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.
1. On Monday, Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes announced permanent replacements for the two civilian command staff members he fired late last year, along with a newly created position of deputy chief of staff. The two fired staffers, ex-general counsel Rebecca Boatright and ex-chief operating officer Brian Maxey, have filed a tort claim against the city alleging Barnes retaliated against them for giving advice he and his inner circle disagreed with, and discriminated against Boatright based on her gender.
Among the advice Boatright and Maxey gave Barnes and his chief of staff ewre a suggestion that they take concerns from the LGBTQ+ community more seriously including pushback over police raids at a longstanding nude beach. To that suggestion, Barnes’ chief of staff Alex Ricketts allegedly responded, “We’re not here for the gays.”
Two of the new staffers will join Barnes’ team directly from former mayor Bruce Harrell’s office.
Maxey will be replaced by Sarah Smith, a public safety advisor to Harrell who previously worked as a policy staffer for Jenny Durkan. In addition to her time at Harrell’s office, Smith’s resumé includes a brief stint at the fire department, where she “ideated, organized, and executed EMS staffing for events,” according to her LinkedIn page. Before that, she worked as a program manager at the YMCA and a manager at Specialty’s, a now-defunct bakery in downtown Seattle.
Another Harrell staffer, Cindy Wong, will become deputy chief of staff under Alex Ricketts, a new position. Prior to former chief Adrian Diaz, SPD had not had a “chief of staff” since 2001, when an assistant police chief held the job as an informal secondary title. Wong is the author of a children’s book with a background in human resources who had worked for Harrell since 2023.
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Boatright will be replaced by her former deputy, Cherie Getchell. “Please join me in welcoming each of these women to their new roles,” Barnes wrote in an email to all SPD staff. “Their extensive experience and deep commitment to public safety in our community will be instrumental in guiding us through SPD’s next chapter.”
Combined with the five new positions Barnes added when he came on as chief last year—Ricketts, new Assistant Chief Nicole Powell, executive director of crime reduction Lee Hunt, new Deputy Chief Andre Sayles, and Chief Communications Officer Barbara DeLollis, all making well over $200,000—Barnes now has the largest executive staff of any police chief in recent memory.
Mayor Katie Wilson’s office had no comment on Barnes’ hiring of the two Harrell staffers.
2. Across the street at City Hall, the new year began with two departures from City Councilmember Rob Saka’s office, where no staffer (other than chief of staff Elaine Ko) has lasted longer than 16 months. On Monday, a new Saka staffer started work—former SPD lieutenant Brendan Kolding, who will be Saka’s policy director.
Kolding’s name may be familiar. In 2019, he ran for City Council against then-incumbent Lisa Herbold and later endorsed Phil Tavel, a conservative two-time candidate for the position, on a platform that included setting up FEMA-style camps and moving unsheltered people into them. (He lost in the primary). Although Kolding told reporters he quit SPD to run for council, the Seattle Times reported that he actually resigned in lieu of termination after an investigation concluded he had harassed a coworker and lied about it to the police chief.
Some of Kolding’s political views appear to be at odds with some of the lofty rhetoric Saka adopted when he voted against the Seattle Police Officers Guild contract last year. His most recent post on X, from 2024, is a reposted SPOG endorsement for then-Republican gubernatorial candidate Dave Reichert. Kolding has also reposted content from SPOG leader Mike Solan, Turning Point USA activist Jonathan Choe, and former city councilmember Sara Nelson.
Kolding was also fond of posting photos of his ballots, including votes for Nelson, former city attorney Ann Davison, and—whoops—Phil Tavel, who ran against Saka in 2023.
Police Chief Shon Barnes speaks at a press conference last year.
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.”
Barnes’ chief of staff reportedly responded to concerns about a crackdown on the longtime nude beach at Denny Blaine Park by saying, “We’re not here for the gays.”
By Erica C. Barnett
Two former civilian Seattle Police Department employees, former general counsel Rebecca Boatright and former chief operating officer Brian Maxey, have filed tort claims against the city, alleging they were “subjected to a widespread course of retaliation and wrongfully terminated” because they opposed decisions made by Barnes and his predecessor, Sue Rahr.
