Category: public safety

Courts, Mayor Harrell, podcasts, Police, public safety, Transportation

Seattle Nice: Harrell Fires Ex-Police Chief, Metro Killing Raises Transit Safety Questions, and What IS Art, Anyway?
I had AI generate “a beautiful sunrise” on a freeway wall as an example of what would qualify as “art,” according to Mayor Harrell. It’s fine I guess?

By Erica C. Barnett

Continuing with the era of good feelings on Seattle Nice, we had some mostly cordial disagreements this week on the issues of public safety, graffiti, and the firing of former police chief Adrian Diaz, although it’s hard to say we fully agreed on any of it (would it be Seattle Nice if we did?)

We started with this week’s biggest news—Mayor Bruce Harrell’s decision to finally fire former police chief Adrian Diaz, nearly seven months after formally removing him from his position and replacing him with interim chief Sue Rahr. (Harrell’s selection of Madison, Wisconsin chief Shon Barnes as permanent police chief, announced this morning, hadn’t happened yet when we recorded on Thursday).

Diaz was accused of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and several SPD policy violations stemming from a long-rumored affair with his chief of staff, Jamie Tompkins. After his removal as chief, Diaz went on a right-wing talk show to announce he was gay, calling the allegations against him “absurd.” He’s been receiving a salary of more than $350,000 since May.

Sandeep gave Harrell his flowers for firing Diaz after months of diligent investigation; I said the situation was more complicated than that, noting that former Office of Police Accountability director Gino Betts was shown the door after some on his staff complained that Betts had slow-walked the OPA’s own investigation into Diaz, slowing down the process and potentially keeping Diaz on the payroll longer than necessary.

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We also discussed the murder of a Metro bus driver in the University District earlier this week. Like many local elected officials, Sandeep said the tragedy demonstrated the need for more police, security guards, and fare enforcement officers on buses and at transit stops to prevent future violent crime.

I argued that the murder—the first such killing in more than 26 years—would not have been prevented by flooding the transit system with officers, nor does it demonstrate that “transit is dangerous.” (Murders and assaults, obviously, do contribute to a perception of danger, as the killing of a bus driver on the Aurora Bridge did in 1998. After that tragedy, elected officials and the drivers’ union also said buses were unsafe and called for more police.)

Even if flooding the system with police was an effective strategy for preventing crime, it would be financially impossible for King County to put an officer on each of the hundreds of buses that are running at any given time in order to prevent assaults on bus drivers, or retrofit all its buses with inaccessible driver compartments, as some are already suggesting. Such assaults, though terrible, are fairly rare: According to the Seattle Times, there have been 15 reported assaults on bus drivers in the first 11 months of 2024, down from 31 in 2023.

Finally, we talked about the graffiti arrests I reported on earlier today. If you think the tone of my story is too relentlessly neutral, and you’re wondering how I REALLY feel about government officials defining what is “art,” listen to this segment and find out.

Police, public safety

Seattle Police Department Updates Its Emergency Driving Policy
Matt Zalewski, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By Andrew Engelson

In mid-October, the Seattle Police Department released new emergency vehicle operations (EVO) policies that instruct officers to “drive no faster than their skill and training allows and [what] is reasonably necessary to safely arrive at the scene.” The new rules were a belated response to community outrage after an SPD officer, Kevin Dave, struck and killed 23-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula in a South Lake Union crosswalk while driving 74 mph.

The new guidelines also advise officers to consider specific factors before deciding whether to break speed limits or traffic laws when responding to emergencies – including the priority level of the call, whether pedestrians can see and respond to an officer’s vehicle, the “character of the location (i.e. freeway vs. side street)” and weather and road conditions. 

The new emergency driving policy now more closely aligns with SPD’s pursuit policy, which directs officers to pay attention to various factors before deciding whether to pursue a subject. SPD’s previous policy was extremely vague and gave little specific guidance to officers about when they can engage in emergency driving other than “where there is a legitimate concern for the preservation of life” and “only when the need outweighs the risk.”

Nearly two years after Kandula was killed, SPD finalized the policy after members of Seattle’s Indian American community and the Community Police Commission (CPC) demanded changes. 

