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Multiple Sources Say Police Chief Barnes is Out; Mayor’s Office Not Responding to Questions
Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes speaks outside City Council Chambers

By Erica C. Barnett

Update on Thursday at 11:30 am: As of this morning, Mayor Katie Wilson’s office still has not responded to multiple requests for comment or clarification on Barnes’ employment status. Sources have told PubliCola that Wilson asked for Barnes’ resignation yesterday and that he declined to resign, which would force Wilson to fire him if she wants him out. The silence from the mayor’s office makes it impossible to clarify exactly what is going on with Barnes.

Meanwhile, a group of mostly older Black community leaders held a rally at City Hall calling on Wilson to keep Barnes this morning, saying they represent “the Black community” in Seattle.

Some City Councilmembers have reportedly begun pushing back on the mayor’s decision, although none of them have said anything publicly. Under the city charter, the mayor can fire the police chief “upon filing a statement of his or her reasons for so doing with the City Council.”

Original story follows:

On Wednesday night, multiple sources in several branches of city government told PubliCola that Mayor Katie Wilson fired Police Chief Shon Barnes earlier this afternoon. Barnes was reportedly seen leaving Wilson’s office on the seventh floor of city hall Wednesday evening after a lengthy meeting. Barnes was in his uniform when he arrived at an early-evening vigil for the victims of a mass shooting on Sunday at Seattle Center, but left before the vigil was over.

Multiple sources, including a recently retired SPD officer, said Barnes called at least some of the department’s captains Wednesday night to tell them the news.

PubliCola has not been able to officially confirm Barnes’ firing with either SPD or the mayor’s office. An SPD spokesperson said they had no information, and neither Wilson nor her communications office responded to requests for confirmation and comment tonight. The mayor reportedly canceled all regularly scheduled staff meetings this afternoon before meeting with Barnes in her office.

Rumors had been swirling about Barnes’ future at the department all afternoon, after Barnes canceled about a half-dozen TV interviews he had scheduled to discuss the shooting and address questions about his travel schedule. I reported on the canceled TV interviews Wednesday afternoon.

Barnes was out of town, attending a conference in Dallas, when gunfire broke out Sunday night; I broke the news about his absence from Seattle on Sunday.

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As I reported last year, Barnes rents in Seattle while his wife and kids remain in the family’s home in Chicago. The chief has traveled frequently throughout his time in Seattle, giving keynote speeches, attending conferences, and visiting his family in Chicago. He kept up his heavy travel schedule this year, traveling nearly seven weeks in the past seven months, on top of about two weeks spent on vacation and out of the office. SPD provided a partial copy of his schedule in response to PubliCola’s request, so these are conservative estimates based on information SPD provided for the first three months of the year.

A breaking point in Barnes’ relationship with the mayor may have come after clips of the chief confronting a reporter who asked about my reporting on his travel. When South Seattle Emerald reporter Connor Nash asked Barnes how often he was out of town, the chief Barnes tried to shut him down, said my reporting was inaccurate, and had to be hustled away by his chief of staff Alex Ricketts, who inserted himself physically between Barnes and Nash.

The confrontation, which Barnes brushed off a day later by saying he was just showing his “passion” for the job, made international news. It also sparked new interest in Barnes’ whereabouts since former mayor Bruce Harrell hired him in late 2024.

This is a developing story.

Mayor Wilson

Partial, Altered Schedule Shows Police Chief Out of Town Nearly 7 Weeks So Far This Year

Barnes, under fire after we reported on his absence from the city during Sunday’s mass shooting, had planned a half-dozen TV interviews to talk about his schedule today. All were canceled.

By Erica C. Barnett

In response to PubliCola’s request for Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes’ schedule for 2026, the Seattle Police Department provided a copy of his schedule that begins in late March, along with limited information about his trips to his family home in Chicago, where his wife and kids live. Prior to Sunday’s mass shooting at Seattle Center, Barnes was scheduled to be out of the office from July 22 until August 3 at the earliest.

The partial 2026 schedule was altered before SPD provided it to PubliCola and no longer says where Barnes planned to be this week; instead, it includes events related to the shooting. We’ve asked SPD Barnes’ original August schedule.

Barnes has been under fire for several days over his frequent absences from Seattle, after I reported on Sunday (with a followup on Monday) that he was out of town, at a conference held by the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) in Dallas, when gunfire broke out at the Bite of Seattle event at Seattle Center.

