‘They don’t need to do any more studying’: Former Seattle council member lays out action plan to curb Aurora violence

Former Seattle City Councilmember for District 5 Cathy Moore was among hundreds of fed-up neighbors who marched along Aurora Avenue over the weekend. She laid out her own action plan for curbing gun violence in the neighborhood.

Moore told “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio that the city can start by closing certain streets that tend to attract more crime.

“They need to close 102nd, 98th, and 97th, and there are a number of hot spot streets,” Moore said. “We had a pilot project that was approved by former Mayor Harrell, which was supposed to be implemented. The Seattle Department of Transportation, for political reasons, decided not to implement it in 2025. I was begging for them to do that when I left office.”

“They don’t need to do any more studying,” she continued. “That pilot project was run past the Seattle Police Department and the fire department. So the first thing that should happen tomorrow is that they close the streets, and I see the Seattle City Council President Hollingsworth has called for that to happen.”

Moore said the second action is that the city needs to give officers permission to arrest johns not only for engaging in the act of sex, but also for loitering, which includes circling, stopping, and negotiating a price. She said the least the police should be able to do is question johns about what they’re doing, because right now it’s too comfortable for them to be up there when there are no consequences.

“It’s advertised as being consequence-free,” she said. “If you’re up there, and the police are bugging you, harassing you, questioning you, talking to the women, you’re not going to want to continue to come up there. And that could happen tomorrow.”

‘We wouldn’t allow that in Laurelhurst’: Former Seattle council member says Aurora neighbors deserve same public safety

Moore said the community along Aurora is important, but too often it gets pushed to the side because of the labels people put on the neighborhood, rather than being seen as a community that deserves the same public safety as anywhere else in the city.

“These are not, I’m going to say it, these are not Laurelhurst neighbors, these are working-class individuals, many students, many nurses, teachers, baristas, many renters, people who are trying to move the neighborhood along because it has been such a difficult neighborhood for so long, and they are treated as if they’re somehow overly entitled,” she said. “And yet they’re just asking to be able to live in the city and be able to live their lives, raise their families, contribute to the neighborhood, grow a better Aurora, but they need to have the most basic thing, and the local government is charged with doing, which is public safety, and that message does not seem to be heard, and I’m really troubled by why that is, because we wouldn’t allow that in Laurelhurst or Madison Park.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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