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Joel Merkel, a co-chair of the CPC, was encouraged by the new policies, which he said incorporated some of the CPC’s suggestions. “I appreciate the requirement that officers are not supposed to drive any faster or more dangerously than is reasonably necessary to get to the call safely,” Merkel said.  “These are all positive developments that make the policy much less vague, a lot more clear, and provide some safeguards to ensure that emergency responses are safer and that there can be some accountability when they’re not.”

SPD did not make one change the CPC requested—specific restrictions on how fast officers can drive in an emergency, such as a certain amount over the legal speed limit. SPD chief operating officer Brian Maxey said specific limits would put additional burdens on officers trying to assess the risks and require them to “perform calculations in real time, which presents additional distractions.”

According to Maxey, the new policy restates previous guidance to officers to balance the risk of the response against the urgency of the call – but now spells out what factors increase those risks. “Consistent with recommendations from the CPC, the new policy sets out some specific criteria to consider under the totality of the circumstances faced by an emergency driver,” Maxey said.

Maxey said all sworn officers will be trained on the new policy. “The plan is to update the entire department on high-speed emergency driving in 2025,” he said. “That will provide a skills refresher, but will be guided by the policy.”

Merkel said training will be critical in implementing SPD’s new policy. “The type of driving that is contemplated by officers in emergency responses is far beyond the capabilities of the average citizen,” he said. “So there absolutely must be robust training to ensure that when officers are responding to an emergency, they have those skills necessary to do it safely.”

The CPC expressed concerns last year that SPD does not have a dedicated facility for training. In the past, the department has contracted with a racetrack in Kent as a training site. 

Merkel also noted that the new policy instructs officers to use lights and sirens during emergency responses, with only a few exceptions. The previous policy only directed officers to use “audible signals” (such as chirps rather than ongoing sirens) and had no explicit recommendations about when to use emergency lights.

“I think the new policy makes it clear that that’s the default,” Merkel said. “You should be using your lights and sirens, and turning them off is the exception.” Dave had his lights on but was only chirping his siren at intersections before he hit Kandula.

Whether the new policy will lead to stronger discipline for officers who drive at excessive or dangerous speeds is an open question. Dave is still on SPD’s payroll and so far has only received a traffic ticket for the incident. According to an analysis of GPS data acquired by PubliCola, SPD officers frequently drive at excessive and dangerous speeds, often when they aren’t even responding to an emergency.

The new policy says officers should not disregard the safety of others during emergency driving, “nor is the sworn employee protected from the consequences of their reckless disregard for the safety of others.”

Though Merkel said he was skeptical that SPD officers will now face stronger discipline for unsafe driving, he does believe the new policy spells out what officers need to consider to improve safety. “With a clearer rule and a clearer standard, it is much easier to hold an officer accountable when the rule or standard is violated,” Merkel said. “If it’s a vague policy, a vague standard, it becomes much more difficult to enforce accountability. So because the rule has become clearer, I think it does make accountability easier.”

Police, public safety

Jaahnavi Kandula’s Family Sues City for $110 Million Plus $11,000, In Direct Reference to Officer’s Callous Comments

photo of Jaahnavi Kandula

Kandula, a 23-year-old student, was struck and killed by Seattle police officer Kevin Dave last year.

By Andrew Engelson

Attorneys for the family of Jaahnavi Kandula, who was struck and killed in a South Lake Union crosswalk by a Seattle Police Department officer traveling 74 miles an hour, filed a lawsuit this afternoon against the city of Seattle and SPD officer Kevin Dave for more than $110 million. In the claim, filed in King County Superior Court today, attorneys wrote that Kandula “experienced terror, severe emotional distress, and severe pain and suffering before dying.”

The sizable figure —$110 million, plus $11,000—is a direct reference to the callous comments made by SPD officer Daniel Auderer shortly after the fatal collision.

Auderer, the vice chairman of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, had been called to the scene to investigate Dave for signs of intoxication. Caught on body cam video in conversation with police union leader Mike Solan, Auderer joked and laughed about Kandula’s death, saying, “Just write a check. $11,000. She was 26, anyway. She had limited value.”

Interim Seattle Police Chief Sue Rahr fired Auderer in July. In response, he filed a $20 million tort claim against the city for “wrongful termination.”

