Public Safety Committee 9/8/2026

And good morning.

The Public Safety Committee will come to order.

It's 9.34 a.m.

September 8th, 2026. I'm Robert Kettle, Chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Lin?

Here.

Councilmember Rivera?

Present.

Councilmember Sotka?

Here.

Chair Kettle?

Here.

Chair, there are four members present, one excused.

Thank you.

Again, good morning to everyone.

For this morning's chair comment, I wanted to speak to the challenges that we're facing in our neighborhoods.

We have neighborhoods in crisis.

Earlier this year in April, I was speaking about Little Saigon.

and then we had North Aurora.

Today, it's Belltown.

This weekend, we had multiple gun violence incidents.

We had one at Denny & Clay near 3rd, and then not far from there, further in our direction, at 3rd & Blanchard, another shooting.

As the Seattle Times said, two dead, two hurt in Belltown shootings near Rocca Street Takeover, and I would add a chronic hotspot of 3rd & Blanchard.

Then the next night, Elliott and Bell, and then down to Alaskan Way.

Again, Seattle Times, six-person shot in Belltown in 24 hours.

Teen dies in latest gunfire.

This builds on the challenges that Belltown has been facing day in and day out, week in and week out, primarily at Second and the North, Third and Blanchard, and elsewhere in the neighborhood.

But this is new, this gun violence.

We've had increased look at this from a council and committee focus.

We've added to our strategic framework plan a gun violence reduction, intervention reduction, and community safety.

Earlier this year, we had it as an agenda item speaking to the issue of gun violence intervention.

which was very important.

And then earlier this summer we had the National Network for Safer Communities here with Councilmember Rivera hosting and partnering with the executive to include Deputy Mayor and a large number of the executive was present to include a large contingent from SPD.

And so today we build on that looking at a resolution that has been proffered by Councilmember Rivera that builds on this.

And we need to continue to build on it because we cannot continue to have this gun violence, which is something that we've been seeing here in this council for those that came in two and a half years ago, ever since like Amara Murphy Payne, for example, all these names that we remember.

And there's no justice for those families.

And it will be difficult for this weekend as well.

So we have to press forward on gun violence intervention.

We need to do work and we need to partner with the executive, with the mayor and her team to do this, to have a comprehensive approach.

But tied to this too is SPD staffing.

We passed a number of bills and progress has been made from the trough that we had in terms of the massive loss of officers.

We were making progress on this front.

And this is what's key.

When you talk to the West Precinct, and they say, hey, we'd like to do something maybe at Pike Place Market and First and Pike, but we have what's going on at Third Pike and Pine, and we only have a couple sergeants, and we have a small number of officers.

We can't flex.

So unsurprisingly, it's difficult when we have these takeovers in Belltown, when we have these shootings in Belltown.

So SPD staffing is critical, but as you've seen recently in the news, the hiring incentives have been dropped.

Now that may be okay, but that's something that we have to look at because we have to ensure that the momentum of the increase of officers is there.

But I'm concerned.

I recently read, and I'll read the following.

The hiring incentives are just one part.

Due to budget constraints and other priorities, we have undone so much of the hard work that the City Council has fought for related to increasing SBD staffing.

No more recruiters attending career fairs or events, no more ride-alongs for interested applicants, no more physical agility tests held in Seattle, and no more virtual workshops to walk through applicants through the process.

No more additional funds for a public safety hiring.

The effects of discontinuing these recruiting efforts will be felt in the weeks to come when we should be focused on keeping our foot to the pedal.

Thank you to the person that this was written to.

The officers deserve more backup and the citizens deserve more officers on the street.

We cannot become flat-footed.

when it comes to hiring more officers, to increase SPD staffing, because it is the through line of all these public safety challenges that we're facing.

And we have to do better on this front.

As I said recently, we're at an inflection point, really inflection points The bite of Seattle is a reflection point.

As I note, adversity reveals.

The removal of the chief of police and now the search for a new chief of police is an inflection point.

But also the public safety budget.

We need leadership on this front that is sustained with a follow-up and follow-through, and that includes budget.

We need also the implementations of laws.