Boatright is also claiming gender discrimination. Maxey is seeking $4.5 million, while Boatright is seeking $6.5 million.
Barnes abruptly fired Boatright and Maxey early in the morning on November 5, less than 12 hours after the first ballots dropped in the mayoral election.
The two were among the longest-serving civilian members of the department, and “the only City employees to navigate the Consent Decree between the United States and the City from start to finish,” according to their claim.
The tort claim, which will lead to a lawsuit if the city declines to settle within 60 days, claims that the department retaliated against Maxey and Boatright for objecting to a number of decisions, including “personnel moves (promotions, demotions, and assignments) that reasonably appeared to be rooted in retaliation or discrimination based upon sexual orientation or gender.”
This is an apparent reference to two hiring decisions. First, Barnes chose to promote Mike Tietjen, a lieutenant who became infamous for his over-the-top misconduct during the 2020 protests on Capitol Hill, to captain of the East Precinct, passing over a gay lieutenant who had been serving as acting captain and was well-liked within the surrounding Capitol Hill community. (Barnes later rescinded his decision and put a different captain in charge at the East Precinct).
In an email to command staff earlier this year, Barnes blamed PubliCola’s reporting for community backlash against his decision to promote Tietjen, as well “a lack of comprehensive input from those involved in employee assignments and internal leaks within our department.”
Barnes had previously come under fire for overseeing a dramatic crackdown on the historic LGBTQ+ nude beach at Denny Blaine Park, in which officers showed up prepared to arrest or trespass anyone who wasn’t wearing clothes. According to people familiar with the conversation, Barnes’ chief of staff, Alex Ricketts, brushed Boatright off when she told Ricketts he and Barnes needed to take the LGBTQ+ community’s concerns seriously, telling her, “We’re not here for the gays.”
Second, Barnes’ Deputy Chief Yvonne Underwood allegedly decided not to promote a gay detective who was serving as acting sergeant over SPD’s policy division, passing her over for the permanent position despite the fact that, like the acting East Precinct Commander who got pushed aside in favor of Tietjen, she was already doing the job. Instead, the woman, a single mom, was assigned to an overnight patrol position, which conflicted with her duties as a parent—a common issue faced by female cops, and one SPD has claimed it wants to solve as part of the “30 by 30” effort to have a recruit class that’s 30 percent women by 2030.
Boatright, Maxey, and executive staff in Harrell’s office also questioned Barnes’ decision to award $50,000 hiring bonuses, created explicitly to recruit trained rank and file officers, to two of his new command staff, and to accept the same bonus himself. Barnes and Deputy chief Yvonne Underwood also took $2,000 recruitment bonuses for hiring the same two executives. PubliCola reported exclusively on the bonuses in a series of stories earlier this year, which led to another search for “leaks” in the department, according to multiple internal sources.
During a conversation about the bonuses that took place in his office, Ricketts reportedly dismissed Boatright’s legal concerns, saying she didn’t know what she was talking about, according to people familiar with the conversation. When Underwood arrived at the office, Ricketts reportedly told the deputy chief, “This girl’s talking foolishness.”
The claim also alleges that in order to justify the highest possible pay classification, Executive 4, for a new position he created for his longtime colleague Lee Hunt, Barnes handed a significant amount of Boatright’s work, along with employees she supervised, to Hunt. “The Chief of Police told Ms. Boatright that the effective demotion was necessary to ‘justify [Hunt’s] Exec 4 classification,'” according to the claim. Boatright had a lower job classification—Executive 3—that tops out in the high $200,000s. Hunt’s salary is $302,000 a year, more than the mayor and most city department heads.
Another issue Boatright and Maxey raise is Barnes’ response to their concerns about an anti-prostitutions initiative in which undercover officers photograph men they believe are paying sex workers on Aurora Ave. N and send the photographs, along with a sternly worded “john letter,” to their homes, with the goal of shaming the men out of paying for sex in the future. (Seattle has had similar programs in the past but found them ineffective). The two expressed concern that the letters could violate people’s state constitutional right to privacy in their own homes and family affairs and lead to potentially violent confrontations with partners.
