The messages also reveal that Mayor Wilson was indecisive about going to the scene of the shooting while advisors gave conflicting recommendations and TV reporters speculated about why she wasn’t there.
By Erica C. Barnett
Mayor Katie Wilson’s office released hundreds of pages of internal Teams messages and texts between her staffers, herself, and Seattle Police Department officials from the night of the July 26 mass shooting at the Bite of Seattle and in the days following the shooting. (Full documents available here.)
The messages, which do not include communications between SPD officials except where the mayor’s office was included, show two things. First, that the mayor’s office dithered and debated whether Wilson herself should go to the scene of the shooting for three hours before she finally went to Seattle Center, partly in response to TV reporters criticizing her for not being there.
And second, that the primary reason for the delay in information, as well as almost all of the delay in holding a press conference that night, was that SPD delayed the release of information repeatedly, withholding any new information information from the public and press until the press conference finally took place around 11pm.
SPD, the messages show, knew critical details about the shooting, including the fact that it was not a random mass shooting or terrorist event within an hour of the shooting—that is, before 7:30pm—but did not put any of that information out broadly until after 1:00 in the morning on July 27.
The messages include texts from mayoral communications staffer Jonah Spangenthal-Lee to SPD Chief Operating Officer Sarah Smith asking her why SPD had not provided any information since a tweet warning the public of a shooting with “multiple shooting victims” at Seattle Center at 6:29pm. “Sarah, where is SPD”s statement?” Spangenthal-Lee wrote at 8:36. “It’s been two hours since you guys have posted anything? Even some tweets at this point…”
A few minutes later, Spangenthal-Lee told other mayoral staffers in an internal Teams chat, “It’s fucking embarrassing that SPD has waited HOURS to put anything out. … I’m just saying this is a massive fucking disaster and hit to public trust.”
Responding to the text, Smith wrote,”The team is actively handling the situation on the ground and with the media on scene. Still very chaotic right now. We will have more information out soon. A few minutes later, Wilson’s interim communications director, Dawn Schellenberg, wrote that another SPD staffer was “working on getting something on Twitter”—the only social media site SPD uses. Moments later, Smith corrected her, saying SPD would have no further updates until “after 9.”
Wilson’s own statement on the shooting went out at 8:46. It did not include information SPD was still withholding, including the critical information that the shooting appeared to be between groups of people who knew each other and that there was no need for he general public to be afraid.
At 9:26, Smith sent an update: Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis, who was filling in because Barnes and both his deputy chiefs were out of town, would be doing media interviews at 10pm; SPD would put up a Blotter post “right afterwards.” Ultimately, the press conference was delayed until almost 11pm, with both Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and Governor Bob Ferguson, who had driven into town from Olympia, in attendance.
None of the messages include an order from the mayor’s office to withhold information from the public so that “dignitaries” could arrive at Seattle Center, as one of SPD’s communications staff told TV reporters who have repeatedly suggested that this was the reason SPD did not release information to the public all night.
While SPD was withholding information and failing to communicate with the press, a chaotic debate was going on within the mayor’s office about whether she should go to the scene of the shooting. The discussion began shortly before 6:30, when Wilson said she was available “as needed” and her interim communications director, Dawn Schellenberg, said Spangenthal-Lee had said she should go to Seattle Center. The mayor’s public safety advisor, Alison Holcomb, advised against this “until we know more.”
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At 7:26, Wilson texted, “It would be good to get clarity soon whether we’re planning a public conference tonight v. tomorrow morning, so we can communicate that to other elected officials. (Just talked with Ferguson and Jayapal. Ferguson is in Olympia but can head this way shortly.)”
Holcomb replied, saying to wait until after a conference call for elected officials that was being organized by SPD. That conference call didn’t take place until around 9pm, possibly because Barnes wanted to get briefed on the situation from Dallas before participating in a call with elected officials. (A release of similar internal Teams chats and text messages from SPD would shed light on what Barnes and other SPD officials were doing between approximately 7:30 and 9:45.)
By around 9:40, it was still unclear whether the mayor would go to Seattle Center. At almost 9:30pm, Spangenthal-Lee wrote, “I reaaaaaaally think the mayor should go down there,” but Holcomb disagreed, writing, “Harborview, where victim’s families are, makes more sense, and I’m not sure that makes sense.”
