Chief Shon Barnes apparently didn’t consult with LEAD or the city attorney’s office before telling police they should start referring every drug arrest to LEAD.
By Erica C. Barnett
Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes sent a memo to officers last week directing them to refer most people caught using or possessing drugs in public to LEAD, the pre-booking diversion program that provides case management and other services to people accused of low-level criminal activity.
“Effective immediately, all charges related to drug possession and/or drug use will be diverted from prosecution to the LEAD program,” Barnes told officers in an internal email. “All instances of drug use or possession will be referred to Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD)—a program designed to redirect low-level offenders in King County from the criminal justice system into supportive social services.”
The announcement by Barnes appears to have been a dramatic overstatement of an internal memo from City Attorney Erika Evans directing her prosecutors to refer drug use and possession cases to an internal team to determine if they are eligible for LEAD. This represents a shift from the policy established by Evans’ predecessor, Ann Davison, who allowed people charged with misdemeanor possession or drug use to avoid charges by getting an addiction assessment and not getting arrested again for six months—the opposite of a therapeutic approach.
“The LEAD Liaison Team will assess previous attempts at engagement with the referred individual in consultation with LEAD,” Evans’ memo, which PubliCola received from her office, said. “If the referred individual has failed to demonstrate a sustained level or engagement with the LEAD program or has refused to engage with a LEAD case manager, the LEAD Liaison will assess the most suitable subsequent action in consultation with the Criminal Division Chief.”
Barnes responded to Evans’ memo by sending an email blast to all SPD officers saying that “Effective immediately, all charges related to drug possession and/or drug use will be diverted from prosecution to the LEAD program,” an inaccurate description of Evans’ directive to her staff. Barnes continued:
If an individual fails to comply with the LEAD program, traditional prosecutorial measures will apply. As you know, LEAD is a familiar alternative-to-arrest program that we have been utilizing for some time. This change aligns with Seattle City Ordinance 126896. Please note that this diversion does not apply to individuals who are ineligible for LEAD or to those arrested for selling or delivering controlled substances. User-quantity cases may be diverted; sell-and-deliver cases will not.
My expectation is that officers will continue to charge individuals for drug use or possession when appropriate-for example, when the activity occurs in public view or when probable cause for arrest is established.
The announcement quickly blew up thanks to an inaccurate story by KOMO, which reported—apparently without speaking to LEAD, Wilson’s office, Barnes, or Evans—that Wilson herself had “ordered officers to stop arresting people for open drug use.” (The origin of the accusation: Bombastic police union leader Mike Solan, who recently announced he won’t run for reelection). Right-wing social media accounts ran wild with the fake version of the story, forcing Wilson to issue a statement: “You’ll know when I announce a policy change, because I’ll announce a policy change.” (Apparently, it didn’t help: Wilson was mobbed by TV cameras after Evans’ inauguration Monday afternoon at City Hall.)
In her statement, Wilson affirmed that her public safety policy includes “enforcement of the possession and public use ordinance in priority situations and ensuring that the LEAD framework and other effective responses to neighborhood hot spots are implemented with an appropriate level of urgency, sufficient resources, and a commitment to results.”
This, in effect, is what the city’s policy toward low-level drug crime was prior to 2023, when Davison and then-mayor Bruce Harrell pushed to change city law to empower SPD to start arresting people for simple drug possession and public use.
Although Barnes insisted that the policy hasn’t changed, he didn’t do himself any favors by issuing what read to many officers as a directive to no longer arrest people for drug use and simple possession but instead refer them straight to LEAD.
Apparently, the police chief didn’t bother seeking information or feedback from the organization that runs LEAD, Purpose Dignity Action, before emailing officers about the change in policy, and he exaggerated the policy change by portraying as a kind of blanket amnesty for misdemeanor drug crime. LEAD has criteria for eligibility; it wouldn’t make sense for them to take on every single person ever arrested for using or possessing drugs, nor is it something the PDA could easily afford; LEAD had to stop taking on non-arrest-related “community” referrals in 2024 due to budget constraints.
Barnes also misstated the criteria for LEAD eligibility, saying people arrested for selling or delivering drugs are ineligible for the program; in fact, LEAD began as an effort to benefit this specific group of people, who were cycling through courts and jail without getting any assistance for the underlying issues that were causing them to earn a living through illegal means. LEAD still serves people accused of selling up to 7 grams of drugs, which means almost anyone involved in low-level drug sales is eligible for the program.
Finally, Barnes’ description of the conditions in which “officers will charge” people for public drug use are confusing and ambiguous: “Probable cause” is supposed to exist before officers make any arrest, and it’s unclear what distinction Barnes is making between “public drug use” and drug use that “occurs in public view.”
SPD did not respond to questions sent last week attempting to clarify what Barnes meant by these distinctions. However, they did send out an email to media in response to the right-wing blowback on Monday. “To be clear, nothing has changed when it comes to police continuing to make drug-related arrests in Seattle,” Barnes said in the statement (emphasis in original), adding that police will “continue to make arrests for drug-related charges if they have probable cause.”
We’ve reached out to the PDA for comment and will update this post when we hear back.
Can’t control right-wing media like KOMO – they will say ANYTHING to try to make progressives look bad. But Katie, Erika, and PDA can sit down with Barnes and educate him on the LEAD program and the change in policy from Davison so at least he knows how to direct his officers correctly.
With the advent of Katie Wilson’s progressive/liberal policies, let’s see how all the diversion bs plays out. Guarantee that Seattle will socially deteriorate!
I don’t know anyone – left-right-center – who wants people to continue committing crimes, so if we can divert into supportive services so that addicts can recover from drugs and turn their lives around, nearly all people, regardless of partisan affiliation, would want that result. The punitive approach of Davison only attracted 33% of Seattle voters in the very recent election, whereas Erika’s approach garnered 2/3rds of the electorate (66.8%). Elections have consequences, and we therefore cannot allow Republicans like Mike Solan and Ann Davison to continue to control the narrative around crime using right-wing media like KOMO news, which is then amplified uncritically by other news outlets. Their “punish the addict” view was soundly defeated by Seattle voters, so it is now time to stand up for the criminal justice views of the 2/3rds majority rather than kowtow to a minority view that is not representative of what most voters want in Seattle.
Wilson needs to reconsider her position on dangerous barnes before it becomes a tragic error in judgement. I suspect the fear of poking a rogue department.