“It is absolutely abhorrent to get on the phone and laugh about anyone’s death,” attorney Vonda Sargent told PubliCola.  “He’s suing for $20 million, so I guess he thinks the value of his life is far greater than the value of Jaahnavi’s.”

The figure, if awarded by a jury, would represent the largest personal injury claim ever against the city of Seattle. The highest award paid out by the city was in 2016, when the city and its insurers paid $65.7 million to the family of an attorney who was struck and severely injured by a Seattle fire truck.

The city attorney’s office and SPD both declined to comment on the lawsuit.

PubliCola reached out to the mayor’s office on Friday afternoon and will update this article with their response.

Kandula, a 23-year-old engineering student from the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, was crossing Dexter Avenue at Thomas Street when she was killed on the evening of January 23, 2023. The legal complaint was filed by Kandula’s mother and father, Vijaya Laksmi Gundapuneedi and Sreekanth Kandula, who both live in India. 

“It is absolutely tragic. I don’t think that they’ll ever get over it,” Sargent said of Kandula’s parents. “Your first-born child is gone forever. Parents are not supposed to bury their children.”

The claim notes that “[a]s a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ negligent conduct, Plaintiff Kandula sustained extreme pain and suffering after being slammed into by Defendant Dave’s speeding patrol vehicle traveling up to 70 MPH,” the lawsuit says. The claim also notes that Kandula’s parents “continue to endure severe emotional distress as a result of their daughter’s death.”

In March, Sargent and attorney Susan Mindenbergs, working for family members representing Kandula’s estate, filed a tort claim—also for $110 million plus $11,000—with the Seattle City Attorney’s office. According to the claim, the family sought damages for wrongful death, “loss of familial consortium” (emotional, non-economic losses due to the loss of a family member), and negligent planning and construction of the crosswalk and street infrastructure at Dexter and Thomas, where Kandula was struck.

Dave struck and killed Kandula while driving to assist the Seattle Fire Department, which was responding to a call from a South Lake Union resident who said he was “freaking out” after taking cocaine. Though Dave turned on his signal lights, the filing notes that Dave only “chirped” his siren while going through red lights and “failed to activate his patrol vehicle siren before approaching the intersection of Dexter Avenue North and Thomas Street.” 

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Sargent said that officer Dave had no reason to exceed 70 mph on this particular call. “It was unnecessary,” she said, “because the urgency of it had already passed.”

She also said Dave’s high speed wasn’t necessary. “The difference in speed with him going 35 or 40 miles per hour and 74—the time he’s ‘making up’ is negligible,” Sargent said. “It’s not as though doing 74 miles an hour is going to get you there 15 minutes sooner.”

The lawsuit also says that Dave “was driving with one hand on the steering wheel” just prior to hitting Kandula. 

The lawsuit notes that Dave was driving at least 70 mph in a 25 mph zone and that the force of the collision “caused Plaintiff Kandula to fly 136.99 feet before crashing into the roadway.” According to data from the Transport Research Laboratory, the fatality rate for crashes at 70 mph is close to 100 percent.

Though a SPD police report on the collision noted that a “pedestrian’s expectations when crossing a street are that they will likely encounter traffic traveling at speeds near the posted speed limit,” Dave chose to drive nearly three times that limit. As PubliCola previously reported, Seattle Police Department’s emergency vehicle operations policies are extremely vague and give officers wide latitude in how and when they may break traffic laws when responding to a call, advising them to speed and run lights “only when the need outweighs the risk.”

The Kandula family’s lawsuit also notes that Dave did not have a valid Washington State drivers license, another detail PubliCola first reported.

Sargent said SPD was negligent on many levels, from hiring Dave to having vague guidelines for when police can speed to unsafe street design. “The people who are responsible for the care and safety of the citizenry should have at least the base level of care for the citizenry. That means being cautious when you drive. Having the requirements, all the qualifications for driving, like a license. And knowing that if you’re screaming up and down city streets that you’re likely to hit someone.”

In its complaint, attorneys for Kandula’s family allege that SPD “negligently hired Defendant Dave whose employment record included being terminated from the Tucson Police Department for numerous incidents of poor performance, bad judgment, and misconduct.”

The lawsuit directly refers to many details PubliCola has uncovered over the past year and a half about the collision and Dave’s history, including his firing by the Tucson Police Department and his “checkered history” there before SPD hired him in 2019.