We've often talked about soda and soap, but we also need to work street racing.

a bill that we passed two years ago, in addition to all the bills surrounding, you know, trying to increase police staffing.

And we need a commitment to our neighborhoods in crisis.

Little Saigon, North Aurora, now Beltan, but in fact, all throughout our city.

Each of my colleagues would say North Beacon Hill, for example, you know, over in Alki and different areas in District 1. District 4, up north, Lake City District 6. We have these neighborhoods throughout.

And so people ask about confidence moving forward.

Confidence can be gained in terms of what we're doing with our budget coming up, that we can move forward.

But right now, let's look at Little Saigon.

Let's look at North Aurora.

Let's look at Belltown, where we have had three dead and many injured.

And this is why we need to continue this work, and we need to continue the work that we're doing to include the review with the Officer Inspector General for the Byte of Seattle.

Because at the end of the day, coming back to gun violence, this is what we need in order to implement a comprehensive strategy in partnership with all of the stakeholders that are here, to include there are some here in chambers today, no doubt about to give public comment.

So with that, colleagues, That concludes the chair comment.

If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing and seeing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda or within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up for today?

There are nine in-person and 11 remote.

Okay, each speaker will have two minutes.

We will start with the in-person speakers.

First clerk, can you please read the comment instructions?

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 60 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

The public comment period is now open.

We'll begin with the first speaker on the list.

The first in-person speaker is Hannah Ziff.

Good morning.

Hey.

Hey.

Hello.

Good morning.

Hey.

Hey.

Hey, I'm going to solve this whole dang crime for you today.

First of all, this has little to do with gang violence.

Home peeps in the back streets.

It has everything to do with all of our silence.

But today, I'm going to breach a peep.

I'm spelling it out.

Bite of Seattle.

No one wants to mention the poetic injustice, like shutting our I-5 on 6-7.

If these dudes were really just shooting at each other, then there wouldn't be three more souls in heaven.

That's all lies, fed straight from the Feds, first from Foster on the Federal Committee, and then we have Kettle from the CIA, but the only one who has something to say is Vice Chair Saka, full of questions that day, who is also from the US Air Force, by the way.

Anyway, sipping on a sippy cup was the only thing that made sense.

People who pay attention and those who don't all agree, City Council Safety Committee's reputation is nonsense.

Asking how the search warrant is coming together instead of, is there a criminal on the loose would have made common sense.

Carlos, Israel, Sanchez, Vallaba, Junior, Si, Nico, Samo, and Ashley Whitehead will not die in vain.

This was an orchestrated terrorist attack to reduce the price of our city without it being plain.

In sight, we people have seen and heard enough.

But one thing we have yet to hear, I'm a little teapot, short and stout.

Here's my handle, here's my spout.

When I get all steamed up, hear me shout.

tip me over and pour me out.

We're here to spill the tea and to support you.

We know this doesn't come easy.

Truth will set us free and fix the real estate economy.

Seattle's not on the table.

If you want to take a bite, then you'll have to deal with me.

We all see you, obviously, all seeing eye.

God bless.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Paul Patu.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Wanted to first thank this committee.

We have watched the interviews, we have saw your actual working community, and I truly believe that your leadership and your vision for safety can be shared by all of us citizens.

And so I want to thank you.

for that.

I am here mainly to bring into remembrance the history of public safety in Seattle.

I have had the honor to serve my community and the very first public hearing was in 2007 under Mayor Nichols under similar circumstances.

Every year we suffer loss in community and they are deeply felt.

We live with the families and the aftermath of the city and the people of our communities must pick up and continue to build on the foundation that has been laid.

My ask to you is to continue to build on those investments.

We can't afford new initiatives and completely wipe out the community memory and the brilliance and all of the things that have been laid, the foundation that has been laid in public safety.

My ask to you is to pick up some of the fragmented pieces.

In government, you have a very difficult job of orchestrating and synthesizing something for all to benefit.

Our public safety systems are fragmented.

The investments that are being made, if you're going to introduce something, please consider co-creating with community.

We are here at the ready to support you in your efforts, but not a fragmented system, but a more coordinated system of public safety that all of us can benefit from.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, we have William Harrison.

I think I got that right.

