Harger: Amid explosion of violence, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson applauds her team for going to the Aurora safety walk. She could not be bothered to go herself
Jun 2, 2026, 6:33 AM | Updated: 11:16 am
Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson posted a statement on Facebook on Monday thanking community members in North Aurora for leading a safety walk over the weekend. She named the people who went on her behalf. Deputy Mayor Brian Surratt. Police Chief Shon Barnes. Representatives for the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) and the Department of Neighborhoods.
She wrote that her team was deeply saddened by the stories they heard. Her team. She used the words “my team.”
She did not write that she was there.
Look at the photos she posted with the statement. Surratt is in them, coffee in hand, talking with neighbors. Barnes is in them, in uniform, walking the same streets. They show up.
The mayor of the city is not in any of the photos.
A neighborhood in crisis
Shootings every week. A six-week-old in a bassinet, alive by inches. A father picking up shell casings on the way to the bus stop. A mother and a father practicing a drill for which one of them grabs which kid. And the mayor of Seattle could not be bothered to be there.
North Aurora has had more than 95 shootings in two years. The neighbors I’ve spoken with say they have never seen Mayor Katie Wilson there once.
I have been talking with North Aurora residents for months now. The ones most active in trying to get the city to respond. The ones who have testified at hearings, emailed officials, recorded shell casings on their phones, and finally pulled industrial planters into their own streets because the city would not. The most vocal of them tell me they have never once seen Mayor Wilson in the neighborhood.
Not at a safety walk. Not at a community meeting. Not standing on the block where bullets came through a wall above a six-week-old’s bassinet. Not standing on the corner where a father counted thirteen shell casings while walking his kids to the bus stop.
Not at the home of Andrew Steelsmith, the resident who has been documenting the violence in real time on Reddit. Steelsmith told me Monday morning that he and his wife have a routine for when they hear shots. They hear them often enough that they need a routine. Each of them grabs one of their small children. They get low. They scurry to a safe place in the house. That’s exactly what they did when they heard gunshots Sunday.
That is how a family lives in the Aurora neighborhood in 2026. With a drill. With muscle memory. With an action plan, because they know the shots are coming in Katie Wilson’s Seattle.
Ninety-five-plus shootings in two years. Seven in two weeks. And the mayor has not been there. Mayors go to the place. Mayor Katie Wilson is sending her team to Aurora. Mayors go for the obvious reason. The person in charge has to look at the thing.
Mayor Wilson has been to other places. She has done ribbon cuttings. She does press events. She went to a mosque this weekend to celebrate Eid. She is not unwilling to be in public. She has been unwilling to be in Greenwood. Or on the side streets off Aurora. Or in front of the house, where the bullets barely missed a baby. Or the Steelsmiths’.
North Aurora is about five miles from Seattle City Hall — 10 minutes by car, 20 in traffic. Mayor Wilson is sending her team.
What does Mayor Katie Wilson think the Aurora job is?
I am not asking the mayor to solve this. I am not expecting her to put on a vest and ride along with SPD. I am not expecting her to negotiate with the pimps. I am not expecting her to design the barriers. She has people for that. She should have people for that.
I am expecting her to go.
That is what a leader does. A leader stands on the block where the thing is happening. A leader looks the residents in the eye. A leader takes the grief the residents are going to give her, because, of course, they are going to give her grief, because they have been waiting for years, and they are tired, and they are scared, and a six-week-old almost died. A leader takes the grief, gets a feel for what is actually happening, goes back to City Hall changed by what she saw and heard, and her team feels her urgency because she has it.
Mayor Wilson did not go. She sent her team. And then she wrote a Facebook post about how saddened her team was by the stories they heard.
What the heck does she think the job is?
Forty hours after SDOT installed the traffic calming, the shots were back.
The thing the mayor’s statement promises in the coming days is the same thing SDOT did last Thursday. Slow traffic. Limit access. Traffic calming on three blocks.
Forty hours after SDOT installed those barriers, the shots were back. Early Sunday morning, another shooting in the neighborhood. The barriers cars can drive between did exactly what cars-can-drive-between barriers do. Nothing.
That is the response the mayor is promising more of in the coming days. The response that already failed once. The response that the Steelsmith family’s safety drill is rehearsed against, because none of this is changing the actual conditions on the actual block.
The mayor’s statement says her team is committed to taking urgent action. The action they are committed to is the action that did not work the last time they took it.
“My team was deeply saddened.” When a mayor’s statement uses the third person, it tells you where she was.
Read Mayor Wilson’s statement again. Pay attention to the pronouns.
“My team was deeply saddened by the stories they heard.” Her team. They heard.
“In the coming days, we will be working with SDOT to slow traffic.” We. The administration as an institution.
“I applaud and appreciate the action community members are taking to protect each other.” “I” appears for the first time, attached to applause.
“It’s my responsibility to ensure those voices do not go unheard.” My responsibility. Future tense. To ensure. Voices that did not go unheard because she heard them. Voices that did not go unheard because her team heard them and reported back.
A mayor who was on the safety walk would write, “I walked with residents.” A mayor who was on the safety walk would write, “I heard their stories.” A mayor who was on the safety walk would not need to applaud the action community members are taking. She would have been on the block with them.
RELATED STORIES
What Mayor Katie Wilson’s absence tells North Aurora and Greenwood
When the mayor of Seattle sends her team to that neighborhood and stays away herself, the message to the people who live there is plain. Your crisis is at the level of a delegated visit.
I do not say this lightly. I have tried, in five pieces over two weeks, to be fair in my assessment of this administration’s response. I have written about the patrols going up. I have credited the Wednesday statement that called the situation unacceptable. I have credited Alison Holcomb for taking the heat in person when neighbors confronted her about the planters. The praise has been real where it has been earned.
This is different. This is the mayor of the city declining to stand on the street that the city is failing. The neighbors notice. They are telling me they notice.
She has been in office for five months. She is past the point where being elsewhere is a scheduling problem. She is at the point where being elsewhere is a pattern.
I wrote on Friday that watching Mayor Wilson govern Seattle feels like a body-switching comedy from the 80s. The kid waking up in the adult body, hands not quite sure where to go, doing their best, half a beat behind where they need to be. Two days later, the kid in the adult body sent the deputy mayor and the police chief to the block where the shooting was, and stayed at City Hall.
Ninety-five shootings. Ninety-six and counting if Sunday makes the official tally. A father who counts shell casings on the walk to the bus stop. A mother and a father with a drill for which one of them grabs which kid when the rounds start coming through the wall.
And the mayor of the city couldn’t be bothered to go.
Are you kidding me?
Five months in, the kid in the adult body is still figuring out where to put her hands. The Steelsmiths know exactly where to put theirs. On their kids. Every time the shots start.
Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here.