TPD fired Dave in 2013 after numerous investigations, including one involving a “preventable collision” for which he was suspended right before being fired. 

“He should have never been hired,” Sargent said. “You can’t take just all comers. Everyone is not suited or fit to be a law enforcement officer.” Sargent said that the fact SPD knew about Dave’s troubled history and hired him anyway points to a systemic problem rather than the misconduct of one officer.

As we reported earlier this year, an SPD sergeant contacted Tucson police while investigating an incident in which Dave was seen “apparently filming the facilities” at an SPD training center in August 2020. The Tucson police told SPD about Dave’s history, including a troubling incident that occurred shortly after he was fired, when an officer pulled him over for speeding, Dave was pulled over by a Tucson police officer for speeding. 

According to a TPD report on that incident, Dave was “unable to stand still, he was talking very fast, and his pupils were dilated.” The officer filing the report suspected Dave appeared to be “possibly on some type of narcotic.”

In February, King County Prosecutor Leesa Manion declined to file felony charges against Dave, and City Attorney Ann Davison issued him a negligent driving traffic ticket with a $5,000 fine. Last month, PubliCola reported that Dave and his attorney are challenging that ticket in municipal court. 

The lawsuit also refers extensively to Seattle Department of Transportation’s planning and construction of pedestrian infrastructure and street design at and near the site of the collision. It notes that SDOT has delayed planned improvements at the intersection, as we noted in our initial report on the collision. 

“There are issues with that particular intersection,” Sargent said. “And then we learned that citizens were calling in about that intersection.”

The claim quotes from an SDOT customer service summary dated February 2023, that observed, “An Indian student died at the intersection of Dexter and Thomas on Jan 23rd. She was apparently hit by a police cruiser 4 weeks ago [at] the same intersection I requested to install new stop signs to avoid such accidents from happening.”

In addition, the lawsuit quotes from SPD detective Brett Schoenberg’s internal report on the incident, which stated “The speed at which Ofc. Dave was traveling did not allow Kandula or him sufficient time to detect, address and avoid a hazard that presented itself.”

The claim also notes that when investigating whether Dave was intoxicated, Auderer did not order a breathalyzer or blood test but only did a visual assessment of Dave.

Sargent said Kandula’s family plans to set up a foundation in Jaahnavi’s memory if a jury makes an award.

“I think most people can understand on some level, this sort of loss,” Sargent said. “You send your child to a foreign country to educate herself, to make herself better, to help the family, and she’s taken from you,” Sargent said.

“And then when she’s taken from you, it’s turned into an international joke. You have people laughing and guffawing about the loss of your daughter,” Sargent said.

“The family wants justice. They want some accountability. Because it should have never happened.”

Media, public safety, race

Top Fire Official Helped Concoct Hoax Against Department, Targeting “Woke” Policies Like Vaccine Mandate

 

The former deputy fire chief and another firefighter created a fake “proud Latino” from South Park. Messages also show department staff trading vaccine conspiracy theories, using homophobic slurs, and providing packaged, “paint by numbers” stories to right-wing media.

By Erica C. Barnett

A Seattle Fire Department deputy chief, Tom Walsh, and a longtime firefighter, identified in Signal messages as Paul Patterson, concocted a ruse to deceive fire chief Harold Scoggins into changing the language the department uses to describe staffing shortages in an attempt to prove the department was too “woke,” then shopped the story to right-wing media. KTTH commentator Jason Rantz picked up the story and ran with it last year.

The messages were obtained through a citizen records request and are available on Muckrock.

Walsh and Patterson were among many SFD personnel who were furious over the COVID vaccine mandate that went into effect in 2021. Signal messages between Walsh and a half-dozen other fire department employees show the men endorsing conspiracy theories, making racially insensitive comments (such as suggesting that Scoggins can never be fired because he’s Black), and using the f-slur for gay men.

The story Walsh and Patterson peddled to Rantz involved a fabricated South Park resident, “Armando Paredes de Castillo,” a “proud Latino currently living in the South Park neighborhood”  who was offended by the term “brownout,” which fire departments use to describe short-staffing. Both Patterson and Walsh are white.

