‘She tried to divert attention by firing the police chief’: KIRO hosts credit Wilson’s new safety plan but question the cost

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced new rules for how her office and the Seattle Police Department communicate during major public safety incidents. Under the updated protocol, the mayor’s office and police must be in direct contact, and the city is expected to provide information to the media within an hour.

The changes follow the deadly Bite of Seattle shooting in July, when the city went nearly five hours without giving the public an update.

Wilson said she didn’t realize how little information had reached the public that night.

“What I did not fully understand in that moment was how little information had reached the public or the press since the incident began at 6 p.m.,” Wilson said. “Had I known that, I would have pushed for an immediate briefing.”

KIRO host Gee Scott and KIRO fill-in host Angela Poe Russell gave Wilson credit for the new policy, and then tore into what it took to get there on “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio.

Gee gives kudos, then drops the hammer

Gee framed his reaction around a simple question: Can you change the past? No. Can you change the future? No. You can only change what you’re doing right now.

“To Katie Wilson, no matter what you have done in the past — which your communication was awful at best. The way you’ve been about public safety, we know your track record and how you have felt about that. You were part of the defund the police crowd. It’s not a secret — but here we are today.

“And you’re telling everybody from here on out, this is the plan. This is how we want to do it when it comes to public safety,” he continued. “We want communication within one hour. All those things. Kudos to you.”

But the kudos didn’t last long.

“It was a problem, and she tried to fix that problem and have people divert their attention by firing the police chief,” Gee said.

Angela says it took a crisis to expose an obvious problem

Angela pushed on the timeline.

“It took a crisis, the Bite of Seattle, to reveal that there was a problem,” she said. “There clearly was a problem.”

She said her concern now is that Wilson won’t apply the same urgency to the public safety issues residents are raising every day.

“My hope is that it does not take another crisis for her to act on the other public safety issues that people have been trying to raise for the last several weeks,” Angela said.

‘It is a shame. I am embarrassed’

Angela said she’s watching her own neighborhood change and hearing from small business owners who are fed up with break-ins and vandalism.

“I am seeing my neighborhood change,” she said. “I am seeing the streets change.”

She said one business owner asked whether they could sue the city for failing to provide basic public safety.

“It is a shame. It is a shame. I am embarrassed. I am concerned,” Angela said. “I’m one of those people — the joke is like ‘heart pumps Kool-Aid,’ right? You want to be compassionate. But compassionate also means accountability.”

Angela said she’s glad Wilson has shown she can act in a crisis, and is asking her to bring the same energy to the problems residents are raising right now.

“I am asking, as a radio host here on KIRO, as a resident of Seattle, to please act on what we’re seeing on the streets right now,” she said.

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.