In the same email that blamed “leaks” and media coverage for the LGBTQ+ backlash against Tietjen’s appointment, Barnes noted “internal resistance” to the new “initiative to combat human trafficking along the Aurora Street [sic] corridor.”
“I want to reiterate that both I and the mayor’s office fully support this program,” Barnes wrote. “Leadership sometimes involves taking risks, and I firmly believe that proactive measures are necessary, even in the face of opposition Those who are not aligned with this mission are encouraged to have an open conversation with me or consider their place within our department.” This email, which quickly circulated outside its intended audience, was widely viewed as a threat: If you disagree with the chief, keep it to yourself or GTFO.
Mayor-elect Katie Wilson, who will take office on Friday, announced earlier this month that she will keep Barnes as police chief.
Maxey and Boatright declined to comment. SPD’s communications office respond to questions by saying, “The department respects the legal process and cannot comment on ongoing legal matters.”
A few of PubliCola’s records requests that have been “grouped” by the Seattle Police Department. SPD’s public disclosure unit will not begin (or resume) responding to any of these requests until they’ve completed the one they’re currently working on. We filed that one, for information about SPD’s use of generative AI, in September; so far, we’ve only gotten only a delay notice in response.
SPD has shown they won’t comply with the state Public Records Act on their own. So make them.
Erica C. Barnett
It’s time for the city to audit the Seattle Police Department’s public disclosure office—and, if they ignore the auditor’s recommendations, for incoming Mayor Katie Wilson to force SPD to follow the law.
The state Public Records Act makes it clear that the government’s obligation to disclose information is no trivial responsibility. “The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies that serve them,” the PRA says. “The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may maintain control over the instruments that they have created.”
For years, SPD has failed to comply with this bedrock premise. Instead, they’ve evaded disclosure by delaying responses until the records they’ve held back are no longer timely, refusing to work on more than one request at a time, and using the public disclosure process to conceal information that used to be public as a matter of course, including police reports and responses to basic factual questions.
Public disclosure of public information is in everyone’s interest, but for PubliCola and other media outlets, the availability of public records also affects our ability to keep our readers informed. Currently, PubliCola has 10 open records requests with SPD, with the oldest dating back to mid-2023. (We had older unfulfilled requests, but closed them in an effort to triage requests that were still relatively timely).
In all of 2025, SPD provided a single document in response to one of our public disclosure requests—a one-page Excel spreadsheet showing the total compensation for police officers in 2024.
Not only did SPD fail to meaningfully respond to our outstanding requests, they will no longer respond to more than one request at a time from individuals or entities with multiple requests. This practice, known as “grouping,” violates a 2023 agreement between the city and the Seattle Times, which is currently fighting SPD in court to eliminate grouping entirely. It also appears to violate the Public Records Act, which requires agencies to respond to individual requests “promptly,” with specific estimates for the time it will take to respond to each request.
As the Times’ recent motion for summary judgment puts it, “The Grouping Policy denies prompt responses to those disfavored requesters who cannot wait for an old request to slowly emerge from SPD’s backlog before making a new request. … Nothing in the PRA authorizes an agency to choose which requests to process and which ones to leave on a dusty shelf.”
I’ve filed a declaration in support of the Times’ latest lawsuit, describing the ways in which SPD has thwarted PubliCola’s requests for public records and how these actions have affected my ability to keep the public informed about what SPD is up to—from former chief Diaz’ alleged coverup of an unethical affair with a staffer he hired into a specially created position, to the investigation into a police union official who whooped it up over the killing of a pedestrian by a speeding cop. Times reporter Mike Carter’s own declaration shows a similar pattern of selective inaction by SPD—including one request for which he waited 19 months, only to receive the documents unexpectedly because SPD fast-tracked a similar request from a KOMO reporter.
