Seattle mayor grilled on public safety crisis as residents demand answers
Mayor Katie Wilson said Wednesday that Seattle is "acting now" on shootings and trafficking-related crime after being pressed by a local reporter on why residents had to deal with the crisis on their own before City Hall moved toward a permanent fix.
Kim asked Wilson why residents were still waiting for a permanent solution after saying their neighborhood had been hit by repeated violence tied to Aurora Avenue.
"We’re hearing from residents saying there are constant shootings there, bullets going through homes, human trafficking is up," Kim said. "Prostitution is up. Desperate residents put up steel planters to block some of the crime. They say it was working, but then the city took it away and said that they need to have a permanent solution, so they want to study it. But at what point do you act?"
"So we are acting now," Wilson told FOX 13 Seattle co-anchor Hana Kim about crime along Aurora Avenue North, where residents installed steel planters across the road to keep criminals from accessing the community. "A number of members of my team… were up doing a walk with the neighborhood a few days ago, and I totally understand why people put the barriers in the streets."
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"The issue is emergency access, and so what we’ve done for the time being, there’s one barrier that’s actually still in place, but the other ones we replaced with what are called chicanes, which is basically not entirely blocking off the street, but really slowing movement through it," Wilson added.
After Wilson said the city had replaced some barriers with temporary traffic-calming devices, Kim pushed back, saying, "Residents say that barrier isn’t working."
Wilson said the city was moving quickly but had to weigh street closures against access for emergency vehicles.
"I understand. So that is like a very temporary thing," Wilson said. "But again, SDOT is now, and you say study it, and it is true, study it, but study it very rapidly. So we are talking about doing a quick assessment of what it would look like to more permanently block off certain streets, but they need to study emergency access."
Wilson said the Seattle police were also increasing patrols and sending additional gun violence resources to the area.
"And we also have emphasis patrols that SPD is doing right now," Wilson said. "The greater presence, we’re stepping up the gun violence reduction unit in the area. And these are the immediate fixes, right?"
The mayor said she did not view the city's temporary measures as a long-term solution.
"No illusion that things like this are solving the longer-term problem," Wilson said. "But we are trying to take immediate action to improve conditions in the neighborhood because it’s unacceptable. You shouldn’t have just gunshots around your house, into your house."
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The Aurora Avenue barricades drew national attention and online mockery of Wilson’s public safety approach, with conservatives pointing to the irony of residents building their own barriers in a city led by a democratic socialist mayor.
Residents along the corridor spent Memorial Day weekend using metal planters, dirt, gravel, logs and chunks of concrete to block streets after weeks of shootings, high-speed chases and crime concerns tied to prostitution, trafficking and alleged turf wars. One resident, Peter Orr, told KTVB 7, "It’s either this, or bullets in my neighbor’s houses."
The confrontation came days after Wilson and Councilmember Debora Juarez announced city actions aimed at violence along Aurora Avenue North.
The city said Juarez was working with Councilmember Bob Kettle on emergency legislation that would allow Seattle police and transportation officials to close public streets for public safety reasons when criminal activity is occurring or coming from the street or alley.
Wilson said in the May 29 announcement that "gun violence along the Aurora corridor is alarming and unacceptable," while the city said SDOT would work with the mayor's office, Juarez's team, police, residents and businesses over two weeks to determine whether more permanent barriers were needed.