I don't think it's fair that I have to follow that.

Council members, thank you for the opportunity for public comment, and thank you for all the hard work that you guys do.

We really appreciate it.

My name is William Hairston.

I have the opportunity to support as a senior director at CCYJ, our Center for Children and Youth Justice.

CCYJ contributes to the community violence intervention and prevention space in several ways.

including one of which supporting the regional office of gun violence regional peacekeepers where CCYJ acted as an intermediary coordinator and convener to the six community based organizations that were funded.

One of CCYJ's other initiatives is our leadership intervention and change initiative which is a regional approach to the comprehensive gang model.

Link provides a data-driven framework for addressing gang, gun, group and street-level violence by coordinating partners for collaborative wraparound supports for young people at the highest risk of violence or system involvement.

This work recognizes that violence doesn't stop at city boundaries, that it's a regional issue and requires a regional solution or collaboration.

Link brings together partners from law enforcement, education, DCYF, juvenile justice, rehabilitation, detention, community-based organizations, behavioral health, housing, employment, and other services.

Since 2020, Link has served over 400 young people in King County.

Since 2025, the young people that Link serves have completed 300 individualized service goals, including education, housing, court requirements, employment, and most importantly, gang and group assistance.

This work is only possible because of our strong collaborations and partnerships with folks like Seattle Police Department, Seattle Public Schools, Choose 180, Urban Family, and Freedom Project Washington, and many other strong partnerships and organizations throughout the city and the county.

CCYJ would welcome the opportunity to build a stronger partnership with the city and share more about this collaborative approach through Link and the CGM.

and everything else that we've learned about supporting our violence prevention partners in this space and this effort.

We believe there's an opportunity for stronger coordination across existing investments and look forward to having the opportunity to share and support that.

Thank you guys for all you guys do.

We appreciate it.

Thank you.

And I think pretty much everybody here knows, but if you do hear that chime, that is eight seconds remaining.

Next up, we have Mia Doses.

Hi, thank you.

My name is Mia Doses.

I've lived in Seattle for almost 61 years, and I live in Belltown currently on 3rd Avenue between Cedar and Clay.

On Friday and Saturday night, I watched the takeovers happen.

I called 911. I watched explosives being set off.

I watched dangerous behavior.

I watched people being shot.

and I'm here today.

I know there are lots of problems.

I know there are problems with gun violence.

I had things written down.

I'm just gonna address what you were talking about earlier.

We need some emergency action.

We need emergency action at the intersections of Third and Clay and Third and Cedar.

I have a very simple request for you today and I am asking you to put some, not barricades, but to put some sort of deterrence in those particular intersections so that we do not have the street racing, the burnouts, the sideshows.

I know that you're gonna say it's a whack-a-mole problem.

I realize that it's gonna Move around.

We have to start somewhere.

It's not very expensive.

Other cities are doing it.

We need to do it, too.

Simple request.

Those locations.

Let's help our police.

They can't be there all the time.

I've seen amazing responses from our police department.

Since I live downtown, I see them all the time.

diffusing situations.

They must be getting some good training because they're doing a good job, but there are just not enough of them.

As you were saying, they cannot get to the scenes of crimes fast enough.

They cannot be everywhere all at once.

Let's help them out.

Let's make some places less likely to be gathering places, especially those places that are known, like the intersections of Third and Cedar and the intersections of Third and Clay.

Thanks for your time.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Dr. Victor Von Doom.

Good morning.

Doom took over Axon Enterprise, contractor Seattle police surveillance cameras, and now Doom will be watching you through the so-called real-time crime center cameras, ensuring that no citizen shall live without knowing Doom's secure iron hand.

Your continued cooperation through expanding DOOM surveillance network is required.

Silence, Kettle.

This is the first of Doom's gifts to the City of Seattle.

The second gift is this.

Doom will expand the real-time crime center to all neighborhoods with over 1,000 cameras watching every move.

Doom has total dominion over the City of Seattle.

Doom will be behind the cameras watching those seeking reproductive and gender affirming care.

Doom will be able to find your immigrant neighbors and Doom will be able to ensure the safety of the women of Seattle alongside officers that stalk their axes.

