Courts, Crime, podcasts

Scott Lindsay, Deputy for Ousted City Attorney Ann Davison, Doesn’t Mince Words

By Erica C. Barnett

On this week’s episode of Seattle Nice, we spoke to former deputy city attorney Scott Lindsay. Voters soundly rejected Lindsay’s former boss, Republican Ann Davison, last November, but Lindsay argues that many of her prescriptions for addressing crime and disorder were sound—including “stay out” zones for people accused of using or possessing drugs in public, extra penalties for people who commit misdemeanors like shoplifting over and over, and the elimination of community court, which Lindsay called “a complete disaster and shame and stain on the record of city attorney [Pete] Holmes.”

Although the city has arguably been ruled by a moderate-to-conservative supermajority for at least the last four years, Lindsay says they failed to accomplish all their goals, in part, because former mayor Bruce Harrell wouldn’t always get with the program. Seattle, Lindsay argues, still has “radically too few police officers,” “no consensus about what to do about our most pressing public disorder problems,” and neighborhoods that have been “destroyed” by people using and selling drugs in public.

PubliCola has frequently pushed back on the notion that cracking down on so-called “prolific offenders”—the subject of a report Lindsay wrote for the Downtown Seattle Association in 2019—is a solution to the problems facing neighborhoods like Little Saigon that have faced decades of neglect and disinvestment. Lindsay agreed—and said that isn’t the point.

“More people will die every year of fentanyl and meth overdose than will be successful in getting out of the life and getting into treatment and turning their lives around,” Lindsay said.

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“I’m not saying give up, but I’m saying we need to balance our treatment approach with, how do we stop the havoc that these folks create? And one effective way at stopping the havoc that they create is to constantly disrupt. Use legal tools to disrupt their behavior. Convince them that being on the streets at 12th and Jackson smoking fentanyl is going to get you incarcerated. Even if that’s for eight or 12 hours that is in effect, can be an effective tool at disrupting the problem behavior and saving neighborhoods. Little Saigon is gone, but others are on the brink.”

Listeners will probably have strong feelings about this conversation, which also includes a discussion of Police Chief Shon Barnes, community court, and the “radical abolitionists,” in Lindsay’s words, at King County’s Department of Public Defense, which provides attorneys for indigent defendants.

homelessness, Mayor Wilson, Transportation

Wilson Issues Orders to Speed Up Transit and Shelter, Will Replace More Harrell Appointees

By Erica C. Barnett

Mayor Katie Wilson issued two executive order on Thursday. The first is aimed at speeding up the production of shelter in the run-up to this year’s World Cup games and beyond. The second will help speed up the city’s slowest bus, the 8, by finally painting a long-planned bus lane on Denny Way.

Wilson announced the orders at a meeting of her transition team at El Centro de la Raza on Beacon Hill.

More news is expected out of Wilson’s team in the next week, including the dismissals of several high-profile department heads appointed by her predecessor, Bruce Harrell.

City Light CEO Dawn Lindell, appointed in 2024, is out, internal sources tell PubliCola (no word on her replacement yet). So, we’ve heard, is interim Office of Labor Relations interim director Chase Munroe—a Harrell appointee who worked, on city time, on behalf of the Royal Esquire Club, a private men’s club with longstanding ties to Harrell. Adrienne Thompson, a onetime labor policy advisor to ex-mayor Jenny Durkan who applied for the labor relations in 2022, will reportedly be Munroe’s replacement as interim director.

Other departments that could see changes in the next week include the Office of Housing (currently headed by Maiko Winkler-Chin) and the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs (headed by Hamdi Mohamed, who’s also a Seattle Port Commissioner.)

Wilson’s first executive order, on homelessness, sets a deadline of March for a multi-department work group to “identify all possible financial incentives, permitting changes, and policy changes” that could help the city build new shelters and housing quickly. The group will also “identify City-owned property that could be used temporarily or permanently to support shelter and housing opportunities.”

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The order also directs the city’s Office of Intergovernmental Relations to work with other governments to identify additional public land that could be used for shelter and housing, and directs the Human Services Department to identify existing shelter programs that have room for expansion.

Wilson has pledged to add 4,000 new shelter beds and housing units by the end of her term, with a short-term goal of adding 500 before the World Cup games here in June.

Wilson will have to find funding for the new shelter projects in the existing city budget. Last year, the city council set aside a little over $11 million to help address potential funding cuts from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, which had changed its guidelines for funding housing projects to emphasize short-term housing over the type of permanent housing projects that rely on HUD funding locally.

After a judge ruled that HUD couldn’t change its standards in the middle of a funding cycle, the department allowed the application process to move forward under the old criteria. HUD could still pull the rug out from under providers by refusing to fund projects next year, but if it doesn’t, that $11 million could be used to fund Wilson’s shelter push.

