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-Good morning, everybody.
Thank you for being here.
We have some exciting news, we think,
we would like to share with you.
This sort of represents a historic moment, I think,
in the history of Seattle.
We have reached a groundbreaking agreement
with the rank-and-file police officers
that fundamentally transforms
how we deliver public safety in our city.
This contract that we have been able to negotiate,
and almost get it across the finish line
with some council work,
really moves the CARE Department,
the Community Assistant Response and Engagement Department,
from a pilot to a permanent entity,
from a promise to public safety to a complete paradigm shift.
And, again, it removes the limits on its growth,
I'll just refer to it as the CARE Department,
on its growth allowing for unlimited hiring
and solo dispatch of responders to people
in behavioral health crisis that need help.
And I'm going to solicit an applause for that right now
because I'm very excited about that.
This is good for everybody, everybody affected in our city,
and it also significantly strengthens
police accountability meeting key elements
of the 2017 Accountability Ordinance
in strengthening our entire system.
The truth of the matter
is this agreement represents years of difficult,
but necessary, negotiations.
It builds on the progress of prior agreements
in the 2017 Accountability Ordinance
and advances our comprehensive diversified
public safety system to serve every neighborhood.
Let me talk a little more specifically about what it does,
but I want to ground my remarks in a quote.
The greatest college basketball coach of all time,
I'm not going to say who it is,
if you follow basketball sports, James, you're thinking,
"Who is that person right now?"
Right? I'm going to give you the quote right now.
-Okay. -Okay.
"It takes time to create excellence.
It can be done quickly.
If it could be done quickly, more people would do it."
This legendary coach also said, "Be quick, but don't hurry."
Now, that one should have given you some notice.
Who said that?
I don't have any college basketball --
-John Wooden. -There you go, John Wooden.
John Wooden, the NCAA basketball coach and 10-time champion.
And I wanted to ground us in that quote
because if it could have been done quickly,
it certainly wouldn't have.
But what we are looking for
is sustainable practices in building an entire
public safety system.
And that's why we are very happy to announce
what we're trying to do.
So going back to more specifically
what this agreement does
is it allows the CARE Department to become, again,
a permanent co-equal third pillar
of our public safety system.
Joining, of course,
our police and fire is essential, first responders.
Now, Seattle is the largest city in the country
with this model of alternative unarmed response.
We are leading the way.
We will now be able to remove the pilot's
24-responder cap making it possible
for us to hire more community crisis responders as well as
to solo dispatch them to an array
of calls including those suffering
from behavioral health crisis.
Now, as the responder team has grown in size and footprint,
we've, quite frankly,
just scratched the surface of what's possible.
These results are transformative.
And while they've been addressing thousands
of incidents in the last two years
and over 5,000 incidents in 2025 alone,
this agreement will allow CARE responders to respond
to thousands more. The next phase of CARE
as a permanent co-equal public safety department
is the vision we've been working for
since day one of our administration.
I want to say that I'm very proud to report
that the Seattle Police Department will hire
more officers in 2025 than in 2024 and 2023 combined.
This new contract for the rank-and-file officers
will build on our progress to turn around what was
a staffing crisis.
And I want to thank the officers for their work
and for their ratification of this agreement.
I want to thank management in the Police Department
as well as the chief
and his command structure for all working together
to make sure that we are optimizing our department.
This contract ensures it will remain competitive
with other major city police departments
and adds incentives for the skills
that modern policing requires with pay premiums
for associate's degrees,
bachelor's degrees and bilingual officers.
These recruitment improvements will allow us
to build a police force
that reflects our community's diversity
and meets the demands of 21st century public safety.
With respect to accountability, this contract delivers
significant accountability reforms
that address concerns raised by the accountability entities
and the community
and builds on the successful resolution
of the federal consent decree earlier this year.
Number one,
we're establishing a clear 180-day timeline
for resolving investigations,
bringing contract language into alignment
with our 2017 Accountability Ordinance
in resolving a key outstanding accountability measure
from the federal consent decree.
We are also creating a streamlined process
for supervisors to address minor performance and
misconduct issues in a consistent way
and to discipline when appropriate.
This contract allows for civilian investigators
in our Office of Police Accountability
to work on cases involving potential termination.
It is critical to have civilians working
on the most serious disciplinary cases.
This contract also allows our efforts to increase civilian...
that's a tough word for Bruce,
civilianization within SPD
now authorizing civilians to work in the backgrounding unit.
So the next step in the process will be
for both parties to present... I'm sorry.
I'm not on my A game today.
It's been a long week and we're not even halfway through.
-Yeah. -I'm always on my A game.
That was just a joke.
Let me sort of close by saying this in all seriousness.
I said this morning to a bunch of folks
that public safety is our charter responsibility.
At the end of the day, there is, of course,
an intersection between public safety,
economic development and education.
So, in other words,
all three of these parts of the ecosystem make sure
that we are safe,
we can learn and we can optimize our lives
and provide for our families.
This CARE Department is intended to do exactly that,
to make sure that our whole ecosystem
of public safety responses are done in a compassionate way,
an empathetic way and now a best practice.
And so, with that, I am going to turn it over to...
I'm not sure of the order.