“Media aren’t looking for an in-depth conversation about gang violence, they’re. looking for sound bites,” Holcomb continued. “Good time for the Mayor to be letting first responders do their jobs and not be armchair quarterbacking.”
Around the. same time, Deputy Mayor Brian Surratt, who had been on the scene for two hours, told Wilson, “I just talked to [Assistant Police Chief] Davis. His recommendation is no.” In other words, shortly before 9:40, SPD was still saying the mayor should not come to Seattle Center.
But after KOMO reporter Chris Daniels called the mayor, and another KOMO reporter said on air that they would expect the mayor to be there if she was in town, Wilson wrote, “We should consider whether I should come down to talk to KOMO, if that expectation has been created. I’m sure they would love to spin an ‘absent mayor’ story.” (Daniels has been among the mayor’s harshest critics, and a chief ringleader of the narrative that the mayor was solely to blame for the lack of information about the shooting.) “I’m inclined to have you come down,” Surratt responded.
Wilson was on the scene less than a half hour after that text, shortly after 10pm. The press conference happened shortly before 11.There was a brief delay for Ferguson and Jayapal to arrive from other parts of Seattle, but it was, at most, around 30 minutes—at the end of a long night in which SPD had still put out no information beyond its initial, alarming post on X saying that multiple people had been shot.
SPD’s first post on the evening’s events went up early the following morning, at 1:08 am.
Wilson and interim Police Chief Andre Sayles announced some changes to how police and the mayor’s office will communicate with each other and with the public earlier this week. The city’s Office of the Inspector General is supposed to release a report about the communications breakdown sometime this fall.
Editor’s note: This story originally reported that Chris Daniels was on the scene at Seattle Center; he was not. We regret the error.
KUOW news has a completely different take on the event with text messages between SPD and Alison Holcomb arranging for the mayor to be at a 9:45 pm news briefing. The text stream says the time was scheduled at 9:45 to allow the mayor to get there.
SPD owns the bulk of the screwups, but the buck stops with the mayor. The messages show a disorganized, dithering mayor and staff. The mayor has a person with Deputy title but evidently no authority over other staff. Unclear whether public safety mayor staffer brought any value to the situation. Mayor was aware of unfolding problem but failed to give an order. Her main concern was an “absent mayor” perception.
I dont think the delays in communicating with the public amount to a major scandal, but it’s hard to not see a lot of the problems Katie’s critics have pointed out. Katie looks very passive in the texts and in the few times we see her chime in, she is remarking on media and her own public image. She says little about the victims, public safety, perpetrators, etc. she doesnt provide input on what she wants and how the city should respond for her staff to critique or provide input to. She just tells them to let her know what she should do and, implicitly, it must make her look good so don’t screw it up. The net effect of this is that people are going to hesitate to take necessary steps because they have no direction from their superior and know that a mistake in a risky situation could leave them without a job.
Having worked in positions where I had to make my boss look good above all else, I had flashbacks of the psychological drain of having boss like that. I voted for Katie but I found myself cringing when reading those texts.
AnonHippo:
I agree with your thoughtful Assessment —- and the best we can hope for is that she can get the necessary on-the-job leadership skills she and we need.
But I do have a question for you:
What exactly should the Mayor or Mayor’s office have done?
The cops determined early on, so far as I’m tracking, that the killings were not some part of organized terrorism but just punk kid gangsters. So the concern that there would be further attacks on the public were unlikely.
So it seems as if the cops should’ve simply made that announcement ASAP so the upset could be focused.
I can’t see how the Mayor or the Mayor’s office really should’ve done anything at all except make the kind of reassuring language which everybody wants to hear and pretty much ignores.
The cops should have explain that distinction to the public as quickly as possible and urge everybody to enjoy themselves as much as they possibly could considering the circumstance.
it was poor judgment by somebody that the politicians should have been involved at all.
What am I missing?
Spangenthal-Lee sounds like the one who correctly sussed out the situation and fallout. So why is he out?
“Ultimately, the press conference was delayed until almost 11pm, with both Senator Pramila Jayapal and Governor Bob Ferguson…”
Obviously, Representative Jayapal.
Note that this is not the first time that ECB has referred to “Senator” Jayapal.
An interpretation of the released communication by a less biased news source.
Bite of Seattle messages highlight missteps
MAYOR’S OFFICE | Debate, frustration from staff in the hours after shooting.