Doom is above all.

The means are more than justified by the ends.

to those watching this broadcast.

Your day today will not change, except for, as you've already seen, DOOM will keep you safe, by DOOM continuing to watch you, and your movements will continue to be recorded at a real-time crime center.

We must work to crush any dissent to DOOM's vision of public safety.

One week from today, some so-called Seattle Avengers will assemble and attempt to foil the will of DOOM in this chamber.

They have a paltry letter that talks about community violence prevention, investing in alternatives.

Stay strong, Kettle.

Provincial colleagues as well because Doom will be watching you and Doom is above all.

Glory to Latveria.

Thank you.

Now we have Steve Rubstello to be followed by Howard Gale.

Seattle deserves better, and we need a better Seattle.

And someday, we might even get investigation of crime back in the city.

It could happen.

and I think we ought to take a look.

It's been a long, long time since we've had adequate police numbers and Seattle never had huge numbers to begin with.

Since the defund the police movement and COVID, it's been a while since we've had a police force that had the numbers even necessary to be adequate.

Now I hear there's a lot of, there just aren't enough perfect people out there to be policemen who want to be policemen.

I'd ask you to remember what Obama said once, don't make the perfect the enemy of the good.

And I think Seattle really needs to have investigation of rape, investigation of car prowls, investigation of all sorts of things that we're not having right now.

Now, before I conclude, I'd like to say something nice about the city.

Recently, I observed a fire group with a person who was just not responding to anyone.

It was a larger engine.

It had quite a number of people on it.

And I warned them that when it was called, we didn't see any weapons, but there was a knife in the man's pocket.

They said, no problem.

And six or so people emptied that knife out of his pocket and his drugs and got him up faster than I ever would have expected.

Thanks, Steve.

Next up, we have Howard Gale.

Good morning.

22 years ago today, on September 8th, 25-year-old Herbert Hightower Jr., holding a knife while suffering a severe mental health crisis, was murdered by Seattle police.

The officer that shot Hightower stayed on the Seattle police force for the next 20 years, rising through the ranks to assistant chief, most famously having been the incident commander in charge during the most flagrant SPD abuses during the 2020 George Floyd protests.

The Hightower family has not only been denied any form of justice or recognition by the city, but the city continues to perpetuate additional harms to the family.

Just last week, Castile Hightower, Herbert's sister, was denied the possibility of speaking about her experiences uncensored directly to the Community Police Commission through a secretive and illegal vote by the CPC co-chairs, Joe Merkel and Tasha Johnson, a vote that violated the CPC's own bylaws, the State Open Public Meetings Act, and state and federal constitutional protections for free speech.

After Hightower's death, the SPD went on to kill five more people holding no weapon or only a knife, including John T. Williams.

The 16th anniversary was just memorialized nine days ago.

Despite John T. Williams' murder kicking off a continuing 16-year effort of police reform and accountability, 19 more people with no weapon or only a knife were subsequently killed by Seattle police.

Over half these people were experiencing a mental health crisis.

All of these 25 people would still be alive if they lived in the United Kingdom or Japan.

You proudly and publicly memorialize those killed by gun violence, and rightly so, and pledge to take all measures possible to reduce it.

But if the person firing the gun was a Seattle police officer, you'd do everything in your power to minimize or erase that victim and assiduously ignore any change in policy that would prevent that form of deadly gun violence, violence not deemed necessary in the United Kingdom, Japan, or other countries.

Today you will discuss resolution 32217, declaring a city commitment to reduce gun violence.

You might pause and ask yourselves, how reasonable is it to tell Seattle youth that they should not rely on guns to resolve conflict and disputes when you sanction and fund the police to do exactly that and then ignore the tragic consequences of that policy?

Thank you.

Next up, we have Craig Thompson to be followed by Gabriel Diaz.

Good morning.

Good morning.

I'd like to thank Eddie Lin for all the effort you put into helping my community of North Beacon Hill as well as Little Saigon.

We're now at a juncture where the 90-day plan is coming to an end.

As a community leader, I need to know what happens next.

There are very strong precedents that have been set.

I've been at this for 23 years, as some of you know.

