‘She does not have a better window’: Seattle Councilmember Bob Kettle clashes with Mayor Wilson over Bite of Seattle response

Seattle City Councilmember Bob Kettle said Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson does not have a better read on public safety than the council, and that the decision to fire Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes was made long before the Bite of Seattle mass shooting gave the mayor a reason to pull the trigger.

Kettle, who chairs the council’s Public Safety Committee, laid out a blunt assessment of the growing rift between City Hall’s seventh floor and the council’s second floor on “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio.

“When the mayor says, ‘I have a better window,’ what’s clear here is that she does not have a better window,” Kettle said. “She does not have a better window than I do. She does not have a better window than probably the majority of the council.”

The comments came after Tuesday’s Public Safety Committee hearing, where Interim Seattle Police Chief Andre Sayles and other officials faced pointed questions about the July 26 shooting at Seattle Center that left three people dead and four others wounded. The public went nearly five hours without meaningful information from city leadership that night, a delay that has become its own crisis at City Hall.

Kettle, a retired Navy officer who spent more than 20 years in the military, said he arrived at Seattle Center around 7:15 p.m. the night of the shooting after receiving a call from Seattle Deputy Mayor Brian Surratt. He expected the scene to be winding down, similar to other shootings. Instead, he walked into an active SWAT operation.

“There’s a SWAT operation going on in the IMAX,” Kettle said. “It was still an active operation when I showed up.”

He said he spent roughly three hours at Seattle Center, from about 7:15 p.m. to 10:15 p.m., before heading home. At about 10:13 p.m., he got a call saying a press conference was finally happening. He declined to return.

“I wasn’t going to be any value added at that press conference,” he said.

Alert Seattle was never activated

Kettle said one of the biggest failures of the night was something that should have been automatic. Alert Seattle, the city’s public notification system, was never activated, even as thousands of people flooded into surrounding streets with no information about what had happened.

“Mike Carter from The Seattle Times started talking about Alert Seattle, and I was like, Oh, my God, why didn’t I think of that?” Kettle said. “I said to the mayor, ‘Hey, he’s right. Own it.'”

Kettle said the system’s tripwires were clearly being tripped. Beyond the shooting itself, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) was affected as thousands of people poured onto Denny and into surrounding streets. But no alert was ever sent.

“That could have gone a long way in terms of the notifications,” he said. “Throw in some of that standard, just the facts, kind of SPD background briefing. That would have gone a long way.”

Barnes firing was decided ‘last fall,’ Kettle says

KIRO host Gee Scott asked Kettle directly whether Seattle had a police chief problem before the shooting. Kettle said no.

“I was part of the Chief Barnes recruitment piece. I saw him before he was announced,” Kettle said.

He praised Barnes for having a strong policing background, a commitment to reform, and a record of community engagement, particularly with Seattle’s Black community. But Kettle said he believes the decision to remove Barnes predated the Bite of Seattle shooting by months.

“I believe the decision to fire Chief Barnes was made last fall,” he said. “There’s a lot of whispering voices out there. They say different things. They say, ‘Hey, we have concerns about Shon Barnes.’ And this gets to the mayor.”

Kettle said Wilson’s framing of Barnes was shaped by those voices during the campaign. When she took office January 1, he said, reality set in with the FIFA World Cup on the horizon and advisors urging her to wait. The Bite of Seattle shooting, in Kettle’s view, was the opportunity, not the reason.

KIRO host Ursula Reutin asked if Barnes was essentially a scapegoat.

“Scapegoat’s not probably the right word,” Kettle said. “But yeah, it was an opportunity for her to make the decision.”

Detective Pritchard ‘was alone’

The conversation turned to SPD Detective Brian Pritchard, who told reporters at the scene that the press conference was being delayed for “dignitaries.” Pritchard later wrote an internal email saying the city’s characterization of events was “not accurate” and that conflicting statements had damaged his credibility with media.

Kettle said Pritchard was not at Tuesday’s committee hearing, and that concerned him.

“If he was in that bad position, if you read that email, he’s like, ‘This is hard on me.’ Where’s his chain of command, and were they looking out for him?” Kettle said. “He was put in a position that he should not have been put into.”

Drawing on his military background, Kettle said leadership is responsible for the people below them. Pritchard was on scene, doing his job, and was essentially left without cover.

“He was, in a way, alone,” Kettle said. “And that’s a question that I have on behalf of Sergeant Pritchard.”

Kettle said he has made clear that Pritchard needs to be present at the September 22 follow-up committee hearing.

Cameras, venues, and Mayor Wilson’s relationship with the council

Gee asked Kettle what has frustrated him most about the mayor’s response. Kettle said the bigger issue is not any single decision but a pattern of the mayor’s office ignoring the work the council has already done, particularly on surveillance technology.

“We did so much due diligence in terms of building in protocols with the contracts, the parameters of the systems themselves, balancing with privacy and civil liberties,” Kettle said. “And then you come in, and it’s like that doesn’t matter.”

Kettle said his CCTV, Flock camera, and automatic license plate reader programs are “arguably the best in the country,” and that turning cameras off has real consequences. He cited the case of a 77-year-old assault victim whose attacker was identified through the CCTV system.

Looking ahead, Kettle said he has written to the mayor calling for security reviews at major venues and major events, including bringing in camera systems separate from the current CCTV debate.

Ursula noted the relationship between the council and the mayor appears worse this early in a tenure than any she can recall in her time covering Seattle politics. Kettle did not sugarcoat it, but said he continues to work with Deputy Mayor Surratt and Director of Public Safety Alison Holcomb.

“The mayor just signed two of my bills,” he said. “So we are pressing forward.”

But Kettle said the friction stems from a fundamental lack of acknowledgment.

“There’s no acknowledgment that we’re professionals, we’ve done our due diligence, we’ve done our work, and we’re looking to work together to move forward,” he said.

The Public Safety Committee’s follow-up hearing is scheduled for September 22. Kettle said SPD and the fire department’s after-action reviews should be completed by then.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.