If the Times prevails over SPD, it will directly benefit those in the public and independent press who can’t afford to fight years-long legal battles against the deep-pocketed police department. Meanwhile, though, SPD is still claiming the right to effectively deny records requests by putting them off for years. Earlier this month, the department moved its generic “placeholder date” for PubliCola’s nine inactive “grouped” requests from December 31, 2025 to December 31, 2026. Unless something changes, the remaining unfilled requests will get pushed forward to 2027 at the end of next year.
The single PubliCola records request SPD says it is working on—for information about SPD’s use of generative AI—has already been delayed by three months, until January, and could move again. Until SPD has finished responding to this one request, they will do no work at all on our other nine requests.
Because SPD refuses to process more than one request at a time, I have stopped filing records requests with them. It’s pointless. In effect, their obstructive decisions have succeeded—whether I go through the motions of filing a request or not, SPD will never respond “promptly,” as required by the PRA, or provide the “fullest assistance” the law requires.
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So, in addition to conducting a formal audit, Mayor-elect Wilson should send down legislation to eliminate “grouping,” which has not accomplished its purported goal of weeding out bot requests and those that are excessively burdensome or “extraordinarily broad.” If bots are a problem, separate legislation can address that issue; if a huge number of people are filing harassing or unreasonable requests, the burden should be on SPD to prove this is happening, and to work with the mayor and city council on legislation to address that narrow problem. SPD is currently using city dollars in a legal battle to use “grouping” to conceal public records. It’s long past time (and should not require a lengthy legal battle) to take this tool away from them.
SPD’s lack of compliance with basic public disclosure standards has gotten worse in recent years. But it isn’t new. In 2015, the City Auditor’s Office audited SPD’s public disclosure unit and found serious problems with how the office handles public disclosure requests.
That audit recommended that SPD hire more public disclosure officers, implement a centralized system for managing records requests, and streamline the response process by handling simple requests before more complex ones and prioritizing timely responses. It also recommended some basic best practices—like asking requesters for clarification when necessary and “proactively communicat[ing]” with people who ask for records—something that currently does not happen consistently, if at all.
SPD did not concur with most of the 13 recommendations in the 2015 audit, agreeing explicitly with just two—the recommendation to hire more public disclosure staff, and the one suggesting they set up a new records management system. Over the past 10 years, SPD has added nine new positions to the public disclosure unit to keep up with the increasing pace of requests, up from just five in 2014. That’s a positive step on paper, but it doesn’t actually help if public disclosure officers are steeped in SPD’s current culture of concealment.
Another practice SPD uses to evade public disclosure is expanding the type of records the department refuses to hand over without a public disclosure request.
In the recent past, for instance, SPD put ordinary police reports online as a matter of course—an extension of the department’s earlier practice of printing out copies of police reports and making them available at police precincts. (Yes, you could just walk in to any precinct and grab the day’s police reports!)
Today, police reports are no longer available to the general public through SPD’s website and the reports SPD provides to media (when they choose to do so) consist of heavily redacted and edited “narratives” that omit important information that the public generally has the right to know, such as the names of the officers who respond to calls and write the reports.
Additionally, SPD sometimes refuses to provide police reports, including those cleaned-up narratives, without explanation. Although SPD’s policy manual says explicitly that “Media Representatives May Obtain Copies of Police Reports Through the Public Affairs Unit,” that unit frequently directs PubliCola to file a records request for police reports.
This “file a records request” brushoff applies not just to written reports but to questions of all kinds. If SPD’s communications office—headed, under Police Chief Shon Barnes, by a former corporate PR representative with no prior experience in government—doesn’t want to answer a question, “file a records request” is a polite synonym for “fuck off.” Too far? Not when you consider that even the simplest records requests often take years—if I want to know about a crime that took place downtown last night, the Wilson administration could be halfway over before I find out.
The police, in short, are getting away with refusing to follow the letter and spirit of our state’s strongly worded public disclosure law—a law explicitly designed to ensure that the public has access to information that isn’t mediated and managed by government agencies and their press offices.
