Tag: Shon Barnes

immigration, Mayor Harrell, Police

Harrell Says SPD Will Stand Strong Against Federal Invasion; SPD Promotes Former Deputy Chief Who Said Aurora Sex Workers “Enjoy It”

1. Mayor Bruce Harrell signed two executive orders on Wednesday that he said would “ensure that our city is prepared and resilient” if President Trump sends federal troops to Seattle.

The orders, however, are largely symbolic and include recaps of policies that are already in place—like a ban on police cooperation with immigration enforcement—or under consideration, like an increase to the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs’ budget, announced last month. One of the orders sets up a task force to come up with response plans if Trump does send troops to Seattle. The other highlights future legislation that would prohibit law enforcement officers from wearing masks to hide their identity and ban “staging and operations of federal civil immigration enforcement activities on City property to the extent permissible by law.”

City employees will also be required to go through training on the “protocols and procedures for complying with state and local immigration laws,” including the Keep Washington Working Act, which prohibits city employees from assisting in immigration enforcement.

Hamdi Mohamed, director of the city’s Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, said the two orders “send a clear message that we will use our full power to stand up and protect our communities—ensuring the Seattle Police Department and the city cannot and will not participate in federal civil immigration enforcement, creating a task force across departments who will meet with and coordinate responses with community organizations like OneAmerica, and writing new laws and directives to meet this moment to ensure that our local law enforcement prioritizes the safety and first amendment rights of our residents and community members.”

But Seattle, like all cities, has little power to actually stop federal troops from wearing masks (as they have in California, which banned masks) or enforcing immigration laws in public spaces—as they have in Chicago, whose mayor declared all public properties “ICE-free zones” earlier this week.

Harrell dismissed various potential scenarios, including a situation in which police cooperate with federal troops or ICE, as “hypotheticals,” saying, “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Six Seattle police officers participated in the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the January 6 insurrection, including two who were fired after video evidence surfaced of them breaching the Capitol—the largest known January 6 contingent from any US police department. A 2021 video that surfaced in 2023 showed a large “Trump 2020” flag displayed at SPD’s East Precinct, along with a mock tombstone bearing the of name a young man, Damarius Butts, who was killed by SPD officers in 2017.

Harrell said there were no specific indications that Trump planned to send federal troops to Seattle, but said he wasn’t “worried” about “poking the bear” with his announcement.

2. New East Precinct SPD commnder Michael Tietjen isn’t the only controversial figure to receive a promotion and accolades from new police chief Shon Barnes. (As we reported yesterday, Tietjen was promoted to oversee policing in the city’s longtime LGBTQ+ neighborhood despite a history of misconduct that included an incident in which four officers allegedly harassed a trans woman.)

Three weeks ago, Barnes also announced the promotion of Marc Garth Green as commander of the West Precinct.

The job is a step back up the ranks for Green, a former deputy chief who was publicly demoted by former police chief Carmen Best after he made offensive comments about sex workers while defending SPD’s decision to focus on arresting sex workers rather than johns. During a heated exchange with then-councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, Garth Green said many of the women walking up and down Aurora are there by choice because they “make money and enjoy it.” He also suggested that sex workers themselves were contributing to gun violence in the area.

Garth Green was eventually reassigned to Harbor Patrol—the same division to which Tietjen was reassigned in 2007, after he and a partner were caught on video choking and allegedly planting drugs on a man in a wheelchair.

Later that same year, Garth Green and other SPD officers were accused of giving preferential treatment to an SPD captain who was caught trying to pay a woman for sex on Aurora.

In his announcement of four promotions  (the other two new captains are Kevin Runolfson and Heidi Tuttle), Barnes said, “Their advancement is not only a reflection of personal achievement but also a testament to the values of dedication, integrity, and leadership that we need at every level of this department.”

LGBTQ+, Police, Uncategorized

SPD Chief Puts Cop Who Called 2020 Protesters “Cockroaches” In Charge of East Precinct
SPD’s East Precinct in 2020

By Erica C. Barnett

The Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct, located at 12th Ave. and East Pine St. in the heart of Capitol Hill, came under new leadership in September, when SPD Chief Shon Barnes quietly removed the precinct’s gay acting commander, Doug Raguso, and placed a newly promoted captain, Mike Tietjen, in charge.