When I first reported on Barnes’ frequent absences back in 2025, I noted that during the four months for which SPD provided his schedule, he spent most weekends out of town, typically traveling to Chicago, delivering keynote speeches, or attending conferences.

An SPD spokesman said Barnes has been to Chicago to visit his family four times so far this year, in February, March, June, and July, totaling 17 days.

Additionally, according to his April-through-July calendar, Barnes attended seven conferences in those four months, including a different NOBLE event as well as conferences held by the American Society of Evidence-Based Policing, the Police Executive Research Forum, and the Major City Chiefs Association. Those conferences took Barnes out of town for 25 days (Barnes’ schedule shows him out of commission this past Monday as well, but he returned to town from Dallas so was here that day).

As PubliCola previously reported, he also went on a five-day recruiting trip to the Central Intercollegiate Athletics Association (CIAA)  basketball tournament in Baltimore; the group of 12 Historically Black Colleges and Universities includes Barnes’ alma mater, Elizabeth State University.

And Barnes’ schedule shows he was on vacation from April 23 to 26, with Deputy Chief Yvonne Underwood serving as acting chief.

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The travel on the calendar provided to PubliCola, plus the earlier trips, add up to 47 days or almost seven weeks,  out of town through July 26 of this year. Since we don’t have the chief’s calendar for January, February, or most of March, it’s impossible to say with certainty if Barnes was out of town for additional periods during those three months. Barnes’ weekends are mostly empty, except when he is at a conference.

Additionally, Barnes’ calendar shows that he was out of the office, with Deputy Chief Andre Sayles serving as acting chief, between July 8 and July 13. The calendar does not say where he was those six days. Deputy Chief Tyrone Davis stepped in as acting chief of police between April 3 and April 5, also with no indication of where Barnes was when he was out those three days.

Barnes’ calendar and social media posts show that he was in Washington, D.C. on June 21 for the Jack and Jill International Teen Leadership Conference. His calendar does not show when he traveled to the East Coast or when he returned.

Altogether, Barnes’ out-of-office days when someone else stepped in as chief, his vacation days, and his documented out-of-office time, indicates Barnes has been in other cities or out of the office for almost nine weeks so far this year.

Barnes’ planned absences during late July and early August has been the source of questions from the media ever since I reported he was absent during the shooting and referenced my previous reporting that his family lives in Chicago.

The altered version of the police chief’s schedule does not say where Barnes originally planned to be this week. SPD’s media relations office told me yesterday that he had planned to be out of the office between at least July 22 and August 3. Subsequently, Barnes told me at a press conference that he’s having a medical procedure on Friday, and that if he’s not “good to go” on Monday, “I’ll take all the time that I need to make sure that that I’m okay.”

PubliCola has requested the original version of Barnes’ schedule for this week as well as the entire month of August, as well as his schedule for the time prior to March 29, and will update this post when we receive it.

On Tuesday, Barnes bristled at questions about how often he is out of town, saying (inaccurately) that I had reported that he would be out of town for “the entire month of August.”

On Wednesday, the chief scheduled a round of at least six interviews with TV reporters, who have generally been sympathetic to Barnes, to discuss his schedule; all of these interviews were canceled, however, reportedly after Barnes was informed that holding six interviews about his schedule three days after a mass shooting would not be a good look.

City Council, Density, housing

On Narrow Vote, Council Gets Rid of Local Appeal Process that Delays Land Use Legislation

 

Opponents of Seattle land-use legislation will still be able to appeal to King County Superior Court or the Growth Management Hearings Board.

By Erica C. Barnett

On the narrowest possible vote, the Seattle City Council approved legislation yesterday that will eliminate one of several avenues for opponents to appeal land-use legislation, such as the city’s comprehensive plan. The bill, sponsored by Councilmember Eddie Lin, eliminates pre-legislative appeals to the city’s hearing examiner while still allowing people to appeal legislation to the state Growth Management Hearings Board or to King County Superior Court after it passes.

Currently, hearing-examiner appeals are one of many tools that people and organizations opposed to apartment construction use to delay or stop development.