There’s also the 116-member Unified Care Team, which removes encampments and costs the city upward of $30 million a year. Although the council adopted a Rob Saka-sponsored amendment prohibiting Wilson from spending the UCT’s budget on other purposes, some creative reallocation could put the giant team to better use.

Wilson said she’s evaluating how the UCT prioritizes encampments for removal and may change them. As an interim step, Wilson halted a planned removal of an encampment in Ballard after meeting with encampment residents earlier this week; on Thursday, she said she wanted to gain an “understanding, from the perspective of folks who are living outside, what can we do to make the process of an encampment removal more comprehensible and just maximize the the opportunities for people to get into a better situation.”

Wilson’s second executive order directs the Seattle Department of Transportation to immediately paint a long-delayed bus lane on Denny Way, a change that will help the most infamously delayed bus in the city, Metro’s Route 8, be a little less late. Last year, under Harrell, SDOT rejected the bus lane, arguing that giving buses priority would make drivers late. Wilson said the bus lane would run, at a minimum, from Fifth Ave. to Fairview, the most congested section of the route.

“I know the feeling of waiting at the stop for the bus to come and it’s 30 minutes late or 40 minutes late,” Wilson said. “I know the feeling of sitting on the bus knowing that you could be walking up that hill faster than that bus is going.”

immigration, Police

New Police Directive: “Be Respectful,” “Don’t Interfere” When Responding to Calls About ICE Raids
File:ICE Agents in Minneapolis After Shooting.jpg
Masked ICE agents face off against protesters in Minneapolis. Image by Chad Davis, via Wikimedia Commons

By Erica C. Barnett

If you see someone being grabbed off the street or attacked by ICE in Seattle, feel free to call the local police—just don’t expect them to do anything about it.

After ICE agents killed Renee Good in Minneapolis last week, SPD’s policy office sent out an unsigned directive telling officers what they should do when responding to calls about ICE activity in Seattle.

In the January 15 email, the department, headed by Police Chief Shon Barnes, directs officers to exercise caution and beat a quick retreat if there’s any possibility they may be in danger, adding that cops should in no circumstances “interfere in federal immigration enforcement actions.”

After responding to a call for assistance and attempting to make contact with the caller, the memo continues, police should  “[a]ttempt to validate the status of the individuals appearing to be law enforcement by respectfully requesting official identification, when safe and feasible.”

“If there is reasonable concern that approaching may escalate risk, officers should maintain distance, request additional resources, and coordinate verification through dispatch or a supervisor,” the memo continues.

If the situation with federal agents results in any “collateral public safety impacts”—safety concerns that are unrelated to the ICE enforcement action itself, such as “traffic disturbances or demonstrations”—police are supposed to call for backup; if not, the directive tells them to “leave the scene to avoid any unnecessary entanglement with immigration enforcement.”

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City law, and existing SPD policy, already direct police not to assist or participate in immigration enforcement activities. The  directive effectively clarifies that cops should not intervene in any ICE activities, and should err far on the side of caution even when “respectfully” asking masked ICE agents to identify themselves.

In a statement, SPD said the directive is “a document that is designed to provide everyone access to the same information. In this case, this new directive act as a guide on how to handle this specific situation by gathering policies that are already in place.” They added that “nothing in the directive released today strips officers” of their legal responsibility to intervene by providing medical aid to victims of violence, including violence by ICE agents.

Local police departments don’t have jurisdiction over federal agents—they lack any official authority to stop immigration enforcement officers from detaining people and hauling them away. (They also lack the authority to say no if federal agents subpoena surveillance footage—one reason SPD’s claim that they protect the privacy of people in neighborhoods under 24/7 police surveillance falls flat).

Even so, SPD’s policy appears to be primarily about protecting officers themselves when Seattle residents call seeking help—not about addressing potentially illegal actions by federal agents against people living, working, or just passing through Seattle.

“Leave the scene,” “avoid entanglement,” “ask respectfully”—those may be the best policies for police to protect their own personal safety. But they’re a far cry from what Barnes had to say about federal immigration last June, when he vowed, “I will probably go to jail and be in prison” if Trump sent in federal troops to crack down on protests. Barnes got national praise and criticism for the comment.

homelessness, housing, legislature

Bills Would Crack Down on City Efforts to Banish Homeless People, Shelter, and Housing

By Erica C. Barnett

In previous legislative sessions, lawmakers have successfully overruled efforts by cities, including Seattle, to keep renters out of neighborhoods that were once exclusively single-family, and have even reined in suburban cities that have tried to ban shelter and emergency housing altogether. (Thanks, Jessica Bateman!)

