Former Seattle police Chief Shon Barnes pushed back against criticism from Mayor Katie Wilson over his time spent outside the city, defending his response after a deadly mass shooting.
Barnes, 51, said his trips to visit family in Chicago and to attend law enforcement conferences did not interfere with his responsibilities leading the Seattle Police Department.
Speaking Monday, Barnes addressed scrutiny of his travel after he was in Texas for a conference when gunfire erupted at a Seattle food festival, leaving three people dead and four others injured.
‘I immediately began doing exactly what I would have done if I was there,’ Barnes said, the Seattle Times reported. ‘I called the mayor’s office, my boss Alison Holcomb, I made her aware.’
The former chief suggested Wilson’s criticism was tied to her preference to install her own choice for the department’s top job, particularly as tensions grew over his out-of-town travel.
Barnes said he began receiving text messages about the July 26 shooting within minutes while attending the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives conference.
From Texas, he said, he worked through the department’s mass-shooting protocol, briefed the mayor, joined command staff on Zoom and returned to Seattle by plane the following morning, according to the outlet.
Barnes also said he contacted Seattle’s FBI office and Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis, who led the response while he was away, the Times reported. If he had been in Seattle that day, Barnes argued, the main difference would have been in how the media response was managed.
Shon Barnes, 55, defended his travels to visit family in Chicago or attending law enforcement conferences, denying that the trips kept him from his work as Seattle’s police chief
The former police chief believes that part of his firing was due to Wilson’s desire to appoint her own police chief – a trend he said was a common move as a new mayor is appointed
Barnes argued that the mayor had taken aim at his position over her desire to hire her own police chief, especially following tensions over his travels
‘It was never my understanding that the media was not going to be briefed,’ he said.
‘It was never my understanding that there was going to be any delay or that the media had not been briefed.’
Barnes said that, had he been there, he would have gone to the scene personally and directly briefed the media and public on the incident.
On the day, there was a five-hour delay in briefing the public and Wilson’s mayoral statement contained inaccurate information, the Times reported.
The police chief was caught berating a reporter for questioning his whereabouts, despite fury over his department issuing several statements with factual errors in the aftermath of the shooting.
At the first press conference following the shooting, Barnes refused to refer to the shooters as ‘gangs,’ and instead referred to ‘small groups that appear to be at odds with each other.’
Barnes was then filmed in a hostile confrontation with a reporter who questioned why he was not in Seattle, as he squared up to the journalist and insisted he had been ‘working as hard as I can for this city.’
‘I wish that I had a crystal ball and we could schedule gun violence, but we can’t,’ he said.
Barnes said that, had he been there, he would have gone to the scene personally and directed briefing the media and public on the incident. On the day, there was a five hour delay in briefing the public and Wilson’s mayoral statement contained inaccurate information
Scrutiny of Barnes erupted following reports that he was not in Seattle to organize his officers in the wake of the tragedy.
In the hours after the shooting, his department failed to promptly warn residents that a second armed suspect was still at large, and the first press conference was reportedly delayed by over five hours.
The city also reportedly failed to activate AlertSeattle, an official emergency notification system, in the hours after the shooting.
Barnes was forced to resign four days after the deadly shooting.
Wilson’s decision ignited fury and led to a rally at city hall organized by several groups in Seattle, including the NAACP, Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, Byrd Barr Place and Community Passageways.
The former police chief, however, believes that part of his firing was due to Wilson’s desire to appoint her own police chief – a trend he said was a common move as a new mayor is appointed.
According to the Times, Seattle hasn’t had a two-term mayor in nearly 20 years, which can explain the position’s high turnover.
Barnes said that the police department hasn’t seen a chief hold the position for more than two years in almost two decades. Barnes served as police chief for a little over a year.
Barnes addressed the criticism fired at his travels while working for the city after he had been in Texas at a conference when three people were killed and four wounded in a shooting at a Seattle food festival
Upon meeting Wilson for the first time, Barnes said he felt their conversation was reminiscent of an interview rather than a chance to get to know him. He cited a sense of tension between himself and Wilson over issues such as the Seattle Police Department’s real-time crime center.
Following Wilson’s election, Barnes’s position as chief didn’t appear to be guaranteed, leading him to the decision to not uproot his family in Chicago.
‘From day one, there wasn’t a day that did not go by where someone did not tell me when the day was going to come,’ he said.
Barnes said his wife and children had arrived in Seattle to visit on the same day he lost his job, the Times reported.
Our News Outlet reached out to Wilson’s office and the Seattle Police Department for comment.