Yesterday’s four-hour meeting, which I covered live on Bluesky, featured the kind of over-the-top rhetoric that has long characterized debates about housing in Seattle. Public commenters who opposed new housing, mostly older white homeowners, argued that denser housing harms the environment by removing individual trees when homeowners sell their houses to developers (opponents refer to these lawn-based tree removals as “clear-cutting”), and contribute to climate change that kills salmon, orcas, and birds.

Although opponents have repeatedly raised the specter of Seattle turning into New York City (the horror!) the comprehensive plan, currently delayed indefinitely by an appeal that began at the hearing examiner’s office, would in fact allow modest new density in a few dozen small areas citywide, all within a block or two of major transit stops.

One speaker suggested that the city just convert all the vacant commercial buildings downtown into housing and let renters live there. (This isn’t really a new idea: “Solutions” that involve moving all renters into segregated areas are exactly what we have now, with new rental housing mostly confined to highways and busy arterial roads). Another said councilmembers who supported Lin’s appeal reform bill are just like Trump, because they’re taking away the civil rights of local density opponents the same way Trump is taking away the civil rights of Black voters and immigrants.

Councilmember Rob Saka, a former Facebook attorney and Air Force veteran who proposed an amendment to Lin’s bill that would have restored the appeals the underlying legislation sought to eliminate, also invoked “civil rights” in a speech excoriating his colleagues for violating “fundamental due process rights, free speech rights, the right of people to petition their government for redress of grievances. These rights form the bedrock of our democracy, and these rights are enshrined in our Constitution,” Saka said.

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Later, after Lin confirmed with a staffer that there’s no Constitutional right to appeal land-use legislation to a hearing examiner in Seattle, Saka said, “Even if it’s not a right, we heard dozens of people today say, from their perspective, that it is a right.” As I noted yesterday, that is not actually a point—just because a political faction uses highfalutin language about “rights” and “democracy,” that doesn’t mean their feelings trump the law. Allowing property owners to endlessly delay housing for renters by appealing land-use changes is arguably pretty anti-democratic in itself, especially when it halts legislation before the public legislative process can begin.

After Saka’s amendment failed (even Maritza Rivera voted against it), the final vote ended up being a nail-biter. Rivera, the council’s most consistent opponent of pro-housing legislation, said she of course wants to see more housing, but doesn’t support “taking something away” from her constituents. Debora Juarez, a former elected councilmember who was appointed to serve out Cathy Moore’s term last year, said she wanted to “err on the side of giving a little bit more… because that’s due process, and that’s what the people want.”

Bob Kettle, who represents downtown, Queen Anne, and Magnolia, ended up casting the surprise swing vote (Joy Hollingsworth, who abstained from voting in committee, voted no), but not before chiding housing proponents, mostly younger renters, for using rhetoric he called inappropriate.

Kettle says it's not "right to declare our neighbors are weaponizing" the appeals process because of the war in Iran and the gun violence epidemic. Of course he is only chiding people on the pro-housing side. The anti-housing folks have been vitriolic, but he isn't tone policing them.

— Erica C. Barnett (@ericacbarnett.bsky.social) 2026-07-29T00:35:34.683Z

Lin, who’s emerging as a pro-housing star on the council, said little before the final vote, which took place at nearly 6:30pm. Earlier in the meeting, however, he did take a moment to respond to commenters who likened new housing to toxic waste and highway expansions. “I don’t think housing and future residents are toxic waste or pollution that need to be studied for years and years and years on end,” Lin said. “I believe housing is a human right.”

Although yesterday’s 5-4 vote to eliminate hearing examiner appeals won’t prevent housing opponents from challenging land use changes in court or to the state Growth Management Hearings Board, the change will allow the legislative process to move forward during appeals, and puts Seattle in line with Bellevue, Everett, King County, Tacoma, King County, and many other local jurisdictions that don’t allow this kind of pre-legislative appeal.

Mayor Wilson, Police

Confrontation With Reporter Was Just “Passion on Full Display,” Police Chief Says; OPA Complaint Filed

After the chief twice mischaracterized PubliCola’s reporting, SPD confirmed the chief planned two weeks off before Sunday’s tragedy at Seattle Center.

By Erica C. Barnett

During a briefing on the mass shooting at the Bite of Seattle at Seattle Center on Sunday, Police Chief Shon Barnes responded to a few questions about his claim that PubliCola’s reporting on his whereabouts and schedule has been inaccurate. (Yesterday, Barnes lashed out at South Seattle Emerald reporter Connor Nash, who politely asked about my reporting on Barnes’ planned two-week absence, saying my stories were “wrong.” Clips of the confrontation quickly went viral.)