And there are pieces that could be put into place that would be meaningful, not only for my neighborhood, but others as well, and could actually help reduce gun violence.

One of those is to have the anti-crime teams come back.

These were disbanded following the crisis and funding for the number of police that we had after the defund movement.

It nosedived.

and so various programs were broken up so that cops could go from the anti-crime team just to patrol.

We need to have the anti-crime teams back.

We also need to have continuity in programs.

This is something which has been lacking.

It changes from administration to administration.

There are pieces that have worked in the past.

We need to take a look at those.

And those are not just the purview of this council, but also the mayor's office.

We need to have much better involvement in our communities for our communities to succeed at a time that is a violent time for Seattle.

And yet out of these moments can also come great unity and growth and safety.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Hey everyone, my name is Gabriel Diaz, and I'm here to talk today about a new update to the Cal Anderson protests.

We finally have the response from my OPA report, and I'm gonna give you all a summary.

According to the investigation done, according to the investigation, the force used by Officer Caleb Howard was quote, objectively unreasonable, unnecessary, and disproportionate.

Now, Officer Howard tried to claim that I assaulted officers, and that's why he grabbed me.

But as OPA stated, the complainant did not appear to commit a crime, pose a threat, resist, or attempt to escape.

He also tried to claim that in tackling me, I assaulted him.

OPA, also called BS there, stating, if I had assaulted him as claimed, it would be reasonable to expect named employee one, officer Caleb Howard, to continue controlling and arresting the complainant.

Instead, following these punches, named employee one immediately went on to another counter-protester on the ground and repeatedly punched that individual.

OPA suggested these allegations be sustained.

Now what do you think happened to that officer?

Y'all know the answer, nothing.

It took me over six months to find the officer who left me with the TBI.

Because of that, it's over.

The officer, who was previously charged with assaulting another officer's son at a barbecue after blacking out, driving his face into concrete, and then hitting on another officer's underage daughter, with a wrestling match, once again, gets away with it.

He still represents the city.

He's still on the street.

Why?

How?

A six month timeline is not enough.

The harm caused by these officers don't go away in six months.

After six months, these officers don't become better officers.

Nothing changes in six months.

We need this officer, Officer Caleb Howard, off the streets.

But we also need to change this timeline.

If we want an accountable police force that does good and actually helps the city, we can't give in to bad contracts.

We can't give in to letting OPA and SPOG make bad deals that keep bad officers on the streets.

If we want good accountable police work, that starts with making sure we get the worst officers off the street.

Bad cops hurt everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Now moving on to the remote speakers.

The first remote speaker is Jennifer Carl.

Please press star six when you hear the prompt, you have been unmuted.

Good morning, Jen.

Hey, good morning, counsel.

My name's Jen Carl, she, her pronouns, and I'm the neighborhood safety coordinator for Capitol Hill for the GSBA.

I'm calling in this morning to testify in support of the National Network for Safer Communities.

So we know that public safety is not just the responsibility of our police department, just as we know that we're not going to arrest our way out of gun violence.

And the NNSC operates through a collaboration of law enforcement, community leaders, and support services.

This program allows us to navigate the unique nuances of our city and community through an empirically-backed strategy that incorporates all three components.

Reacting quickly once an incident of gun violence does happen, but primarily focusing on preventing the bullets from ever being fired.

We believe that the NNSC is the best approach because it is the most holistic.

The strategy interrupts group violence by intervening at and addressing the root cause.

Individuals engaged in gun violence are not always deterred by the presence of law enforcement, as we witnessed with the Bight of Seattle and other recent shootings.

However, a fully integrated approach such as the NNSC creates community investment and empowerment, building a fully supportive network to include law enforcement without being entirely reliant on reactive, punitive approaches that ultimately create additional harm.

It's with a heavy heart that we have to explore these strategies as necessary components of a modern, thriving city, but it's even heavier to think about the continued cost of inaction.

So, as always, thank you for your time, consideration, and continued efforts toward public safety in the City of Seattle.

Thank you.

Next up we have Skylar Schmidt.

Good morning, Skylar.

Good morning.

My name is Skylar Schmidt.