SPD has made it very clear that they won’t meet their legal obligation to provide public records unless they’re forced to do so—by legislation, a court order, or a directive from the mayor, who has the ability to fire for reprimand the police chief if his department is failing to comply with expectations.
It’s possible, perhaps even likely, that the Seattle Times will prevail in its current attempt to get SPD to stop grouping records requests, taking away one of the department’s current methods for withholding public documents.
But undoing a culture of obfuscation could require forcing, rather than asking, SPD to meet its obligation to provide records that ultimately belong to us, the public.
An audit laser-focused on these tactics will outline the problem and lay out solutions and a timeline for compliance. Mayor Wilson can then show she’s serious about transparency by requiring SPD to show progress on public disclosure, and holding Chief Barnes directly accountable if his department fails to act. SPD has had plenty of chances (and received plenty of public funding) to fix a broken process. It’s time they face consequences for their inaction.
During the holidays, a rotating group of deputies will take over for Police Chief Shon Barnes, who’s out of town.
1. If you’re wondering who’s in charge at the Seattle Police Department during the historically busy holiday season, including New Year’s Eve, it isn’t Police Chief Shon Barnes, who’s been taking a two-week vacation since December 20. Barnes’ family lives in Chicago, and he has not bought a home in Seattle, continuing a practice from his days as police chief in Madison, Wisconsin, when his family remained in Chicago.
During Barnes’ absence, the role of Acting Chief of Police will rotate between Deputy Chief Yvonne Underwood, Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis, and Deputy Chief Andre Sayles. Underwood and Davis were at SPD prior to Barnes’ arrival; Sayles was previously police chief in Beloit, Wisconsin, a small town outside Madison with a population of 36,000.
Police chiefs are generally expected to be on call for incidents that happen outside regular working hours, including on weekends, evenings, and holidays, and typically show up in person at events that involve a major police response, which isn’t possible when the chief is out of town.
SPD’s communications office did not respond to a list of questions about Barnes’ lengthy absence. Earlier this year, when PubliCola asked why Barnes was spending almost every weekend out of town, a spokesperson told us that crime was down and that Barnes was “tirelessly working to protect the Seattle community.”
Historically, Seattle’s police chiefs have lived in or near Seattle full-time, as have other high-ranking SPD officials, making Barnes’ administration an outlier. At least three of Barnes’ top staffers reportedly rent apartments in Seattle while their families live in their permanent homes out of state.
During Barnes’ time out of the office, he will earn just under $12,500.
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2. SPD’s communications office also declined to respond to questions about two recent operations—one involving alleged “human trafficking” at a strip club on Aurora, and one about the “Dear John” letters SPD sends to men whose cars they photograph during sting operations targeting menwho pay for sex. The department announced both anti-prostitution operations with blog posts claiming success at fighting sexual exploitation, the legal term the city uses to describe any exchange of money for sex, but said they could not answer any questions about either announcement because “This [sic] is an open investigation.”
Another spokesperson declined to provide copies of the three police reports related to their strip club sting, telling us to file a records request. (In the past, SPD put police reports online, but they have made these public records increasingly inaccessible). PubliCola does not file records requests with SPD because they do not meaningfully respond to them. In 2025, SPD provided a single one-page document in response to one of our 10 unfulfilled requests, which go back to 2023, giving us a new “placeholder date” of December 31, 2026 for the rest of our requests.
A spokesperson for the King County Prosecutor’s Office said the city has not referred any cases from the strip club sting for charging or a first appearance, despite the seriousness of SPD’s allegations—human trafficking is a Class A felony.
As for the “Dear John” notices, which are designed to embarrass men who pay for sex and potentially sprak explosive conflicts with their partners,, SPD did eventually provide the sample letter we requested. It says the women and girls who work on Aurora are “almost always the victims of criminal trafficking” and that prostitution “is not a victimless crime.”
The letters include photos taken by police conducting the stings and note that any vehicle used when buying sex is subject to impoundment, with fees that “often exceed $2,000” to get a vehicle back.
SPD’s legal counsel reportedly argued against sending the letters on the grounds that people have a right to privacy in their own homes, opening the department up to potential lawsuits.