After telling me (inaccurately) that I had reported he would be out of town for “the entire month of August,” Barnes said, “I have a medical procedure on Friday. If I’m good to go, I’ll be in the office as my usual cheerful and bubbly self. But if not, I’ll take all the time that I need to make sure that that I’m okay.”

Barnes did not answer my followup question about how long he had originally planned to be out of the office before the shooting forced him to return from a conference in Dallas. (“Asked and answered,” he said.) After the press conference, SPD media staff told me the two weeks he had planned to take off actually extended from July 22 to August 3, with a planned return on August 4. The comms folks didn’t how much additional time the chief might have to take off because of his medical procedure.

Another reporter said she wanted to give Barnes an opportunity to “quash” criticism of his “heated exchange” with Nash about my reporting.

Barnes disputed that characterization, told the reporter, “I respect our media,” and said his reaction—which prompted his chief of staff, Alex Ricketts, to insert himself between Barnes and Nash and hustle the chief away—was just an example of being “passionate about what I do as a police officer” and “community member.”

“Sometimes that passion is in full display, especially if someone is questioning my work ethic or my integrity,” Barnes continued. “You know, having a two-year-old shot should evoke strong emotions in people.”

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Since his confrontation with Nash, at least one person has filed a complaint against Barnes with the city’s Office of Police Accountability, alleging that he violated a section of SPD’s policy manual that requires SPD employees to “treat everyone with respect and courtesy, guarding against an officious or overbearing attitude and refraining from language, demeanor, and actions that may cause the individual feeling belittled, ridiculed, or intimidated.”

Referring to published videos of the confrontation, the complaint continues, “Connor appears fearful and intimidated by Chief Barnes in this video. This violent outburst coming from the Police Chief, who is presumably armed during this encounter is completely unacceptable. Officers would be disciplined for behaving this way toward any community member. The fact the Chief left the room and then returned to begin this confrontation makes this more concerning.”

At Tuesday’s press conference, Barnes took another opportunity to dispute something I reported. Since former mayor Bruce Harrell hired him as interim chief in December 2024, Barnes’ wife and kids have continued to live in their family home in Chicago while he rents an apartment in Seattle. More than a year ago, I reported that Barnes was out of town for more than half the weekends during a four-month period for which I requested his schedule.

Asked how often he’s in Chicago (by—credit where it’s due—right-wing activist Jonathan Choe), Barnes again mischaracterized my reporting, saying “any reports that I’m gone every weekend are grossly misstated. I don’t have that kind of money.” (Since he brought it up, Barnes makes $373,000 a year and got a $50,000 signing bonus when he started.)

“I’m here in Seattle. I love the neighborhood that I live in. I love my community. They love me. They know me. They see me all the time,” Barnes said. “So I feel good about being here in Seattle. I love this community.”

City Council, education, Mayor Wilson, Police, Poverty

Seattle Police Chief Out of Town During Mass Shooting

 

 

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A post shared by Hana Kim (@hanakimontv)

By Erica C. Barnett

Editor’s note: This post, originally part of today’s Morning Fizz, has been updated and expanded to include new information.

Yesterday’s mass shooting at Seattle Center, in which a gunman killed three people and injured five more, was the type of violent incident that, historically, has prompted Seattle police chiefs to rush to the scene to demonstrate the seriousness of the situation and answer questions from members of the press.

But the city’s current police chief, Shon Barnes, was nowhere to be seen on Sunday. As he has been for many weekends since he took the $373,000 job in December 2024, Barnes was out of town. According to multiple sources, Barnes planned to be out of town until mid-August, taking several weeks away from Seattle during the period when shootings and other violent incidents are most likely to occur. Barnes also took two weeks off during the most recent winter holidays, including New Year’s Eve.

As we’ve reported, Barnes rents an apartment in Seattle and makes frequent trips to his family residence in Chicago, where his wife and kids live full-time. Last year at this time, PubliCola reported that Barnes’ schedule showed he spent most weekends, beginning on Friday afternoons, out of town, attending conferences, going to events related to his college fraternity, giving keynote speeches, or spending time with his family in Chicago.