If Tietjen’s name sounds familiar, that’s because he was at the center of two high-profile incidents during protests against police violence in 2020.  In the first, then-sergeant Tietjen was suspended without pay for shoving a man forcefully into a bus stop, causing him to hit his head. In the second, he was moved to a different precinct after driving an unmarked vehicle onto a sidewalk full of protesters, later comparing them to “cockroaches” because of the way they scattered in the path of his SUV.

In 2007, Tietjen and his partner were accused of choking a man in a wheelchair and planting drugs in his hoodie; although then-SPD chief Gil Kerlikowske exonerated both officers in a press release, they were subsequently reassigned to Harbor Patrol. Two years earlier, according to KUOW, Tietjen was accused of ” punching and choking a man” he was arresting “to the point of unconsciousness.”

In an internal email announcing eight promotions, including Tietjen, Barnes wrote that everyone he was promoting had shown “the ability to rise to challenges, embrace innovation, and guide others with clarity and purpose. … The leaders we celebrate today represent our commitment to building an organization that is resilient, forward-thinking, and deeply connected to the community we serve.”

Raguso, a 22-year SPD veteran, was a fixture at the East Precinct who previously served as SPD’s LGBTQ liaison. SPD declined to say why he did was not promoted to captain. A department spokesperson said, “We promote our captains based on input from Command leadership, their Civil Service test scores, and other feedback.”

In 2021, Tietjen was disciplined for a 2020 incident in which four officers, including him, pulled up on a trans woman who was walking along the sidewalk and allegedly harassed her by asking her if she “had a dick under” her skirt.

Tietjen has an adult child who belongs to the LGBTQ+ community, from whom he is estranged. PubliCola is not providing any further details about Tietjen’s child in order to protect their privacy.

Raguso is now overseeing operations at SPD’s Real Time Crime Center—a recently expanded downtown facility where officers and civilian SPD staff monitor live surveillance footage from around the city. PubliCola was unable to interview him.

The SPD spokesperson acknowledged that Tietjen “had been the subject of complaints five years ago,” but said he had completed “an opportunity for training and growth” and “has successfully delivered results to the community” since then. “In his current role, he is building positive relationships in the community, in line with Chief Barnes’ promise to police forward and continuously improve our organization,” the spokesperson said.

Andrew Ashiofu, a member of the city’s LGBTQ commission who spoke to PubliCola on his own behalf, said Tietjen’s appointment “sends a deeply troubling message” to people living in “one of Seattle’s most LGBTQIA+-dense neighborhoods. His presence in this role is not just inappropriate, it’s dangerous. It sets a precedent that undermines trust and signals to marginalized communities that their safety and dignity are negotiable.”

“As a Black gay man living within this precinct, I do not feel safe,” Ashiofu continued. “How can we trust the police to protect us when those in charge are the very people we need protection from?”

Joel Merkel, the co-chair of the Community Police Commission, said that “promoting someone who’s had these type of disciplinary actions” against them raised concerns about the new police chief’s  “knowledge and insight into SPD’s history history and dynamics … particularly as we’re trying to change the culture of SPD. With the consent decree going away, it sends a concerning message.” SPD had been under a federal consent decree since 2012, and was seeking to have it lifted when President Trump announced he was unilaterally dismissing all Justice Department consent decrees over local police departments, including Seattle’s.

City Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, who represents Capitol Hill and the rest of District 3, did not respond to a request for comment.

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The complaints against Tietjen in 2020 were serious and highly publicized. All occurred on Capitol Hill within a short distance of the East Precinct headquarters.

In the first incident, for which he was suspended without pay, Tietjen violently shoved a man who had been trying to help another demonstrator who was blinded by pepper spray, pushing him and slamming his head into a bus stop.

Although Tietjen claimed he had simply tried to get the man to “spin around” and rejoin the crowd of people SPD was pushing out of the area,  video from his body-worn camera later revealed that he had “forcefully pushed” the man “down and towards the bus stop” as he was trying to assist a demonstrator who had taken shelter there, according to the Office of Police Accountability’s investigation into the July 25, 2020 incident.

“Moreover, but for the fact that the Complainant was wearing a helmet, he could have suffered very serious injuries based on the manner in which [Tietjen] pushed him, his momentum in falling to the ground, and his striking the bus stop with his head,” the report said.