I had it written down, but they just gave me a...
Chief Barden says, "That way" and she's going...
oh, here it is. A little sticky.
So we're doing this order so wanted to read.
We're going to hear from Chief Amy Barden.
It is going to be your turn.
And then, Chief Barnes, you will be second.
Council President Nelson,
you will be third
and Councilmember Kettle will be fourth.
And then we will address some Q&A.
Chief Barden, it is your time to shine.
-Good morning.
So, two years ago, almost to the day,
the CARE responders took their very first calls downtown.
I was actually away at a mayor's cabinet retreat
and I was watching my phone anxiously.
I wondered if SPD would request the team,
I wondered what types of circumstances
they would encounter.
I knew statistically it was unlikely
that anyone would be hurt,
but I really worried about it nevertheless.
In spite of all that fretting, everything was fine.
The team was prepared, they were professional,
they were resourceful, they were effective.
They consistently achieved that balance
of compassion and urgency that the work requires.
Nine times out of every 10 calls,
it was a request from SPD officers who,
during that first year,
frequently reached out to me to praise the team
and to convey their support.
We were scientific in our pilot development.
I had studied
and spent time in a lot of different jurisdictions
doing things like this
and I had some theories about the needs,
the services, the transportation inventory
and the skills required.
But we didn't make assumptions
and we didn't try to map out exactly how things would go.
I learned along with the team.
Many people need rides somewhere.
We learned that quickly. Somewhere safe, somewhere warm.
I learned quickly we need car seats
and so we got a bunch of those.
I learned a lot of people need shoes
and then I learned that that's really challenging
because shoes take up a lot of space and, of course,
it's not a one-size-fits-all.
I continue to read weekly the reports,
the narrative of every call that CARE goes on.
Besides learning a lot about the needs
and the suffering of our neighbors,
I have personally learned to navigate a sort of pervasive
and perpetual sadness
and a frustration about the inadequacy of our system
to heal and to rehabilitate.
And I imagine our first responders
and our frontline's nonprofit workers
feel exactly what I feel, only magnified.
The task of the CARE responders
is essentially to interact with those who have lost hope,
those who are untethered from reality sometimes,
those who are nearly lost to brutal cycles of addiction,
those who are experiencing the impacts of being unhoused.
The work is specifically complex.
Our calls don't get resolved with an arrest,
a jail booking or a simple drop at the emergency department.
And establishing enough trust and credibility
with people to get close to what is actually going on
in someone's lives, it sometimes takes a minute,
it takes several encounters.
Nationally, there's a really interesting conversation
going on about how long you try to engage
before interacting with somebody in a coercive way
because sometimes that can be lifesaving.
To date,
as the mayor referenced,
our CARE responders have logged over 6,800 incidents.
About 40% of those calls involved referral to services,
28% of those calls included a ride to somewhere safer,
warmer or more stable.
We have responded to 93 different call types.
The most common are assist the public, welfare check,
downed person, crisis, domestic violence and suicidal person.
Interestingly, during the past two years,
CARE responders have only requested SPD support 15 times.
That represents less than half of 1% of the time.
And, for context,
the Seattle Fire Department requests support on a call
that many calls every couple weeks.
Our protocols are the same.
It's not as complex in the field as people think.
We use the same protocols for CARE
that we do for fire and EMS.
So I have been surprised at the vast range of needs
and how varied those circumstances tend to be.
One of the interesting things we've learned
is what makes a really good crisis responder.
It's not necessarily that formal education,
although everybody does have formal education,
it is actually the ability to rapidly assess, to triage,
to employ a high degree of adaptability,
flexibility, cultural awareness, emotional intelligence.
The team has managed to really map
that nonprofit resource map intelligently, thoroughly,
because we know that we just need to connect the person
to the right service,
regardless of whether there's a formal government contract.
You all know we've been operating
under pretty severe SPOG MOU constraints
and those guide rails I considered very,
very useful for the first thousand calls.
But, today, they're not useful any longer.
So I do celebrate this moment.
There are about 47,000 calls a year
that fall into the categories
that the newly established CARE body of work pertains to.
And so,
as we scale to 48 responders available
citywide next year nearly around the clock,
I believe we will start to see some meaningful impact,
fewer referrals to the ED,
fewer jail bookings, more intakes into service.
At my first press conference,
I explained that the primary short-term ambition
of this pilot was to get SPD to priority 1 calls faster.
Now, obviously, the CARE Pilot could not meaningfully impact
that metric because officers were still directed
to go to most of the calls.
The CARE average response time to a call to date
is still 13 minutes.
And I know how much it's going to mean to our community
to be able to call 911,
describe a neighbor who really needs help
and does not pose a public safety threat
and have responders there in 10 minutes.
Our neighbors calling deserve that kind of urgency
and our neighbors languishing on the street
deserve that kind of urgency.
I want to thank and acknowledge Lisa Herbold and Andrew Lewis
for the strong advocacy, their insistence that we innovate.
I see Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess here, I thank you.
He was my first boss and was wildly supportive
and instrumental to what is happening today.
I once again acknowledge the vision, resolve, leadership,
the relentless work of the CARE team manager,
Catriana Hernandez, over here.