This year, pro-housing lawmakers want to stop cities from taking advantage of loopholes that have allowed them to prohibit market-rate and emergency housing, and to stop cities like Seattle from banning ground-floor apartments, among other proposals to crack down on local NIMBY policies.

Rep. Strom Peterson (D-33, Edmonds) has introduced legislation, House Bill 2266, that would require cities and counties to allow all forms of STEP housing—that’s shelter, transitional, emergency, and permanent housing—in any area that isn’t zoned for industrial use. The bill would also prevent jurisdictions from passing regulations for these types of housing, including shelter, that are more restrictive than the ones the apply to any other type of housing.

The bill expands on 2021’s House Bill 1220, which required cities to allow shelters and permanent housing in all areas where hotels or market-rate housing are allowed, but provided a carveout for “reasonable” restrictions “for public health and safety purposes.” Cities, Pedersen said, took that loophole and ran with it, rejecting shelters because they were within 1,000 feet as the crow flies from another shelter or a school, “even through it wasn’t really 1,000 foot walking distance,” Peterson said.

Last year, Peterson and other legislators proposed a fix that would have given the Department of Commerce “a very big hammer”—if the department determined that local rules limiting housing weren’t reasonable, they could withhold state funds—but that idea proved too unpopular, and potentially expensive, to pass last year.

“‘Reasonableness’ is the word that haunts me,” Peterson said.

This year’s legislation is more straightforward, and it doesn’t include dispute resolution through the Department of Commerce; instead, it states flatly that jurisdictions must allow all types of STEP housing and can’t apply zoning or design rules that are different than those that apply to other residential housing.

Peterson says the changes reduce the potential cost of the new rules—an important factor in a year when lawmakers are trying to close a more than $2 billion budget gap—and takes out any ambiguity about “reasonable” restrictions.

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Cities have been more receptive to some parts of the bill than others, Peterson said. “On the plus side, and I think this is a pretty significant step, cities have said that they believe permanent supportive and transitional housing shouldn’t be treated differently than market housing. … Where we’re running into some issues is on the shelter and emergency housing side.”

Some cities have argued they should be allowed to impose requirements that would preclude certain people, such as people who have criminal records or active addictions, from accessing shelter, a proposal Peterson says could violate state fair housing laws. Others have argued that shelters should be subject to special regulations on noise and litter. “My retort back is, doesn’t the city have noise and litter restrictions? Why is [shelter] being treated differently?”

Rep. Mia Gregerson, D-33 (SeaTac), has proposed legislation this year that could work in tandem with Peterson’s prohibition on shelter and housing bans. House Bill 2489 would prohibit cities and towns from passing bans on sleeping and other activities necessary for survival “unless the city or town can demonstrate that adequate alternative shelter space was available at the time and place of the conduct.”

Gregerson said the proposal is a clarified version of last year’s House Bill 1380, which would have required cities that restrict people’s ability to sit, lie down, keep dry, or sleep on public property to have “objectively reasonable” regulations on these activities. “Last year’s bill was an attempt to really provide total local control” over anti-camping laws, Gregerson said; but as with 1220’s “reasonable” restrictions on shelter, the phrase turned out to be too squishy. “Cities wanted more definition,” Gregerson said.

This year’s bill says that cities can’t ban such “life-sustaining activities” unless adequate shelter is available, and defines the minimum requirements for a shelter to be considered “adequate.” For example, shelters must allow people to stay with their partners or pets, be accessible to people with disabilities, and be located inside the city that has a law banning homeless people from public property.

That last provision could be controversial. Cities without any year-round, general admission homeless shelters at all, like Burien, have passed laws banning people from sleeping in public; in other cities, such as Kirkland, efforts to establish shelters to get people out of parks and off sidewalks have met with fierce resistance. (Burien has one year-round high-barrier program that includes shelter for nine women.)

“One low-turnout election” can completely upend the leadership of small cities, Gregerson noted; in that context, “We’re trying to be the adults in the room—can we come around the table and say we all want people to have a space to live?” After last year’s “productive conversations” about HB 1380, Gregerson said she’s hoping to get traction on a bill that balances local control with the reality that banishing homeless people doesn’t solve homelessness.

 

Police, Women

In 2025, 90 Percent of New SPD Hires Were Men
Social media image for SPD’s ongoing “Come As You Are” recruitment campaign.

“We acknowledge we must do better to meet the 30×30 commitment but as we move into 2026, we will continue our work to resemble the community we serve,” a department spokesperson said.

By Erica C. Barnett

The Seattle Police Department hired just 17 women in 2025, according to figures provided by the Seattle Police Department—just 10 percent of 165 new hires last year. That’s a significant dip from SPD’s already dismal numbers in 2024, when just 14 percent of the 84 people SPD hired were women. It’s also less than half the average for police departments across the US, according to stats from the 30X30 Initiative—a pledge, which SPD has signed, to work toward a recruit class that’s 30 percent women by 2030.