In the second incident, on August 12, 2020, Tietjen was driving an unmarked SUV when he  accelerated suddenly and drove onto a crowded sidewalk at 11th and Pine, forcing people to scatter to avoid being hit. When someone confronted him, according to the OPA report, he compared the people he almost hit to scattering “cockroaches.” A widely posted video shows him saying he still works for SPD “because they pay me like 200 grand a year to babysit you people.” Tietjen was suspended without pay and received a “disciplinary transfer” to the North Precinct for that incident.

In the third incident, Tietjen was in an SUV with three other officers that pulled up to talk to a trans woman who was walking on the sidewalk during a protest. According to the OPA investigation, one of the officers took her picture with his phone and asked if she “had a dick under” her skirt. “She said that she told the officer to ‘come take a look’ and he replied that he would ‘need a microscope’ to do so,” the report says..

Later, the woman told OPA investigators, “the unmarked SUV again drove by her and an officer again yelled out to the Complainant to ‘show them what’s under my skirt.’ She started yelling at them, but they drove off while still saying things to her.” The OPA report says Tietjen acknowledged taking the woman’s picture and hearing someone in the car say something about a microscope, but denied most of the other details. The officers said they stopped the woman because they suspected her of “throwing rocks at” the East Precinct building.

Tietjen got a written reprimand for failing to document or report the interaction with the woman, and for failing to “counsel” another officer who shouted transphobic comments about why that was unacceptable behavior.

Five years later, Barnes promoted Tietjen to captain and put him in charge of public safety in city’s historic LGBTQ+ neighborhood.

Business, Elections, LGBTQ+, Mayor Harrell, Police

Chamber CEO Leaves, Mayor’s Office Contradicts SPD Explanation for Police Chief’s Bonus, Progressives Prevail in Burien, and More

1. Rachel Smith, the longtime CEO of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, is moving on to become director of the Washington Roundtable, a statewide group that represents large employers.

According to a press release, Smith will leave the Chamber as of October 1; Gabriella Buono, the Chamber’s Chief Impact Officer, will be interim president and CEO until the Chamber’s board picks a permanent replacement.

Smith became head of the Chamber in January 2020, just as the group was reeling from a 2019 election in which the Chamber’s political action committee, Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy, spent unprecedented millions to defeat City Council incumbents. That flood of money appeared to spark a backlash against big-business spending, and the Chamber’s candidates mostly flopped. In 2021, the Chamber decided not to endorse any candidates—and, in that election, the more conservative candidates prevailed.

Under Smith’s nearly five years as its leader, the Chamber  has thrown its weight behind internal and public-facing campaigns to defeat social housing (the Chamber urged the council to delay the election and backed a ballot alternative that would have directed the city to spend existing funds on traditional affordable housing), as well as a number of efforts to squelch progressive tax proposals.

They’ve opposed the business and occupation tax reform proposal, which—if voters approve it—will pay for critical programs at risk for budget cuts; supported Mayor Bruce Harrell’s efforts to sweep homeless encampments, particularly downtown; and backed a proposed city charter amendment, “Compassion Seattle,” that would have required the city to keep all public spaces clear of encampments while imposing an unfunded mandate for homeless services on the city.

Under Smith, the Chamber also backed the Seattle Transportation Levy and connected the dots between the housing crisis and Seattle’s need to upzone, supporting efforts to build “middle housing” across the city.

2. As we reported earlier this week, Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes received a $50,000 hiring bonus when he was hired, as did a new deputy chief and assistant chief he hired from Beloit, Wisconsin, and New Orleans, respectively. According to SPD, all three chiefs were eligible for the bonuses under legislation, passed in 2022 and amended two years later, that authorized $50,000 “lateral” hiring bonuses for police officers with existing job experience.

As we also reported, the sponsors of the legislation never intended for the bonuses to go to command staff, and the legislation itself says it applies only to police officers in the civil service, not management or executive-level staff.

SPD told us the city “offered as part of [Barnes’] compensation a ‘hiring incentive’ of $50,000 under the City’s 2024 legislation, which is related to the recruitment and retention of police officers at the understaffed Seattle Police Department. Asked about this, Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office gave a somewhat contradictory response.

“Chief Barnes is a nationally recognized leader in the field and the inclusion of the $50,000 was negotiated as part of his offer letter,” a spokesperson said, adding that the mayor was “not involved” in the other two $50,000 bonuses. This suggests that Barnes’ bonus was not actually a standard “lateral” incentive—as SPD has said—but was something the mayor’s office offered him on top of his $360,000 salary and other perks. The two contradictory explanations for Barnes’ hiring bonus leave the true origin of this unusual hiring bonus unclear.