If there is a name that is remembered
for this progress generations from now, it should be hers.
And then, additionally, back in 2023,
I met a number of colleagues in the Seattle Police Department
for the first time that set the stage
and really enabled the success that we celebrate today.
They supported what I was trying to do,
not because of police staffing shortages,
not because of political pressure,
but because they understood that the people
I was trying to help did not need more arrests
or more penalties,
they did the right thing for the right reason
regardless of potential repercussions.
And so I want to thank Chiefs Mahaffey, Kibbee,
Maxey, Nelson, Barden, Agard and Brown.
And then also, for a time,
I nearly doubled the workload
of Dr. Rebecca Boatright and Dr. Loren Atherley in SPD
who helped us to establish the policies,
the protocols
and provided access to the crucial crisis data
that really helped us to frame up the pilot to begin with.
Today, I thank still Lieutenant Geoghagan,
Sergeants Whicker and Sullivan,
and the CRT team
and then Jon Ehrenfeld with Mobile Integrated Health Team.
So it is strange how life can prepare us
to meet certain moments. About eight years ago,
I was working at a nonprofit in the Midwest
that provided a really broad continuum of services
for kids in mental health crisis,
including day treatment in schools.
I really preferred the frontlines,
the same as I do today.
I was always in the classroom as much as I could be
or I was out on the playground. I got to know a lot of the kids
and I became attached to a lot of the kids.
And, by that point in my career,
I understood really well the treacherous circumstances
many were trying to transcend or still trying to navigate.
One day, I was alerted that one of our sweet boys
who was about 10 had run off of campus
and toward the nearby freeway, expressing a wish to die.
Our teachers and our clinicians were able to safely go out,
intervene and get him back to campus.
And I could not believe it
when then a police car showed up to transport him
to the children's hospital.
I asked my colleagues why it was in a clinical environment
so they understood why it was problematic,
but their response was, "That's how it's done here, Amy.
It's always been like that."
When we are talking about human suffering,
we need to do better and we need to demand better.
"That is how it has been done" is unacceptable.
The status quo is unacceptable.
The historic pace and process of bureaucracy is unacceptable.
There has always been a space in between round everybody up
and arrest them and do nothing and call it compassion.
There is a space between chronic underinvestment
and throwing millions of dollars at a problem
and hoping for the best.
And there is a space between justice
with no mercy and mercy with no justice.
And so we must dwell in that space between.
Next year, we're going to have a direct partnership
with the King County Jail with the hospitals to ensure
that people who are likely to be back in the throes
of crime and crisis are not simply ejected onto our streets
with no plan and no support.
We are developing 988 integration and structuring
crisis call diversion and new protocols.
We will invest in technology
that provides for shared records management
across first responders
so we are more likely to break these cycles of crime and crisis
in individual lives.
And I will keep advocating alongside many of my colleagues
that the first responders should be availed
of every stabilization resource needed for a person.
So, in closing,
I really lack the words
to express gratitude to our community members.
More days than not,
I am sent a really wonderful message affirming my faith
in humanity and cheering for us.
I have learned I am not in a minority of people
who care deeply and want change.
On the contrary, most Seattleites really do care.
Most people do hope and believe that things can be different
and can be better.
I see you all organizing and mobilizing,
volunteering, donating, writing letters of support.
There was a low-key Free the CARE Team campaign
I thought was kind of funny.
You are all doing your part and it is time for us to do ours.
And this MOU creates significantly more opportunity
for the progress that you have demanded
and the progress that you deserve.
And so, in closing, I'm going to quote my chief of staff.
When he heard about the contract yesterday,
he just wrote back in all caps, "LET'S GO."
So thank you.
-Thank you, Chief Barden.
Next we have Chief Barnes.
-Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone.
-Good morning.
-Make sure everybody's still awake.
I want to begin by expressing my sincere appreciation
to Mayor Harrell for his steadfast commitment
to making Seattle safer and stronger.
Under his leadership,
the Seattle City has made tremendous strides
toward restoring public safety and improving quality of life
and supporting the men and women
of the Seattle Police Department
who serve this great city each and every day.
Today, I want to acknowledge this very important milestone,
select a successful collective bargaining agreement
between the city of Seattle
and the Seattle Police Officers Guild.
Although the chief of police is not a part of the negotiation,
I want to commend both sides for reaching an agreement
that supports the wellness,
stability and financial safety of our officers.
A well-supported police department means
a safer community.
When officers feel valued and equipped,
they are better able to provide a level of service,
the level of service that our community expect
and that our community observes.
The major points have already been highlighted,
I just wanted to say that I definitely support all
of the major highlights including the expansion
of the CARE Team.
As some of you know, I came to Seattle from Madison.
We had a fully supported
and staffed CARE Team with the ability to do solo dispatch.
So that's not anything new to me and we certainly support that.
We support the accountability alignment
with the 2017 Ordinance as well as
the investigations improvements allowing
our supervisors to do just that, which is supervise the people
that they are accountable to each and every day.
The agreement modernizes our wages
and keeps benefits high so that we can, of course,
maintain a well-staffed police department
which translates into public safety for everyone.
So I want to give a couple of highlights really quickly.