Patterson and Walsh spent weeks working on a letter to Scoggins, which they also released to Rantz, expressing outrage about the term and calling it racist against Latinos; the goal was to get Scoggins to direct staffers to stop using the term, which would supposedly demonstrate that the department was too “woke” and focused on the wrong things. The Signal messages suggest that Patterson was the primary author of the “Armando” emails, with assistance and editing from Walsh.

Neither Walsh nor Patterson responded to questions sent earlier this week.

Patterson went by the handle “L11Tillerman” in Walsh’s Signal account but was identified by name in several exchanges, including one from Walsh that read “Paul Patterson: The Harriett Tubman of SFD.” (In a message to a city IT staffer, Walsh referred to himself as a “modern-day Harriett Tubman,” apparently referring to his “path back” into the department despite being unvaccinated. The deputy fire chief and the IT staffer also discussed Bitcoin, “one-way tickets to South America,” and places they might move now that living in the US was untenable.)

“Armando” began writing to Scoggins in the spring of 2022, complaining in April, for instance, that “brownout” was a “discriminatory term” that was offensive to Latinos like himself. In a conversation with Patterson about an email from “Armando” in May, Walsh joked that the email was making him “tingle in my bathroom parts.”

On June 13, Scoggins distributed a memo saying they would stop using the term after “Concerns were raised that the term ‘brown out’ has negative connotations for communities of color. This change has been made to reaffirm SFD’s commitment and mission to serve all communities with dignity and respect.” In an exchange with Patterson that day, Walsh wrote, “And Armando’s memo just came out,” to which Patterson responded with an image (or GIF) of dancing monkeys. “Exactly,” Walsh responded.

Rantz reported on the memo the following day, touting it as an “EXCLUSIVE.” In his post, Rantz called Scoggins’ response “a wholly contrived issue that the chief is using to signal his wokeness. It’s as if he was under pressure to show his commitment to ‘equity’ but couldn’t think of any that are woke enough, so he made up an issue for the pats on the back he’ll no doubt receive.”

Rantz remained in contact with “Armando.” In August, Rantz filed a followup based on more info he’d received from “Armando,” reporting that “internal emails obtained by the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH show how the department kowtowed to the increasingly aggressive demands of one random Seattleite.”

In November, Rantz returned to the story yet again, this time with an email exchange with Patterson. (In a message to Walsh in October, Patterson wrote, “Jason asked for an interview, I declined but said I would give him a [sic] that was quotable. Feel free to edit or give your input”).

Walsh and Patterson debated how to talk to Rantz over Signal, and ultimately decided to deliver him anonymous quotes over email; in his piece, Rantz wrote that “Armando” “said he is an internal Seattle Fire source that wishes to stay anonymous.”

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Despite being fine with quoting a source who was anonymous even to him, Rantz’ followup excoriated Scoggins for failing to “vet” Castillo to determine that he was who he said he was—a Latino resident of South Park. (The city does not track down and verify the identity of every person who writes to them, which would cause obvious privacy and workload issues.) Patterson forwarded the story to Walsh, writing, “He didn’t hit a home run, but…”

The following February, after a lengthy back-and-forth on Signal to fine-tune the wording, “Armando” sent a followup to Scoggins and Harrell mocking the fire chief for falling for their “brownout” hoax. The point of the prank, they wrote, was to bring attention to Scoggins’ efforts to “divide us on vaccination, religion and race.”

Besides the vaccine mandate and the “brownout” language change, the letter complained about Mayor Bruce Harrell’s reaction when a firefighter wrote the mayor to complain about the mayor’s pro-choice statement when Roe v. Wade was overturned, which the firefighter called “virtue signaling, politically motivated nonsense.” Harrell’s office sent the email to the fire department’s HR department, which told the firefighter he should only communicate with the mayor through his chain of command.

The letter began, “I am the troll that single handily played into your woke ideology and manipulated you into the BROWN OUT cancel culture BS!”

You have shifted the paradigm and culture within the Seattle Fire Department from being a tight nit inclusive family to a poorly run business that has been run with tyranny & bias!

I highlighted the gaping tear in the fabric of common sense by arbitrarily saying I found the term “BROWN OUT” offensive. We are living in ridiculous time where anyone can “identify” as whatever they want and then throw a flag that the rest of society has to bend and lean into their irrational behavior and insist we reinvent language to accommodate made up feelings.