Harrell’s office said Barnes’ “negotiated compensation makes his package consistent with the West Coast Seven (Long Beach, Portland, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose, and Seattle), where in 2023 the median salary for police chiefs was $476,454 and the average salary was $424,712.” the spokesperson said.

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3. The Burien City Council, which in recent years has adopted a series of increasingly onerous laws targeting homeless people, could soon take a more progressive turn. Progressives (including incumbents Sarah Moore and Hugo Garcia, plus Sam Méndez, a progressive running to replace Jimmy Matta, who’s leaving the council) hold commanding leads in all three council races on the August primary ballot.

That bodes poorly for Stephanie Mora, the council’s most conservative member, who’s being challenged by progressive Rocco DeVito; their race wasn’t on the August ballot because they were the only two candidates. Mora, a staunch opponent of allowing homeless shelters or authorized encampments anywhere in Burien, has argued that the government has no role to play in addressing homelessness.

Kevin Schilling, the council member who currently serves as mayor of Burien, isn’t doing so well in his own race to defeat 33rd District state Rep. Edwin Obras, either. With the election certified, Obras has 48.2 percent of the vote to Schilling’s 34.6 percent. Schilling lost by the highest margin in the city where he’s mayor, trailing Obras by 15 points in Burien.

4. PubliCola obtained a copy of the permit for a controversial “Revive in ’25” rally in Gas Works Park. As PubliCola was first to report, the contentious event was relocated from Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill after negotiations between its anti-LGBTQ organizers and city officials, including City Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth and Mayor Harrell.

The permit reveals few details about the event, except that the group, led by Christian nationalist minister Sean Feucht, expects 350 people to attend—less than a similar “Mayday USA” rally at Cal Anderson earlier this year.

Although the permit goes from 9 am to 9 pm, the rally and concert is scheduled for 5 pm—leaving organizers plenty of time to hold a planned “Jesus March” in the streets around Cal Anderson before heading over to Fremont for the main event. Organizers have removed references to this march from their Facebook page, but have not publicly said they won’t be marching. According to city officials, Feucht’s group did not apply for a street use or special event permit for a march.

labor, Mayor Harrell, Police, Uncategorized

New Police Chief Shon Barnes Accepted $50,000 Hiring Bonus Created for Rank and File Officers

SPD says the city offered Barnes the bonus, first approved in 2022 to boost police officer hiring, “as part of his compensation.” 

By Erica C. Barnett

Editor’s note: This post is an update to yesterday’s story revealing that the Seattle Police Department paid $50,000 bonuses intended for new rank and-file-officers to new Deputy Police Chief Andre Sayles and new Assistant Chief Nicole Powell. Sayles and Powell’s positions, along with other positions added by Barnes, are new, and add ongoing costs to the Seattle Police Department’s budget.

The Seattle Police Department confirmed that Police Chief Shon Barnes, appointed by Mayor Bruce Harrell in December and confirmed by the Seattle City Council last month, received a $50,000 recruitment bonus under legislation first passed in 2022 to promote the “recruitment of new police officers” during what proponents called a crisis-level officer shortage. (In 2024, the council increased the bonus from $30,000 to $50,000).

“While recruiting Shon Barnes, a respected law enforcement leader, the City of Seattle offered as part of his compensation a ‘hiring incentive’ of $50,000 under the City’s 2024 legislation, which is related to the recruitment and retention of police officers at the understaffed Seattle Police Department,” an SPD spokesperson told PubliCola.

As we reported yesterday, the legislation that created lateral hiring bonuses was explicitly about police officers, not executives. According to the 2022 legislation, the bonuses are meant to entice trained officers who “require minimal training and can immediately bolster the department’s 9-1-1 response ability or provision of investigative services.”

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Lisa Herbold, the former councilmember who sponsored the 2022 legislation, confirmed that the bonuses were intended for police officers, not command staff. Council President Sara Nelson, who sponsored a 2024 bill  that increased the lateral hiring bonus from $30,000 to $50,000, said her intent was to provide an extra incentive to help SPD recruit more “lower-level officers.”

SPD’s statement suggests that Mayor Bruce Harrell proactively offered Barnes the $50,000 bonus on top of an annual salary of more than $360,000 a year. We’ve reached out to Harrell’s office to find out whether and, if so, why he initiated this offer.