Our summer months,
which we define as between May 15th and September 15th,
we saw tremendous decreases in crime,
56% decreases in homicides along that period
compared to last year, 9% decrease in robberies
and 22% decrease in burglaries,
which includes commercial as well as residential burglaries.
But we also agree that policing alone
cannot solve every challenge that we have in this city.
That is why we are deeply appreciative
of the mayor's support
and allowing the Seattle Police Department
to work more closely with other city departments
in order to maintain public safety.
We are also rebuilding our department's capacity
and we believe that this agreement will help
us continue that great work. This year alone,
we have hired 134 new entry-level police officers
and 17 lateral entry officers, bringing our total hire to 152.
And we're going to continue to move on
and I'm certainly pressing people to continue to do more.
This is the most significant hiring,
I believe, we've seen in years.
These new officers represent the future of our department
and their arrival marks the beginning of our transition
from crisis management
to proactive community-centered policing.
I want to thank the men and women
of the Seattle Police Department,
Mayor Harrell and his administration
for their dedication, resilience and professionalism,
which is the foundation...
which should be the foundation of our success.
To the people of Seattle, we are making progress.
We are making progress.
We are moving in the right direction
and we will continue to do so through consistency,
collaboration
and our unwavering commitment to public safety here in Seattle.
Thank you.
-Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Chief.
Like to hear from our council president, Sara Nelson,
and Councilmember Bob Kettle and it's sort of in their hands now.
So, Council President, look forward to hearing your remarks.
-I heard "brief." Hello, everyone.
The contract that we're all here to learn about
and discuss marks a monumental milestone in the years'
long collaboration between city council and Mayor
Harrell's administration
to deliver meaningfully on our promise
to the Seattle people for reforms
that bring us into the era of modern policing.
And we've hit many milestones just this year.
Being released from the consent decree is just one of them.
And I will say that there is so much to be grateful for
and to celebrate within this contract.
I'll note something that I find particularly important,
which is that the incentives for multilingual skills
and advanced education
which will enable our officers to better respond to Seattle's
very diverse population.
Of course, there's also the efficiencies
of the civilianization of certain tasks, et cetera,
but I know that really what a lot of people
are most excited about is the announcement
of the unfettered expansion of the CARE Department
and the ability for sole dispatch.
This is key. That component of this contract
unlocks the promise of alternative response.
We've been talking about this for two years.
And when you were saying it's been two years
almost to the day, I was standing right there,
I remember that in my mind. It's been five years.
It was October 1st precisely when, on October 1st, 2020,
when Mayor Durkan issued Executive Order 2020-10,
Reimagining Policing and Community Safety in Seattle.
What I'm getting at is that I am trying
to underline the gravitas of the moment.
And Aristotle said, "Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet."
And no one knew it would take five years
from this executive order.
Pick your milestone that we're dating from,
it took a long time and a lot of hard work
and a lot of good faith
and just pure vision also in what we could achieve together.
So thank you very much for being at the helm of this vision
and I look forward to seeing its success.
Thank you. Thank you. -Thank you, Council President.
-Thank you, Mr. Mayor and the broad public safety team here
to include the Office of Police Accountability,
which gives me an opportunity to note also welcome
to the Community Police Commission.
Really important in terms of our accountability efforts.
This labor agreement with SPOG is important
as we look to achieve our goals in public safety.
It is critical to improve our SPD staffing to bring
on board the next generation of sworn officers,
to allow detectives to be detectives,
back up specialty units, to bring on a bike team,
for example, to assist our neighbors and our neighborhoods.
It is important to press forward in alternative response
to bring solo dispatch to CARE,
to diversify our range of options
to meet our public safety challenges,
particularly those without a criminal basis.
That diversity is important.
It is imperative to continue our progress in accountability.
There are different accountability measures,
but I wanted to focus on frontline investigations.
To highlight how long term we must develop
to journey personnel to become leaders,
the key here is to have only major offenses to go to OPA,
as the legislation says.
Which also, by the way, will help OPA do its job,
to allow it to continue its mission better.
But these lesser offenses,
however, need to be addressed by our sergeants.
They need to be addressed by our sergeants
today in order to have better lieutenants, captains,
assistant chiefs, deputy chiefs and maybe chiefs of the future.
We have to invest in our leaders early to get the return later.
To conclude, this labor agreement,
particularly with the public safety work done by our city
over the past two years, demonstrates the seriousness
that we take our public safety challenges
with the understanding,
and this is important,
the understanding that there's still more to be done.
So thank you, again, Mr. Mayor, the team
and for everyone for joining us today.
And I'd like to say that was probably the briefest.
-All right. -And I knew John Wooden, too.
I want to get credit for that.
-In closing, before we take some questions,
again, I want to thank all of our police officers
who supported this agreement,
our labor partners and,
clearly, everyone in the community
who advocated for a comprehensive
and collaborative approach to public safety.
And so, before we take questions,
I also want to note that you heard quotes from
both Aristotle and John Wooden in the same press conference.
We don't get that every day.
And, with that, let's take some questions.
Dave. -Do the salary raises here,
are those included in your budget?
Is the city going to have to come up with
more money for those?
And then have SPOG members ratified this contract?
-The numbers are included in our budget.
