The police chief in Seattle, Wash., resigned under pressure on Thursday after days of criticism over the department’s handling of a shooting that killed three people at a food festival near the Space Needle.
Mayor Katie Wilson announced the resignation of the chief, Shon Barnes, four days after the attack, which also wounded four people. The shooting quickly became a political test for a new mayor — one of the country’s highest-profile socialist elected officials — who had promised to make public safety a priority.
Critics complained that the police department released information too slowly about the shooting on Sunday night and that the department got some details wrong in initial reports. The department has defended its handling of the shooting and said that its focus, from the start, has been on the investigation and public safety.
“Our officers ran toward gunfire,” Chief Barnes said earlier in the week. “It’s an ongoing investigation, and sometimes information evolves, but that immediate response does not.”
Ms. Wilson announced the decision in a news release and planned to meet with the media Friday.
“My vision for public safety in this city is grounded in transparency, trust, and genuine collaboration with the community,” she said in the release. “Keeping people safe requires trust, and trust requires that this department shows up in neighborhoods every day, builds relationships with residents, community organizations, and small businesses, and is accountable to the people it serves.”
Mr. Barnes came to Seattle in 2025 after leading the police force in Madison, Wis. He inherited a department struggling with staffing shortages, low morale and lingering distrust after the 2020 protests that followed the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis.
He replaced Chief Adrian Diaz, whom then-Mayor Bruce Harrell removed after an independent investigation concluded that Mr. Diaz had concealed a romantic relationship with a subordinate and had misled investigators.
Civil rights leaders and downtown business leaders welcomed Mr. Barnes’s selection, and city officials accepted an unusual arrangement that allowed the new chief to rent an apartment in Seattle while his wife and children remained in Chicago. The Madison city government had agreed to the same arrangement with Mr. Barnes, who had spent more than two decades with the Greensboro, N.C., police department before moving to Wisconsin.
After Ms. Wilson defeated Mr. Harrell last year, she considered replacing Mr. Barnes but decided to keep him, along with the city’s other public safety leaders. The mayor, a newcomer to city government, may have been reluctant to dismiss a police chief less than a year into the job and with the World Cup just months away.
The six World Cup matches in Seattle were regarded as a success, drawing more than 400,000 spectators and helping revive downtown and Pioneer Square. Across King County, gun violence has fallen from its post-pandemic peak, according to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, and Seattle police statistics show overall crime has continued to decline.
Even so, a recent series of high-profile shootings has fueled complaints that city leaders have failed to get a handle on violence in several neighborhoods. In April, gunfire outside a community center southeast of downtown interrupted Ms. Wilson’s announcement of new spending on meals and child care. Multiple bullets struck a building about 50 yards from the mayor, community leaders and reporters. Ms. Wilson’s young daughter was at the event and was rushed to safety.
Much of the violence has come near Aurora Avenue, a busy north-south corridor where drive-by shootings, open-air drug markets and prostitution have long challenged city leaders. Ms. Wilson has expanded the use of security cameras, but frustrated residents have erected homemade barricades to keep out through traffic and the crime they believe accompanies it.
But the food festival attack appears to have ended Mr. Barnes’s tenure.
Seattle police warned people to avoid the area shortly after the shooting at 6 p.m. Sunday, but didn’t meet with reporters or offer details for another five hours. A police spokesman told reporters that a news conference was delayed while the police waited for “dignitaries” — the mayor, Gov. Bob Ferguson of Washington and a member of Congress — to attend. The mayor’s office initially announced that two suspects were in custody before correcting the statement.
Mr. Barnes, who was attending the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives conference in Dallas at the time, made statements the next morning that proved to be inaccurate.
At a tense Monday news conference, the chief bristled at questions about his whereabouts Sunday and the fact that his family lives in Chicago.
“I wish I had a crystal ball and we could schedule gun violence,” he said. “But we can’t.”
Mr. Barnes’s departure offers Ms. Wilson a chance to install a police chief more closely aligned with her own vision for public safety. It also comes after weeks of upheaval inside City Hall, including the departures of her chief of staff and communications director, which has reinforced criticism that her administration has struggled to find its footing.
The decision to demand the chief’s resignation was quickly criticized by leaders in Seattle’s Black community, who rallied Thursday morning in an effort to save Mr. Barnes’ job, and members of the City Council, who sent out their own statements slamming the mayor even before she’d made the dismissal official.
Reggie Witherspoon, the bishop at Mount Calvary Christian Church, said “she can forget about having much assistance from us.”
“He is a very committed and capable man,” Mr. Witherspoon said. “It’s going to do real damage to this city if he leaves.”
James Bible, a civil rights attorney who has sued the city over police use of force, said he was baffled by the decision. “It feels like they just, under this chief, started to get a handle on the misconduct issue that seemed ever-present,” he said. “Unless there is something the rest of us don’t know, this is so confusing.”
Meantime, investigators are still searching for other suspects in Sunday’s shootings. Court filings show the bullets that killed three people did not come from the ghost gun carried by a 15-year-old who has been arrested and charged with first-degree assault. The police believe a 19-year-old who died of gunshot wounds Sunday was another shooter, and they are seeking other people who may have been involved in the shooting, which investigators believe involved two rival gangs.
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