The purpose of this dog and pony show was to bring attention to couple of things that you have done that have ripped a gaping hole in the fabric of the Seattle Fire Department!

It went on for another 2,500 words in this vein.

Rantz wasn’t the only local right-wing commentator who ran with a packaged story from Walsh and Patterson. In February 2023, the pair shopped around a letter from a group of firefighters who claimed Scoggins had engaged in “presumed criminal activity” during the 2020 protests by, among other things, loaning stretchers to volunteer medics in the so-called Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ).

After failing to get traction with Rantz and considering both Brandi Kruse (a former FOX13 reporter who, according to Patterson, “owed [Walsh] one from the Chaz”) and local right-wing provocateur Katie Daviscourt, the two men decided to go with Post Millennial writer (and failed Seattle City Council candidate) Ari Hoffman.

In their texts, Walsh and Patterson described the story as a “paint by numbers” piece. In a separate email with another firefighter, Steve Collins, around the same time, Walsh wrote, “Hoffman’s not gonna have to do any work. I’ve done it for him.’

Hoffman ran with the story on March 15, posting it under the headline, “EXCLUSIVE: Seattle fire chief faces backlash after coordinating with BLM, Antifa rioters during CHAZ occupation.”

The Signal messages included in the records request include Signal messages from deputy fire chief Walsh from 2021 through 2023. Many of the conversations are about the vaccine mandate, and refer to right-wing conspiracy theories that have been thoroughly debunked.

In many of the texts, Walsh and other fire department employees complain that the department has been taken over by “woke” vaccine proponents. “These fucking people are ruining my beloved fire department,” Walsh wrote in November 2021. The following March, Walsh wrote that he had “zero fucks left to give”; two days later, he wrote, “The city was monstrously good in the way they prosecuted the mandate. Fuckers. Evil, but good,” then made a joke about Seattle restaurants requiring “a proof of Ukraine support card before they’ll serve you.”

Despite writing that he would likely lose his job over the mandate, Walsh remained in his position until June, when he retired after 27 years at SFD. As of last year, he was still complaining about the vaccine mandate, writing, “Cocksuckers. Every last one of them” in an exchange with Collins on September 7, 2023.

In a separate exchange with Walsh, Collins said he was being disciplined for calling someone a “f-g” on Facebook after the other person was “whooping up the mandate;” Collins complained that the person sent the exchange to HR. “Of COURSE he did,” Walsh wrote. “Seattle is such a ‘run and tell mom’ town.”

Walsh also speculated, in a conversation with a fire lieutenant, about whether someone was a “tranny” or a “chick.”

As of July 31, Patterson was still listed as an active firefighter in Seattle’s online wage database and in the city’s internal employee directory. Collins left the department in 2021 after refusing to get the vaccine, and we were unable to locate contact information for him; however, he was quoted in the Free Beacon, a right-wing website, in 2023, complaining that “woke tests are making it harder for the macho guys to get hired” at SFD.

The Seattle Fire Department responded to our questions with the following statement: “The Seattle Fire Department is unable to provide comment due to an ongoing investigation and pending litigation.”

City Council, public safety

Council Members Approve Fine for Street Racing, Claiming It Will “Deter” Racing, Save Lives
Charlie XCX would never.

By Erica C. Barnett

The Seattle City Council approved a bill this week that will impose fines on people who engage in or watch street racing, with fines that begin at $500 and range up to $1,500.

Supporters of the bill, originally sent to the council by City Attorney Ann Davison, vastly overstated its likely impact, suggesting that the “deterrent” threat of fines would not only prevent people from racing in the first place, but save lives that might otherwise be lost to gun violence. (A young man was recently shot and killed at a street racing event on Alki).

“Too many people are dying,” Councilmember Rob Saka said. Addressing a public commenter who raised concerns about the constitutional rights of spectators, who can now be ticketed and fined for being present at a street race, Saka noted that the city of Kent has long had a similar law, “and I think this bill … strikes the right balance between the competing demands of constitutional rights and the rights of people who want their community safe across the city.”

Bill sponsor Bob Kettle, who represents downtown, Queen Anne, and Magnolia, praised Saka’s amendment creating graduated fines, rather than the fine of $500 per incident Kettle originally proposed, “because checking in [with] the community, you know, $500 wasn’t enough to deter. … And we have to have that deterrence point. Otherwise, more people are going to lose their lives.” The legislation also received an emergency designation, meaning it will go into effect immediately.