They are included in our budget,
they're within the parameters
that were approved by the city council.
The end.
-But these numbers are higher than the proposal
that you came out with a couple of...
-Then let me get specific what the numbers are.
It's roughly 130 million over four years.
They are, again, premiums, I think.
Let me look at my notes.
Four percent for a bachelor's degree,
1.5% for an associate degree and 1.5%
if a multilingual language is that they qualify
for that premium as well. So it's 130 over four years.
-So, I guess,
is the city council going to have to come up with more money
to pay for the raises? -No.
-Andrew, would you... no, the short answer.
Okay.
-And have SPOG members ratified this agreement?
-Yes. Yes.
Sorry, it wasn't clear, but that's what we're announcing.
They did ratify it. I think their process is over...
would you like to take it? -Yeah.
I can respond.
-Do you want to introduce yourself?
-Yep.
Andrew Meyerberg, I'm the mayor's chief of staff.
We have SPOG ratify the agreement over the weekend.
So their membership voted the agreement through.
And our budget presumes the cost of the contract.
So there is no new money that would need to be added.
It's within our proposed budget.
-And I want to recognize, for those folks that are here,
I could have gotten you by name,
but I wanted to recognize those folks
that didn't have speaking roles.
Thank you for being here. We're all part of this system.
Yes?
-A question for Chief Barden, if I could.
If you could talk a little bit more about what happens
after the CARE Team responds.
And you talk about the network of nonprofits and people
that help this population,
and I realize every piece is probably different,
but how does the CARE Team then direct people into services.
And you kind of briefly mentioned coercive care
when appropriate.
Where is the current thinking on that?
-Sure.
-Yeah, I thank you for the question.
So I have always struggled to articulate the difference
between first response, meaning that 911 call comes in,
I rapidly, expeditiously get someone out
to triage and hand off.
Right? This is not long-term case management.
They're not meant to be outreach workers.
They've done some of that
because they've had the capacity to.
But I expect that to change.
So when I talk about that hand off,
that's why I'm always talking
about the behavioral health system, the nonprofits,
emergency housing and then the jails
because that's really what we all need to focus on
is building out that what would be the voluntary system.
So, if we hand off to Mary's Place, for example,
or we hand off to Union Gospel Mission
or the Crisis Solution Center or Connections in Kirkland,
I can give you a rundown,
there's about 15 frequent drop off locations.
But one of the missing pieces structurally,
it's true in Seattle and everywhere,
is there's no line of sight into what happens.
Right?
We hope that we made the correct referral,
but very often law enforcement will encounter
the same person again tomorrow,
we'll get the same 911 call tomorrow.
And so that's why the police co-responders
and the fire co-responders are such close allies
because we're all working on how do we share records.
If I just hand it off to lead case management,
I should be able to know in my software if we go out again,
"Oh, that's the person's case manager."
And then ultimately recommend,
if the person's doing worse in six months,
we got it wrong,
it's not working, we needed to try something else.
Does that make sense?
Was there another part of your question I missed?
-About course of...
-Yeah, yeah. No, that's exactly right.
I find that the public doesn't understand
that people are not resistant to services,
they are resistant to some stranger comes up and says,
"Hey, you want housing?"
It's like, "I don't know you. No, I don't want your help."
That happens all the time.
But there are outstanding teams in the city
who know if you invest for a number of weeks
and really get to know someone,
create some trust and start to illuminate why are they saying
"no," nobody wants to be cold and scared
and wet under this bridge.
We need to understand that.
There's a reason somebody's making that choice.
And so I think that space in between,
that's where CARE dwells.
We work with urgency.
We know too much about the crimes against folks
who are living unsheltered.
Right?
Especially women who are living unsheltered
are very likely incurring mounting trauma
every single day.
And so, again, I am always very specific
that law enforcement is always going to be the coercive team.
That's not going to be CARE.
But I also know that we do very,
very rarely refer anyone involuntarily into services.
And sometimes I observe deaths
that we knew the person was going to die.
Right?
They were wandering and muttering in traffic
all the time, it was likely to happen.
And so that's a challenge for the executive and legislative,
but I know we have to have the conversation.
-And if I could, sorry, as a follow up to that --
-We should just get coffee.
We could have a lot to talk about.
Yeah.
-What are the new tools
we have to like widen the window of intervention?
-Yeah.
-So you talked about like long-acting...
-Yeah.
-...how that can actually give people
a better chance to say "yes"...
-Yeah. -...initially.
-Yeah, it's the coolest thing
that's happened this year in my opinion is the Health 99
unit and SFD piloted that buprenorphine popup,
33 people elected into treatment.
So this is long-range treatment.
I know Council President Nelson has been a great advocate.
My contention is if we bring treatment to people,
get to know them,
make it much easier to get the treatment
than it is to get the drugs,
of course people don't want to die on the street.
Most folks I know who are in the throes of a dependency
on a drug like fentanyl, they've lost their friends.
We have captured quotes many times of somebody saying,
"It is horrible to be hooked on this drug
that's going to kill me."
Right?
And so there's a lot of coordination right now.
It's unprecedented.
And, again, we just need to start adding that software piece
so that we have a line of sight.