SPD said they’re splitting Barnes’ payment into two parts in accordance with the hiring-bonus legislation. “To date, $25,000 has been paid to Barnes according to the City’s agreed-upon compensation structure,” the SPD spokesperson said.

The section of the about splitting the hiring bonuses actually highlights the fact that the bonuses were never intended for the top SPD brass. According to the legislation, “Half of the hiring incentive will be paid in the first paycheck and the second half upon completion of any probationary period required by the Public Safety Civil Service Rules.” The probationary period isn’t there just to require cops to prove they can do the job—once they’re off probation, they get job protections as part of the civil service.

Chiefs (including deputy and assistant chiefs) aren’t part of the civil service—they can be fired at will. As such, they don’t have any probationary period. Put another way, Barnes’ position falls outside the parameters of the legislation, so he isn’t subject to the two-payment structure mandated in that law.

We’ve asked SPD to clarify this explanation.

Police

SPD Chiefs Received $50,000 Bonuses Meant to Address Police Hiring Shortage
Image by Kyah117, via Wikimedia Commons. CC-by-4.0 license.

By Erica C. Barnett

PubliCola has exclusively confirmed that two of the top-level staff hired by new Police Chief Shon Barnes, Deputy Chief Andre Sayles and Assistant Chief Nicole Powell, received lateral hiring bonuses of $50,000 each. A source familiar with the payments tells PubliCola that Barnes himself also received a $50,000 bonus for coming to Seattle from Madison, Wisconsin, where he was police chief.

Sayles transferred to SPD from Beloit, Wisconsin; Powell transferred from New Orleans.

As we’ve reported, the positions Barnes added include a second deputy chief, a new assistant chief, a new chief of staff, a new executive director of crime and community harm reduction, and a new chief communications officer, all making more than $200,000. The new positions add ongoing annual costs to SPD’s budget, including $1.34 million in salaries alone.

PubliCola reported last week that Barnes and Deputy chief Yvonne Underwood each received bonuses for recruiting Powell and Sayles. Barnes and Underwood received $1,000 each for recruiting Sayles, and Barnes received a separate $1,000 bonus for Powell.

In an email confirming the bonuses that Sayles and Powell received for joining SPD’s command staff, an SPD spokesman said, “They’re eligible. The $50,000 bonus is part of their compensation package.”

Neither SPD nor Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office responded our repeated inquiries about the bonus Barnes reportedly received. Harrell’s office did respond to our questions about Sayles and Powell, by saying they had asked SPD to respond to our questions.

This week, Barnes reportedly launched an internal investigation to find out who at SPD is “leaking” information about the department to members of the media. SPD did not immediately respond to questions about this purported investigation on Tuesday; we’ll update this post if we hear back.

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City employee compensation is a matter of public record that all city departments, including SPD, are required to provide to any member of the public through a public disclosure process outlined in the state Public Records Act.

The hiring bonuses, which Harrell proposed as a way to quickly recruit trained officers to address high attrition and lackluster hiring in the wake of mass protests against police violence in 2020, were intended to increase the number of deployable officers, not chief-level executive staff.

City Council president Sara Nelson, a fierce proponent of the bonus legislation, told PubliCola her understanding was that the two chiefs “are eligible for those bonuses,” but added, “I’d always thought of them going to lower level officers.” Nelson noted that she wasn’t involved in the hiring negotiations for Sayles or Powell.

It’s unclear under what authority the police chiefs are eligible for lateral hiring bonuses created to recruit rank and file police officers.

The initial legislation, which authorized $30,000 bonuses for trained “lateral” hires from other police departments, was meant to address the “declining number of police officers fully trained and ready for deployment,” according to the text of the bill. At the time, Nelson said, “We need to use every tool in our toolbox to accelerate the hiring of officers. If we don’t do this, what else are we going to do?”

The city increased the lateral bonuses to $50,000 in 2024 and made the entire hiring bonus program, which also includes $7,500 bonuses for new recruits, permanent. The update required new SPD officers, including lateral hires, to make a five-year commitment and to pay back the bonus on a pro-rated basis if they leave before the five years is up.

Sayles’ and Powell’s positions are both categorized as Executive 4, the highest executive-level position at the city and the one held by the directors of almost every city department.  (Community Assisted Response and Engagement Department Chief Amy Barden, who oversees 911 and a team of Community Crisis Responders, is an Executive 3, a lower-ranking position than the other public-safety chiefs.)

