Seattle mayor defends ousting police chief after festival shootout

SEATTLE (AP) — Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson on Friday defended her decision to oust the city’s police chief as the “right decision at the right time,” but she declined to explain why.

The leadership change came as police continue searching for people involved in a fatal, gang-related shootout at a food festival near the Space Needle last weekend. A 15-year-old was arrested at the scene and has been charged with assault, but charging documents say the gun he was seen firing wasn’t involved in the deaths of two bystanders.

Wilson and then-Police Chief Shon Barnes faced criticism for being slow to release key information about the shootout on Sunday, including whether suspects remained at large.

Barnes, who was the city’s second Black police chief, has been credited with boosting the recruitment of officers and helping reduce crime downtown. A number of Black community organizations, a major business group and several City Council members issued statements criticizing Wilson’s decision to replace him Thursday.

At a news conference Friday with Andre Sayles, a Seattle deputy chief the mayor named as interim chief, Wilson credited Barnes for his service and said that as mayor she had a clearer window into the operations at the Seattle Police Department than her critics.

The lack of communication about a mass shooting at a major public event in Seattle was not the only reason she asked Barnes to resign, she said.

“There were multiple factors,” Wilson said. “The events of Sunday played into it.”

Sayles told the news conference the department would boost police staffing at public festivals for the remainder of the summer. He also said he believed investigators are close to finding and arresting additional suspects in the shootout.

The gunfire erupted in the waning hours of the Bite of Seattle, an annual three-day festival that draws hundreds of food and retail vendors and performers. Three people, including a suspect, were killed, and four people were wounded. One of the people injured was a 2-year-old boy.