If SPD goes out, they should know,
"Oh, SFD just reverse overdosed last week."
Right?
Or, "Oh, this person has a lead case manager."
So we do this analog right now
with these high utilizer work groups
and we just need to invest in that structure.
And, again, this mayor and this mayor's office
has done a great job advocating for these changes.
-To follow up, Chief Barden,...
-Yeah.
-...on treatment, you mentioned, I think,
6,800 calls for service. Do you have numbers on
how many people have been referred to treatment
and how many people
are currently participating in treatment?
-Yeah, I would have to drill down
on that 40% that I gave you.
My guess is that it's probably 20 or 30%.
But, too often, the Crisis Solution Center, it's triage.
So I am a huge fan of the ORCA Center
because I know you've got to provide the through line,
you need an initial assessment, the clinical, the medical,
is this person housed, what's going on.
But then a lot of folks do need some inpatient treatment
or they need really a higher degree of case management.
The hardest thing in bureaucracy is designing for re-entry
because, even once somebody stabilizes,
they can be doing really well for 60, 90 days,
if they go back to exactly the same circumstances,
it is very hard to hold the win.
And so, again, I know a lot of us are working on that.
I do think it's unprecedented collaboration right now.
I mean, I don't usually say "One Seattle," but it is right now.
We're working hard. -Embrace it.
-Yeah, and with the county as well, right,
because a lot of these interventions and dollars
sit at the county level.
Yeah.
-[ Speaking indistinctly ]
-Oh, that's probably not for me.
-Sure, go ahead, Erica.
-So you mentioned the 180-day timeline changing
and the misconduct
that could result in termination going to OPA,
but nothing else. So I guess two questions.
How is the 180-day timeline for discipline changing?
And what is like a maximalist version of something
that could go to a sergeant rather than OPAs?
-Sure.
I'm going to ask Andrew to take those questions.
-So, with the 180-day deadline,
what the contract will do is it will adopt the definition
from the Accountability Ordinance
which always pushed for the timeline to run from
when OPA initiated or received a complaint.
And, as I believe you know and others know, Erica,
is that it's been very convoluted
over the last couple of years,
there's exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions.
So the idea was, and the original idea was,
simplify it because you don't want OPA not being able to
or the city not to be able to discipline an officer
because of some technical miss.
So this was one of the major elements
that resulted in the city being found out of compliance
by Judge Robart in 2019.
It was one of the big four that he identified.
So we look at this
as a pretty significant accountability accomplishment
and something we've been negotiating for years.
With regard to the frontline discipline,
the concept with that is that we not only
want supervisors to be able to investigate misconduct,
but we want them to be able to impose discipline.
And one of the impediments with prior contracts
was they could do lower-level misconduct investigations,
but could not impose discipline.
And, again, this is hugely important as a best practice
for holding folks accountable internally,
for developing a culture of accountability,
which is something that we all talk about.
I mean, that is the way
to achieve it is to hold each other accountable internally.
So, to answer your specific question,
the types of issues that this would cover,
again, it's not bias, it's not use of force,
it's not dishonesty, it's no major issues,
those would all still go to OPA,
but it would be minor performance issues.
You parked your car in the wrong zone
and there was a community complaint,
you are repeatedly late to work.
It's issues that have gone to OPA
because since the consent decree everything went to OPA.
But they are better suited to be handled
at the chain of command level. We are ensuring, though,
that, obviously we are not going to let things go wholesale
without protections.
The Office of Inspector General
will have systemic oversight of this program.
It'll be documented.
It'll be uniform across precincts.
Which is another win because, right now,
you could handle something in south differently
than you handle it in the east or in the north.
And we really need there to be consistent handling
of misconduct given how people move in between precincts.
And we don't want that to get lost.
-Can I follow up on that, Andrew?
Just you mentioned the concerns of Judge Robart
that included arbitration, that's arbitration.
-So one piece of this negotiation
that I can explain a little bit further is that,
as part of the negotiation,
we did negotiate around the disciplinary review system,
arbitration reform,
that was from the SPMA contract and part
of the Accountability Ordinance.
We have reached impasse with the union on that piece.
And for those that don't work in
and around collective bargaining,
impasse means that we brought our positions to the table
and SPOG brought their positions to the table
and we could not reach an agreement on it.
By reaching impasse,
the next step is that we will be going to
an interest arbitration on these issues
and we will receive a decision from an interest arbitrator
on these important pieces.
I think it's really important to note that,
as part of our bargain,
we were not willing to compromise
these accountability provisions.
What has happened before our time
and I would say in past administrations is sometimes
when you compromise on the positions,
you water them down and they are no longer effective
or at least they no longer hit the elements
that we tried to achieve with the Accountability Ordinance.
So we feel really strongly that it's important at this point
and we owe it to the people of Seattle
and to others to take this to interest arbitration.
-Is that something you can get done at the city level
or does -- you're gonna need the state?
-I mean, an interest arbitrator,
it's binding on the party.
So if an interest arbitrator agrees with our position,
the City's position, then the changes would be made locally.
And there's still obviously state options,
but those are tricky as well.
-Can you share exactly which issues are going to
interest arbitration?
-Sure.
The issues that are going are the same elements
of the SPMA Disciplinary Review System.