The 17-woman total was bolstered by relatively strong hiring of women—six total—in the fourth quarter of 2025; in the two quarters encompassing April through September, SPD hired just 6 women, and the total percentage of female hires dipped to less than six percent in the second quarter of the year.

SPD, in other words, not only isn’t improving its lopsided gender balance—it’s backsliding. To achieve the goal of 30X30, SPD would have needed to hire an additional 33 women last year. Put another way, they’re currently two-thirds shy of their hiring goals.

It’s unclear how many women are leaving the department, which is currently the subject of several simultaneous gender discrimination lawsuits and allegations. In the past, SPD has provided a breakdown, by gender, of the number of men and women who left the department on numerous occasions in the past—an important data point that shows how many women are leaving the department compared to men. The department did not provide this information when PubliCola requested it, citing unspecified data issues.

However, they did provide the total number of people who left this year—69, down from 83 in 2024. We also know that as of April, 21 percent of the people leaving SPD were women. If that departure trend stayed consistent for the remaining eight months of the year, it would translate to about 14 women leaving SPD in 2025, for a net gain of just three women. We’re hoping SPD will eventually provide these numbers, which would give a clearer picture of SPD’s gender makeup.

Former Mayor Bruce Harrell said that he chose Barnes, in part, because he “brings proven experience advancing the Madison Police Department’s inclusive workforce initiative that has resulted in 28% of officers being women.” But Seattle’s new recruit classes have only become more overwhelmingly male since Barnes took over at the department.

In a statement to PubliCola, a spokesperson for SPD said, “The Seattle Police Department remains committed to increasing the hiring rate of women. We acknowledge we must do better to meet the 30×30 commitment but as we move into 2026, we will continue our work to resemble the community we serve.”

Courts, Jails, legislature

Legislation Would Give Prisoners Serving Long Sentences a Path to Release
Rep. Tarra Simmons, D-23

By Erica C. Barnett

State Rep. Tarra Simmons (D-23, Bremerton) is trying, for the third year in a row, to give people serving prison time for all but the most serious felonies a chance to ask a judge for a shorter sentence. Her legislation, HB 1125, would allow incarcerated people to petition a judge for resentencing—starting with people who have terminal illnesses or were convicted as juveniles and eventually expanding to include adults who have served at least 10 years of their felony sentence.

Because Washington state lacks parole, there are only a couple of ways for prisoners to have their sentences reduced, regardless of rehabilitation, their age, or changes in public attitudes toward nonviolent felonies that once carried long sentences. People seeking early release can ask the governor for clemency, but that’s a long shot—Gov. Bob Ferguson, for instance, hasn’t granted a single clemency petition in his term.

There’s a second option: Under legislation, SB 6164, that passed in 2020,  a county prosecutor can ask for a reduced sentence if they believe the original sentence “no longer advances the interest of justice. Since the bill passed, prosecutors have brought fewer than 200 cases before a judge for reconsideration statewide, Simmons said—a sign that the law is being underutilized.

Simmons’ bill would give attorneys for defendants the same right prosecutors have to ask a judge for resentencing, allowing prisoners (those who haven’t committed aggravated murder or multiple sex offenses) to make the case that they’re no longer a threat and deserve early release. “A lot people would be safe to now reenter the community, but we have no way out for these people,” Simmons said.

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Simmons, who was the first formerly incarcerated person elected to the legislature,, said she’s familiar with the argument from victims’ advocates that it isn’t fair to release someone who’s convicted a crime before they’ve done their time. “I empathize with that position. I was a survivor of crime long before I was incarcerated.”

But if a judge determines someone has been rehabilitated in prison and is no longer a threat to their community, “leaving them in prison for decades, maybe even life, for the purpose of pure punishment—it’s not giving people hope or an incentive to engage in rehabilitation,” Simmons said.

Washington has an aging prison population—nearly a quarter of people in state prisons are over 50—and the cost of keeping them in jail only increases as they get older. “It is extremely costly to house these seniors,” Simmons said. “We pay for their health care through the state budget, not Medicaid—and we get sued a lot for the lack of appropriate medical care at the Department of Corrections.”

A fiscal note for the final version of the bill last year estimated that it would cost about $1.3 million a year to implement, and save a real but “indeterminate” amount for the state. (The memo noted that there’s no way of knowing how many people will successfully petition for reduced sentences; new costs include additional victim advocacy staff and a flexible fund for victims.)

Simmons estimates that the state could probably save “in the hundreds of millions per year by looking at the people who have served a very long time.” Prisons, she said, “aren’t set up to be nursing homes.”