Under city law, police chiefs, deputy chiefs, and assistant chiefs are exempt from civil service rules, meaning they aren’t required to go through the regular police hiring process, or take the police hiring test, that would appear to be prerequisites for receiving a lateral hiring bonus. Instead, the police chief is directly appointed by the mayor and deputy and assistant chiefs are directly appointed by the police chief.

Additionally, the law authorizing the hiring bonuses says repeatedly that it applies to “police officers” a rank that excludes police chiefs and other high-ranking officials—referencing “new police officer hires,” “police officer candidates,” “police officer positions,” and “police officer training.” Nothing in the text of the law suggests it was intended to help recruit command staff or suggests that there is a shortage of chief-level executives at SPD.

SPD’s hiring page says that to be eligible for the lateral hiring bonus, officers must pass a lateral hiring test and “currently be working full-time as a Police Officer, Deputy Sheriff, Tribal Officer or State Trooper with two (2) or more years of experience with full police powers and duties.” SPD did not immediately respond to questions about whether Barnes, Sayles, and Powell went through the lateral hiring process. We’ve requested these records.

Police

Police Chief and Deputy Chief Received Recruitment Bonuses For Bringing on New Staff

By Erica C. Barnett

Editor’s note: This post has been updated to reflect the fact that SPD would not tell us whether two new executive-level SPD officials received $50,000 hiring bonuses and told us to file a records request. The story also reflects that Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office did not respond to our request for this information.

Seattle’s new police chief, Shon Barnes, and Deputy Police Chief Yvonne Underwood each received recruitment bonuses for hiring new high-level staff, including a second deputy police chief, when Barnes became police chief earlier this year. Both Underwood and Chief Barnes make more than $300,000 a year.

Barnes received $2,000 for recruiting a new assistant chief overseeing investigations, Nicole Powell, and a second deputy chief, Andre Sayles. Yvonne Underwood received $1,000 payment for recruiting Sayles. Sayles came to the department from Beloit, Wisconsin, a town about 50 miles south of Madison, where Barnes was previously chief. Powell came to Seattle from New Orleans, where she was the lieutenant in charge of recruitment.

According to a spokesman for SPD, the bonuses—part of legislation passed in August 2022 intended to increase police hiring in Seattle—are available to any city employee, with a few exceptions, and were added to Barnes’ and Underwood’s paychecks once Sayles and Powell joined the department. Barnes makes $360,485 a year; Underwood makes $302,016.

Overall, the spokesman said, the city has made 21 $1,000 payments to city employees who recruit new SPD officers, including the three that went to Barnes and Underwood.

PubliCola also asked SPD if Sayles and Powell (whose salaries are $302,016 and $294,549, respectively) received the city’s standard lateral hiring bonus of $50,000. The department’s communications department refused to respond to our yes/no question, directing us to file a records request for the information.

As we have reported previously, SPD has adopted an official policy called “grouping” for individuals and media outlets that file multiple records request. Under the policy, SPD’s public disclosure division refuses to work on multiple records requests at one time. Instead, they work on one request until it is completely fulfilled—a process that can take years—before moving on to another request and beginning the same process again. The policy is designed to discourage multiple records requests—a standard part of reporting—and has made it essentially pointless to file records requests for information.

Although we have been unable to directly confirm the $50,000 payments, the fact that SPD would not answer this question is suggestive.

Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office also did not respond to a request for an answer to our question.

A 2024 amendment to the 2022 hiring incentive legislation, sponsored by Council President Sara Nelson, raised the size of lateral hiring bonuses, which were previously $30,000.

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Barnes has brought on a number of new staffers since his appointment, including three new executive-level staff—Chief of Staff Alex Ricketts, Executive Director of Crime and Community Harm Reduction Lee Hunt, and Chief Communications Officer Barbara DeLollis.  Ricketts previously worked with Barnes in Madison, WI, where Barnes was chief before coming to Seattle, and in Greensboro, NC, where Barnes was a captain. Hunt worked with Barnes in Greensboro.

The new staffers’ salaries collectively cost $1.34 million, and most are new positions that add permanent costs to SPD’s budget at a time when other city departments have been asked to make cuts. The city is currently facing a two-year budget shortfall of around $150 million.