So, as you may recall, it's burden of proof,
so preponderance of the evidence.
It is the "no gotcha" rule,
which just means you can't bring new evidence after the fact.
It would be arbitrary and capricious.
We don't want the chief's decision on discipline
to be overturned unless it's arbitrary and capricious.
And it would also be...
we don't want de novo investigation.
So the idea would be you have your opportunity
to present the case, you don't get to bring in new experts,
new evidence, new items to an arbitrator,
which are inherently split the baby.
So that would be what we bring.
-What about subpoena power?
-Yeah, subpoena power was not part of this agreement.
It'll be part of another bargain the next time
we sit down with the union.
-Go to Omar.
-Omar.
-Don't go far. -Oh.
-Oh, yeah, no.
I've got a question for Chief Barnes.
Chief, I'll ask you the same question
I've asked the last three chiefs here,
including this interim chief over here.
What's your message for our community members most impacted?
We hear a lot about crime in the city and it's over there,
but a lot of times people ain't talking the ones
in the neighborhoods that are most impacted by crime.
What is your message to our community members
who are impacted by people with these guns and gun violence
in our neighborhood, our daughters being trafficked,
our neighbors overdosing on fentanyl,
specifically to our neighbors,
to our community members in the central district,
in the south end, man?
Like what are you guys doing?
How should our community take SPD's efforts?
What can our community do to make itself safer?
And, again,... -Sure.
-...I will say this is the --
you are now the fourth chief I'm asking this question to.
-So my answer is really, really simple.
Number one,
we will be communicating to you our efforts.
To establish trust,
we must be able to communicate to our community
what we are doing to keep them safe.
We have for the first time in a very,
very long time
a crime reduction strategy called Seattle-Centric Policing,
which is evidence-based, which was one of the criticisms
earlier on in my tenure from an OIG, I believe,
or an auditor report.
But, more importantly, if you come to any meeting that I have,
the first and last rule is we center the voices
of those most impacted by our decision-making.
That is the premise and foundation of everything
that we're doing.
So let me give you some more details about that.
What we have done is we have divided up how crime works
and operates in absolutely every single precinct,
not only here in Seattle,
but everywhere from an evidence-based approach.
For example,
we have identified our significant incidents,
our homicides, rapes, robberies, burglaries, car thefts
and we have stratified those into who is responsible
for those,
who is responding
and what our investigative processes look like.
Then we measure what our treatment was for each
and every one of those incidents
and how they could have been prevented and what we could
or can do better.
We're identifying our crime patterns.
I don't know if that's something that you're familiar with
or not, but crime patterns work differently in every city.
The area that you talked about,
how many robberies create a pattern,
we're doing that
and using that through our threshold development.
For us, four crimes within a half a mile radius
within 10 days in Seattle creates additional crime.
So when it becomes one or two,
we are moving our resources to address those problems,
we're identifying our problem locations.
This is nothing new to anyone.
If you ever traveled outside of Seattle,
you will know that there are certain addresses
specifically that account for an enormous amount of crime
and we're addressing those in our city with our partners.
And then we're looking at those areas
that historically have significant incidents,
crime patterns, as well as problem locations.
And we call those priority areas
and we are focusing on those persons
who are illegally carrying guns.
But, more importantly, we are bringing in not just the police,
as Chief Barden talked about,
but we're bringing in a whole of government approach
to look at the underlining causes of
why it's happening in the first place.
Because if you do not look at the underlining causes of
why crime and disorder are in your community,
you're just doing the same thing over and over and over again.
It's going to take time, it's going to take some patience
and it's going to take some consistency.
And I believe we have the team to do it.
-Thank you, Chief.
And I think Councilmember Bob Kettle would like
to address the question as well.
Please, Bob. -Yes.
I just wanted to say thank you for the question
and it goes to my remarks about assisting our neighbors,
but also assisting our neighborhoods.
We have to look out and give a voice to those
that are suffering, just like you accounted for,
which is on point.
And, by the way, it's throughout the city.
And that goes to what we're doing like
with our Strategic Framework Plan,
hitting the different pieces,
giving the tools to chief like with chronic nuisance properties
or after-hours establishments, all these different pieces,
because it's so important to account for the neighborhoods,
those communities that are suffering
and it's to have that balance.
It always goes to what I say about leading with compassion,
but then having the wisdom to also look out
for the neighborhoods and the communities, just as you said.
And I just wanted to say thank you for the question
and it goes to exactly what I said in my remarks
about assisting our neighbors with compassion,
like with Chief Barden,
but also our communities, our neighborhoods,
and I look to Chief Barnes.
And we're going to do our part on the council
to assist in that process.
So, again, thank you for that question.
-Thank you, Councilmember.
-Which retroactive pay --
-There goes calling on people, just shout it out there, Joel.
-There we go.
-Go ahead. -Thank you.
Can you just clarify what the base salaries are now
for officers with the 6% and the 4%, what they're coming in at?
-I believe it's 118,000 will be the starting.
But, before you write that down, let me make sure.
Andrew, am I in the ballpark?
-118,000. -The next question.
Yes, sir? -Three simple questions.
Could you clarify the number of civilian investigators
that will be allowed in the OPA contract?