Street racing is already illegal under state law, and has been for more than 100 years; reckless driving, which encompasses street racing, is illegal on both the state and local levels. Under these laws, people convicted of illegal racing can be fined up to $5,000, jailed for up to 364 days, and lose their license. Compared to these existing potential penalties, a fine of $500, or up to $1,500, is fairly minor.

Tanya Woo, who co-sponsored the bill, said there are already legal outlets for people who “feel the need to express themselves with speed,” like racetracks and official races, and suggested that people “leave these high risk maneuvers [like drifting and burnouts] to the professionals in a controlled environment.”

Councilmember Tammy Morales, who represents Southeast Seattle, said that what the city needs isn’t more criminalization of something that’s already illegal and subject to significant penalties, “but what we do need is safe places for young adults to go. We need better lighting on our streets. We need to design our streets to make it difficult for drivers to race on them, and that’s why we just approved a $1.5 billion transportation levy package to begin to address all of that other infrastructure that’s needed.”

Morales cast the lone vote against the bill.

City Council, Crime, Elections, public safety, Transportation

Transportation Levy Funds Leary Bypass of Burke-Gilman Trail; Council Escalates Street Racing Rhetoric (and Fines)

1. The Seattle City Council voted Tuesday to approve a $1.55 billion, eight-year transportation levy for the November ballot, and Mayor Bruce Harrell signed the legislation Wednesday.

In a reversal from its previous position, the council decided Tuesday to earmark $20 million to “complete” the long-disputed Burke-Gilman Trail by rerouting cyclists and pedestrians off the current route and onto new path next to busy Leary Way NW. Cycling advocates and industrial businesses have spent decades locked in a legal battle over the “missing link” of the trail along Shilshole Ave. NW, with business groups opposed to a straightforward link between two sections of the trail through Ballard.

By explicitly funding the Leary detour, Strauss said his amendment will finally settle that debate, “putting this 30-year problem to rest.” But the debate is likely to continue, even assuming voters approve the transportation levy and secure the $20 million for the Leary option. The proposed route, as we’ve reported previously, would require cyclists to cross 13 active intersections, the most of any alternative the city has studied, plus 33 driveways and loading docks—each presenting its own opportunities for collisions.

Three council members—Sara Nelson, Bob Kettle, and Maritza Rivera—voted against Strauss’ proposal, with Cathy Moore and Rob Saka reversing their previous “no” votes. Rivera said she supported completing the Missing Link, but that she didn’t support earmarking so much money for a specific option when there would be more opportunities to discuss the alternatives and finalize the details later; Nelson said she was concerned about stripping all but $6 million from an arterial maintenance fund that was supposed to help leverage millions of dollars in other investments.

Model T speedster photo via ModelTPix.com.

2. Also this week, the council’s public safety committee, chaired by Kettle, approved legislation that will allow police to issue tickets to anyone engaged in illegal street racing in Seattle.

The new ordinance (much like last year’s controversial drug law, which incorporated an existing state law into a local ordinance) imposes a fine of $500 for the first infraction and, thanks to an amendment added by Councilmember Rob Saka, escalating fines that top out at $1,500 per infraction. Another Saka amendment, modeled on a law in Kent, makes it a civil infraction for people to be “spectators” at street races.

“Many of these races are occurring because they’re putting on a sideshow. They’re putting on a show for people,” Saka said, adding that spectators can number in the “hundreds—hundreds!” The “key delta” between the Kent law and Seattle’s proposal, Saka added, is that Seattle’s only imposes a civil fine, while Kent’s allows criminal penalties.

“We can’t be afraid of taking risks and taking strong action to solve this problem that has plagued our city over and over again,” Saka said.

A council spokesperson said it “will ultimately be up to SPD” how to enforce the ban on watching street races, which could include issuing tickets on site or using footage from nearby surveillance cameras to track down and ticket people after the fact.

None of these measures are likely to end street racing, which has been illegal in Washington state since the age of the Model T. State law has banned street racing since at least 1915, suggesting it has been a perennial problem. The original law banning street races allowed officers to arrest drivers for “racing on the public highways,” except when local authorities set aside time for “speed trials or speed contests.”