for years about not choking people
and all this other kind of thing.
And people didn't know it, because we didn't talk about it.
So again, part of it is branding,
letting people know what
the Seattle Police Department brand is,
what we stand for, what we do not stand for.
-Can you touch on one piece for me here,
because there's another challenge for our city
and our nation right now --
how local police officers interact
with Federal Immigration Officials
who are currently working on the Trump administration's
mass deportation plan.
Seattle's a city of immigrants.
About one out of every five people who lives here
was born in another country.
You wrote about this not too long ago
and put out a press release about it.
I thought it was very interesting.
Talk about that, and what you are telling
your officers about this?
-We will stay consistent to who we are
as Seattle police officers.
We don't have a relationship with ICE,
we've never had a relationship with ICE.
We're not asking about immigration status.
You know, we're going about doing our job.
We want people to feel comfortable to call the police
if they're victimized
or if they see a crime about to occur,
and we're not going to ask you whether or not --
where you were born.
It has nothing to do with the safety and security
of what happens in Seattle.
It is a federal responsibility, and quite frankly,
we're not a part of that conversation.
-Okay. I wanted to wrap up with you,
if I could, and talk about this last pillar
in your presentation. -Sure.
-This continuous improvement idea.
The idea every organization can make some changes,
always trying to improve.
That can be a challenge,
you know it, for some police departments.
And this idea of changing the culture
of a law enforcement agency is very difficult.
You're new to the SPD.
How do you get buy-in within the rank and file,
from the SPD, for that vision there,
of this possibility of making some changes to the department?
And are a lot of changes needed?
What can you tell me about that?
-I think it starts with understanding change management,
and that's something that I have done
throughout my entire career.
And my philosophy about it is simple.
People do not fear change, they fear loss.
And so when you're trying to change something
or you're trying to make a correction,
you have to be able to talk to people and ask them,
"What are you afraid of losing?"
Sometimes it is about losing a part of their culture,
it's about losing some authority,
it's about sharing responsibility,
losing those things.
But at the end of the day,
if it's going to make you safer and make your job meaningful,
then that's what we're going to push forward with.
Does it make your job safer?
Does it make it a little bit easier?
And can you go home at night
knowing that you did something well for other people?
And if the answer is yes, that's the type changes
that we're going to make.
-Alright, thank you very much, Chief Shon Barnes.
-Thank you, I appreciate it. -And we will be right back.
♪♪
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Great to get that input, and, Chief,
thank you very much for the time.
-Thank you sir. -Alright.
Chief Shon Barnes from the Seattle Police Department,
thanks for being with me.
We'll see you next time on "City Inside/Out."
♪♪