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 overreaction to 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 also referred to “this change” in the same email email. Many officers interpreted Barnes’ contradictory memo as a directive to no longer arrest people for drug use and simple possession but instead refer them straight to LEAD.

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. Even if the PDA wanted to take on “all charges related to drug possession and/or drug use” they couldn’t afford to. LEAD had to stop taking community referrals into the program after the drug law passed in 2023, and a $5 million budget boost last year will only fund another 500 to 600 slots in the program this year.

LEAD co-director Brandi McNeil said that’s “a significant number,” but it’s well “below the total number of people who would qualify and be appropriate candidates for LEAD. We will need to strategize with police, prosecutors, the Mayor, the Council, and County officials (our funders) to focus that capacity on high priority situations and individuals.”

LEAD tries to take on clients who are likely to benefit from their services, as opposed to everyone who has been accused of a particular misdemeanor. “Part of our job is to accurately forecast what capacity we will have, and to work with our partners to decide which, among the pool of people who chronically commit law violations related to behavioral health issues or poverty, should be prioritized for our available slots,” McNeil said.

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.”