By Lauren Girgis Seattle Times staff reporter
Messages exchanged between city staff shortly after a fatal shooting at the Bite of Seattle food festival reveal frustration, confusion and haphazard coordination between the mayor’s office and the Seattle Police Department.
Hundreds of Microsoft Teams and text messages released Friday by the mayor’s office give new insight into the delay in public communications after the July 26 shooting, which left three dead, at least four injured and many in the dark about whether an active shooter was on the loose. Mayoral spokesperson Dawn Schellenberg wrote the messages were being released to reporters in “the interest of transparency.”
While people waited hours for more information, the messages show that mayoral staff talked behind the scenes about why the Police Department hadn’t put out more information quicker, debated whether to send Mayor Katie Wilson to the volatile scene and prepared for questions about then-police Chief Shon Barnes’ absence.
In one message, mayoral spokesperson Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote “it’s (expletive) embarrassing that SPD has waited HOURS to put anything out,” lamenting that the lack of communication was “a hit to public trust.”
It appears, based on the messages, that police officials initially held off on holding a news conference due to the active investigation, then were later asked by a mayoral staffer to continue waiting until Wilson arrived.
Meanwhile, for five hours, the only information residents and tourists received from the city was a 6:30 p.m. post on X from the Police Department, saying there was a shooting at Seattle Center with multiple victims.
Debate over mayor’s presence at scene
The messages document hours of back-and-forth about whether Wilson should go to Seattle Center for a news conference, with her public safety director, Alison Holcomb, repeatedly expressing concern about the mayor being at the scene.
In a group text message with police and mayor’s office staff shortly after the shooting was first reported, Wilson wrote: “I am available tonight as needed.”
Deputy Mayor Brian Surratt later sent: “I’m almost to Seattle Center. I think Mayor should start making her way here as well.”
While Holcomb expressed concern about Wilson’s presence at an active investigation, mayoral spokesperson Spangenthal-Lee wrote that Wilson should be there.
“Mayors have historically shown up to mass shooting scenes when they stabilize,” he wrote in text messages to Holcomb.
About three hours later, Spangenthal-Lee sent Holcomb another message: “I reaaaaaaally think the mayor should go down there.”
Holcomb disagreed: “What’s the point?” She suggested the mayor hold a briefing at Harborview Medical Center, where victims were taken.
“I really don’t like elected politicians showing up to trauma and drawing attention to themselves,” Holcomb wrote to Spangenthal-Lee.
At one point, Wilson wrote that KOMO had broadcast the mayor was expected to be at the scene, and told staffers “we should consider” whether she should show up. “I’m sure they would love to spin an ‘absent mayor’ story,” she wrote.
Around 9:30 p.m., Holcomb said there was no media briefing happening, just an internal briefing. She speculated the suspect might still have been on the ground, and the mayor decided not to go.
In a message to Seattle police Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis, Chief Operating Officer Sarah Smith and Barnes around 9:45 p.m., Holcomb asked how the mayor could join the news conference.
“I’ve been keeping her away from the scene … but I don’t want media thinking she’s absent.” She then requested that police officials wait for the mayor to start the news conference.
News conference wasn’t held until 11 p.m.
Asked about the delay, Wilson said the news conference was not held up for her, Gov. Bob Ferguson or U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Seattle.
“There are times when elected officials’ presence is not helpful, and that was one of those times,” Wilson said at the time. “We don’t want our law enforcement officials distracted taking care of elected officials when they have work to do.”
In a message sent shortly before the news conference began, mayoral spokesperson Schellenberg wrote to other staffers that “They were waiting for Jayapal and Gov.”
Both denied that they held up the conference. The governor, who had driven up from Olympia, and Jayapal, who said she was at her Seattle home, said the day after the shooting that they weren’t notified about the news conference until just after 10 p.m. and were near Seattle Center already, waiting if needed.
Both offices reiterated their past timelines on Friday night.
“Our office had no involvement in what was being communicated to the public by the Seattle Police Department, and assumed that timely communications were happening,” said Brionna Aho, spokesperson for Gov. Bob Ferguson.
Lack of communication
Spangenthal-Lee, whose last day as a mayoral spokesperson was Friday, expressed frustration at the Police Department’s handling of communication several times. He was previously a spokesperson for the Police Department for about a decade.
