By Erica C. Barnett
Seattle Nice went in-depth with Mayor Katie Wilson this week, in a packed interview about her first six weeks in office. Supporters who have been disappointed by her lack of decisive action on police surveillance cameras will definitely want to tune in, as will those who are interested in how she plans to add 1,000 units of shelter by the end of this year.
This must-listen interview is full of newsworthy moments, including Wilson’s confirmation that the city’s approach to encampments has not changed since last year, when her pro-sweeps predecessor Bruce Harrell was in office.
Wilson recently paused an encampment removal in Ballard so that five people living there could get into housing—an achievement Wilson mentioned in her State of the City speech this week. But that outcome isn’t one the city can easily replicate—a permanent supportive housing provider, DESC, had just opened a new building nearby and had a few vacant spaces, which won’t be the situation during future sweeps. And very little of this type of housing is in the development pipeline.
Wilson acknowledged that it’s “absolutely true that this is not something that we are going to be able to repeat again and again and again, and that is really because of the lack of availability of emergency housing and shelter with services that match people’s needs.” Which, she said, “is precisely why a very, very high priority for my administration is working to open up new emergency housing and shelter, and we have aggressive goals for that this year.
In the meantime, Wilson added, “we’re not going to be able to make earth-shattering changes to the way that the Unified Care Team operates.”
Wilson also confirmed that the city is continuing to use the “encampment scoring system” Harrell implemented shortly after taking office—a fairly inflexible rubric that doesn’t account for conditions at individual encampments, such as whether the people living there are at the top of a wait list for housing.
We also pressed the mayor on her equivocal comments about police surveillance cameras, which police claim are necessary to solve crimes, including homicides. On the campaign trail, Wilson strongly suggested she opposed this kind of always-on police surveillance, and would not support installing new cameras in the two additional neighborhoods where they’ve been approved.
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During our conversation, though, Wilson repeated talking points from the Seattle Police Department about clearance rates and crime, arguing that cameras have helped police solve more crimes than before the cameras were installed.
The cameras, Wilson noted, only cover 1 percent of the city where about 20 percent of crime occurs (a talking point that may be familiar to Seattle Nice listeners, since Sandeep used it to justify the cameras during our conversation with City Councilmember Dionne Foster two weeks ago). Wilson said she still has concerns “around the potential misuse of our CCTV camera cameras and the possibility that that data could get into the wrong hands and be abused to target vulnerable populations,” but she’s weighing that against what she sees as compelling evidence that the cameras help solve crimes and may even prevent racial profiling.
“I think it is fair to say that if we turned off the cameras, it would become more difficult to solve many crimes, including some violent crimes and homicides, and some might not get solved,” Wilson told us.
We also talked about the conflict between funding shelter and funding housing at a time of federal budget cuts and local budget deficits; Wilson’s citywide renter survey; and how she plans to tackle “open-air drug markets” in neighborhoods like Little Saigon.
Katie, we do not care who you talked to or what they “said”. Facts show it’s the road to oppression. Cops stalking wives and ex wives. Enemies etc.
The current cameras are fine where they are. But there it stops. No exceptions. Empty excuses sound like empty excuses. Using tired arguments puts you in their shoes.
In your interview, Katie misspoke and said that CCTV cameras are NOT part of real-time monitoring in the Real-Time Crime Center. Katie also failed to mention the 140 traffic cameras around the city that are also used for real-time monitoring by SPD through authorization from the SDOT. We need an independent audit of the CCTV system and traffic cameras as suggested in the interview, as you simply can’t take the word of the SPD that they will not use the cameras for real-time monitoring.
Also, Axon Evidence, whose servers are used to upload the footage to from the SPD CCTV cameras, has these servers located in Texas, which is a Red State that cooperates with ICE. In fact, it is a legal requirement in Texas to cooperate with ICE, and this requirement is part of state law (Senate Bill 8). I am surprised that Katie’s advisors were not able to properly research this and advise her of this fact.
And I agree with Erica that the real-time use of the cameras goes well beyond concerns about misuse by ICE, and presents a basic constitutionally protected right to privacy violation. Innocent people who are minding their own business, in which there is no probable cause or even a reasonable suspicion that they are involved in crime can not be monitored by the police. Period.
The only acceptable use I see is turning off the uploads of CCTV footage to Axon servers in Texas, and limiting the use of the footage from CCTV and traffic cameras to solving specific crimes after they have occurred. Hot pursuit use might also be permitted if well documented, in which the cameras are used to monitor ‘credible’ reports of a specific crime in progress that is considered serious (violence, kidnapping, etc.). In all cases, independent oversight of the use of the cameras is warranted given the history of abuse of power and pervasive lying on police reports at the SPD that was detailed in the recent Consent Decree.
The whole thing is a racket. Alarmist gaslighting. They permanently paint areas as “high crime”. The cameras do not go away ever. They repeat the same BS about “If they were not there? Crime would skyrocket” and then talk about Capitol Hill as if it Mad Maxx.
A ride the fence middle of the road approach WILL NOT WORK.
Yeah…Gang stalking is not what we voted for. She was supposed to get that stuff under wraps. Not fund and expand mass surveillances. The cavalier way they gaslight communities is to gain live video acce4ss and fund the companies that provide data , equipment and services contracts. The whole thing is sleazy.
So she lied about everything she would do and the gullible Katie voters believed. Sad it’s so easy to satisfy that electorate.
LOL…mkay…Keep crying over the fact you lost and call her voters names. It’s s imply false anyway
Fund housing instead of the cameras and you won’t need the cameras.