PubliCola sent detailed questions about the police chief’s whereabouts to SPD on Sunday night and Monday morning and had received no response or acknowledgement by late morning. However, Barnes’ Facebook page, where he has chronicled many of his trips, indicates he was at a conference for the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives in Dallas. He was back in Seattle this morning for a press conference on the shooting at City Hall.

(After this post went up, a city spokesperson contacted us to ask for a correction, saying we had inaccurately claimed Barnes was in Chicago, which we did not; our article this morning included the paragraph above about Barnes’ attendance at the NOBLE event. Despite the apparent urgency of this call, SPD still has not responded to any of our questions sent over the past two days.)

Barnes, who received a $50,000 recruitment bonus to leave his previous job as police chief of Madison, WI, was also out of town during a major SPD incident last May, in which police pepper-sprayed and arrested dozens of counter-protesters at a rally and concert held by anti-trans right-wing activists at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill, Seattle’s historic LGBTQ+ neighborhood. Barnes’ family also lived in Chicago while he was Madison’s police chief, although those two cities are only about a three hours’ drive apart.

During a press conference late Monday morning, a reporter asked Barnes if he was out of town this weekend, as I reported on Sunday. His response: “I wish I had a crystal ball and we could schedule gun violence but we can’t.”

At the end of the press conference, Barnes snapped at South Seattle Emerald reporter Connor Nash, who asked him about my reporting that he is out of town a lot. FOX 13 anchor Hana Kim posted video (above) that showed Barnes becoming “confrontational,” as Kim put it, snapping, “I have been here working as hard as I can for this city from the day I got here. Do you got that?”

As Nash continued to ask his question, Barnes cut him off. “No, no, you listen to me.”

“The reports are that you are not in town—often,” Nash persisted. “Their reports are wrong. You understand that?” Barnes said, as his chief of staff Alex Ricketts pushed himself physically between Barnes and Nash, saying, “Let’s go, man. Let’s go. Let’s go” and escorting Barnes back inside the mayor’s office.

We’ve reached out to the mayor’s office about Barnes’ outsize response to the question about his schedule and will update this post if we hear back.

City Council, education

Council’s School Meals Plan Will Require Cuts to Other Services (Reposted)
Council President Joy Hollingsworth speaking outside council chambers earlier this year.

By Erica C. Barnett

Editor’s note: This post, originally part of today’s Morning Fizz, has been reposted as a separate piece in order to expand today’s other Fizz item, about Police Chief Shon Barnes’ absences from Seattle.

I was out of town for a couple days last week, so I was a few hours late to the news that three Seattle City Council members—Joy Hollingsworth, Dionne Foster, and Dan Strauss—announced they had found a win-win solution to the problem created by a Hollingsworth-Foster amendment repurposing funds that were supposed to pay for universal school meals in the upcoming school year. The amendment, which took $3 million out of universal meals by delaying that program a year, will pay for $500,000 in annual grocery vouchers for up to 5,000 poor families each year, according to the sponsors.

The council’s big fix: Keep the vouchers, and fund universal school meals—at an annual cost of $3 million—out of the city’s general fund, starting with this year’s supplemental budget.

By the time I read about the proposal, there were already a number of stories and social media posts describing the amendment as a solution that gave everybody what they wanted—the FEPP levy could still fund food vouchers for the poorest kids, while the council would use existing money to make universal school meals happen in time for the upcoming school year. “Seattle City Council proposes plan to fund free meals for all school kids,” went a typical headline.

I found the tone of the coverage perplexing. It was as if people forgot that the term “general fund” means “entire discretionary budget for the year” and that the mayor and council are currently facing a budget hole of at least $175 million. Any time the council or mayor add a new obligation into the budget, they have to cut funding in another part of the budget to make it balance. This isn’t deep budget lore; it’s basic math.

Mayor Katie Wilson was less than impressed with the proposal, noting in a statement that she looked forward to “seeing which critical services they plan to cut from the general fund to make their numbers work.”

Proponents of the amendment delaying universal school meals by a year, which passed 6-3 last week, said they wanted to wait to see what happens with the statewide tax on income above $1 million a year, which is supposed to fund universal school meals statewide. That tax is up for a referendum vote in November and could still face challenges in court. If the tax fails, the city will still have to come up with a long-term funding plan to pay for universal school meals in future years.