Smith, the Police Department’s chief operating officer, wrote that the team was “actively handling the situation” around 8:30 p.m., that it was “still very chaotic” and that more information would be released soon.
The mayor’s office’s initial release was changed from referencing two suspects in custody to just one. Spangenthal-Lee wrote to another spokesperson about the mistake: “We still put out 100 percent more information than spd.”
The following day, Spangenthal-Lee messaged Holcomb that it “was inevitable something like this happened with how that shop has been managed …” apparently talking about the Police Department.
Holcomb responded: “Chief and I spoke candidly this morning. He is aligned on issues.”
Spangenthal-Lee also wrote to Holcomb that police didn’t check boxes for rush filing charges or the suspect being armed and dangerous on a superform for the 15-year-old suspect, an “ongoing problem” with the department, he wrote.
No emergency alert, and chief’s absence
The messages also shed light on the missteps in failing to issue an alert through the city’s official emergency alert system, AlertSeattle. It appeared that police officials tried to pass the buck to the CARE department on why an alert was not issued. Smith wrote she was “talking directly with CARE to get more information on what happened.”
CARE chief Amy Barden sent to Holcomb: “we would never have authority to issue it.” CARE is only allowed to do internal alerts, Barden wrote.
Spangenthal-Lee wrote to Holcomb that it’s currently “everyone’s job and no one’s job” to decide when to issue an alert.
Holcomb wrote that an emergency management staffer reached out to the Seattle Police Department Communication Center to offer an alert, but SPD declined. Andrew Stevens, deputy director of Seattle emergency management, said in a Teams message that the office also proactively reached out to Seattle Center and the Fire Alarm Center.
The evening of the shooting, communications advisers also discussed former Chief Barnes’ plans to be out of town until mid-August.
“His (extended) absence will open up an entirely new (and possible extended) line of inquiry from media,” political consultant Crystal Fincher wrote.
About 45 minutes after the shooting, Barnes told Holcomb in a message that he was booking the next flight out of Dallas.
The fallout of scrutiny into the administration’s handling of the shooting ultimately ended with Barnes resigning in lieu of termination and earning a $700,000 settlement to not sue the city.
Over a month after the shooting, nobody has been charged with murder or manslaughter. A 15-year-old boy has been charged with assault and unlawful possession of a firearm.
Lauren Girgis: 206-652-6591 or lgirgis@seattletimes.com.
“Less biased”? Whatever you say, Andy Blethen. The Times has been trying to frame SPD’s cock-up as the mayor’s fault for weeks now, and even with the receipts they can’t cast the blame where it belongs.
Tempest in a teapot. I still don’t understand why this admittedly imperfect communication is not simply seen as “You didn’t do as good a job as you could have“ as opposed to “This sounds like a hanging offense.”
And to be crystal clear once again, I didn’t vote for Wilson in part because of lack of experience.
So yes we’re seeing the lack of experience and she doesn’t look great but I want to give her more room before I go crazy….as are, it seems to me, an awful lot of people.
Putting it this way:
Yes there was a screwup so let’s not spend any more time on finger pointing. Acknowledge that it was a screwup and get to work to do better.
Maybe it’s because I see really really serious things going on and this one just doesn’t shake my bones.
Erica you are a super smart woman and work very hard and I can’t believe that you’re spending so much of your mental energy and our attention on what I think is a minor incompetence.
This seems relevant…
SPD, the messages show, knew critical details about the shooting, including the fact that it was not a random mass shooting or terrorist event within an hour of the shooting—that is, before 7:30pm—but did not put any of that information out broadly until after 1:00 in the morning on July 27.
[…]
A few minutes later, Spangenthal-Lee told other mayoral staffers in an internal Teams chat, “It’s fucking embarrassing that SPD has waited HOURS to put anything out. … I’m just saying this is a massive fucking disaster and hit to public trust.”
…where was the incompetence? At City Hall? Or at SPD?
If anyone is still wondering why Her Honor asked for the former chief’s badge, the above might offer some insight.
Sure….and I guess it’s a matter of degree.
Let’s stipulate that they were incompetent and screwed up.
Cops didn’t do a good job and Wilson overreacted by firing the police chief… Yeah a bunch of clowns …..but to me, it’s a rap on the knuckle situation…and rap on the knuckle is end of story ….unless they keep doing it over and over again.