-I'm going to need a little assistance.
The number of civilian investigators --
Would you like to --
Okay, okay. Four. -Four.
And the second question. It's not clear,
you started out by saying the standard of evidence
would be the preponderance of evidence.
Is that true or not? -So I know I didn't say that.
Andrew, can you address that? And grab my notes, by the way.
-Yes, sir. Your notes?
-Yeah, those are all my notes. -I think those are my notes.
So, no, Howard.
So it'll be the standard of proof
will be part of what goes to interest arbitration.
-And the last question.
Given the length and complexity of this contract,
are you going to release it immediately?
-Release the contract itself?
Is that a practice we do is releasing the actual contract
or is that a work product?
-Send an email.
-Send an email and you will get it.
That's what I've just been told. Yes?
-A quick question just on numbers.
We hear of 152 new hires, talk about your goal,
I think it was north of 1,400.
Where are you at with that and how do you intend to get there?
-Yeah.
So could someone else take --
I don't have the most accurate number where we are.
I know, Chief, I don't know if we --
we can get back to you offline. I don't want to wing a number.
-Yeah.
I think any statistical numbers
I want to make sure that are correct.
So, Barbara, we'll make sure that you get those.
But how are we going to get there?
We have a new ad campaign that's out now,
we have a new group that we partner with, Epic,
who is working with us on some of our recruiting strategies.
We're certainly ramping up what we're doing
in our HR Department.
We're going to more colleges, universities, military bases.
And we're really just trying to attract the right person.
Numbers are important, but, for me,
I want to make sure that we have the right people
that are going to be here.
What we are seeing is some great numbers, I think.
I think we had over 3,000 applications this year.
Obviously, not everyone goes through with the process
so there is some attrition there.
But we're going to keep pushing.
For me, if you're asking me,
I'd like to continue what we're doing each
and every year for the next five years.
-Question for the chief.
-Yep.
-The council has been discussing 30x30.
And I am curious what your plan is.
Right now, it's about 9% women.
30x30 is a plan to hire 30% women by 2030.
So how are you ramping that up in your...
-Yeah.
So 30x30 is not a plan, 30x30 is a goal.
My goal is to hire more than that if I can.
But we're going to do that by looking at our processes.
One of the things that I changed when I came here
was any female applicant
that's set to receive a rejection letter,
one of our female deputy chiefs will look at that
to see if there's something
that we could do differently with that.
But it's a lofty goal.
My former department had 28% women,
which is probably, I think, the highest in the country.
That started in 1974 with one of our chiefs,
David Cooper, and his mindset. So it's going to take some time,
but we're committed to doing that one applicant at a time.
And we also want to make sure that we can keep the officers
that we have as well.
And so we're looking at things like child care,
we're looking at things like assignment.
It's not always a perfect science,
but, certainly, we want to make sure that people know
that if you are a female and you want to come work,
Seattle Police Department is a great place to work.
And we're highlighting our officers, too,
our female officers
that are doing an amazing job in all segments, I think,
of our department because, at the end of the day,
you don't attract what you want, you attract who you are.
-Yes?
-The last MOU that involved CARE
also gave special event bonuses to officers as kind of a trade.
Are those special event bonuses in the new contract as well?
-Special event bonuses? Yes. David?
-Back in 2016,
Judge Robart expressed concern about accountability
and constitutional measures being, quote,
"held hostage because of the length to pay for officers."
These are pretty significant raises.
Was CARE being held hostage in exchange for more pay?
-No. Next question?
-What did it take to get the dual dispatch requirement
to overcome that hurdle?
-An effective negotiating team,
a buy-off on the vision of where modern policing is going by all,
including the rank-and-file
and the Seattle Police Officers Guild,
excellent again negotiating
and I think a belief in the Chief Amy Barden
and a belief in Chief Barnes. Next question?
I'm sure to try and keep them quick now so trying
to give everyone some day back.
We have a city to run.
I've got a lot of people power here that have things to do.
Well, I don't see another question.
Do you have a question, Matt? Were you raising your hand?
Okay.
So let me just thank, once again, for all of you,
the media for covering this,
for the community leaders for believing that it could be done
and, most importantly,
for leadership standing with me on plowing away.
This is a game changer for the city.
And, again, I think,
as one of the largest cities in the country doing this,
I think this is where modern policing has to go.
I sometimes talk about Eric Garner
who you may recall on July 17, 2014 was the person who said,
"I can't breathe."
He was just selling a cigarette known as a loosey.
We all know about George Floyd
who was murdered for allegedly having a counterfeit $20 bill.
And there's no proof that he even knew it was counterfeit.
And I can go down with Sandra Bland
and I can go down with many chapters in American history.
Well, we said, "Policing has to change."
We're changing it. So thank you.
And, make no mistake about it, we will continue to evolve.
Right, Chief?
We don't have all the answers here.
We are learning organizations I said when I took this job
so we want to set the pace,
we want to continue to learn and we want to continue to lead.
So thank all of you for being here and let's go do it.
And we're still mourning the Mariner's loss.
I said I had to say that because I have to vent.
That was a tough one for our entire city.
But we are resilient, maybe next year.
Everyone have a great day.