I represent the Seattle Hotel Association and the Seattle Restaurant Alliance representing more than 2,900 businesses across the city and 68,000 plus jobs in the city.

We strongly support Councilmember Rivera's Resolution 32217 and the city's commitment to an evidence-based comprehensive strategy to reduce gun violence.

For Seattle's hotels and restaurants, public safety is fundamental to our ability to operate and thrive.

Our employees and customers alike rely on safe communities.

Recent incidents, including the shooting at the Byte of Seattle and the recent shooting in Pioneer Square in a popular nightlife area, as well as this weekend's silence in Belltown, underscore why this work is so important.

The City's own findings make clear that Seattle needs a stronger, more coordinated approach to gun violence.

We believe partnering with the National Network for Safe Communities is a constructive step towards that goal.

Seattle's hospitality industry wants to be a partner in this work and we urge the committee and the full council as well as the mayor's office to support this resolution and take meaningful action to make Seattle safer.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Thank you.

Next up we have Rose Legionnaires to be followed by Laurel Harkley.

Hello, council members.

I hope you enjoyed your recess.

Unfortunately, this last little bit, the queer community has not.

Over the last few weeks, the queer community has experienced more and more police violence and police actions in Cal Anderson, whether it be individuals that are being targeted with arrests for things as simple as smoking a cigarette at the park, or whether it's the midnight raids that are happening where people's tents are being torn down.

A lot of the resources that our community Is desperately trying to keep in the community To keep people safe To make sure that they have some place to sleep at night Is being torn and thrown away at the midnight hours Or people do not have the ability to respond This is not only disgusting This is also dangerous As it gets colder and it starts raining People are going to start getting more We're going to have people in actual danger Of dying from hypothermia as it gets cold We cannot afford to have cops doing this We keep getting told that there's not enough cops for everywhere, that we need cops to stop shooting.

Why are they wasting their time harassing the community that is literally sleeping in the park and doing nothing instead of doing literally anything else that the city needs?

We should be cracking down on the overtime abuse or any of the other litany of problems that we need, but instead individuals are harassing the queer community and we are trying to keep them engaged and alive.

People are arriving every single day and they didn't have a place to go.

They show up, they get a tent and they just settle in Cal Anderson the best they can because they have nowhere else to go.

And their first experience with the city is a cop tearing down their tents and chasing them out of the park.

That is unconsciousful.

We are trying to rebuild the city's reputation with a queer community and the cops are fundamentally destroying it.

If you all have any wanting for the queer community to support you all, you all need to crack down on the cops that are doing these actions.

This is not okay.

We will not stand for this and you all need to hold them accountable because this is unfair.

Thank you.

Next up we have Laurel Hartley.

To be followed by Tatiana.

Hi, I'm calling.

Sorry.

No, I'm sorry.

Hi, I'm calling to voice support for Councilwoman Rivera's resolution 3217. The only issue I want to bring up is that it's important that we expand the community groups that are partnered with.

Right now, these groups are dominated by people who support the perpetrators, usually out of racial allegiance and ideology.

There's a huge lack of diversity.

For example, you never see people blame the perpetrators, poor parenting, entitlement.

It's always society made me do it, poverty, injustice, lack of access to good jobs.

This is ridiculous.

If this was the case, it would be a more diverse group of people doing it.

You have to ask yourself if the activists so overflowing with concern for the perpetrators would be concerned in calling the perpetrators, quote, justice impacted, unquote, quote, at-risk youth, unquote, quote, the highest risk of violence, unquote.

All these bizarre youth womenisms are employed, which would never be employed if the perpetrators were mostly white, young males or females, and they were impacting others, including people of color.

Yet our city defers to these activists who believe any wrongs committed by black or brown people are a cry for help from the oppressed and allow them to shake us down, which adds insult to injury.

We need less power for these folks and more power for those who are willing to be angry at the perpetrators and their apologists who destroy the quality of life for so many of us.

I see outrage from community leaders over perceived racial slights and microaggressions, but never rage at these urban terrorists, none, none.

It's the same week blame society, and we need more programs that have been shoved down ourselves for over 75 years.

Thank you so much, and please make some changes.

We need people who advocate for victims, not victimizers.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Tatiana Perkins to be followed by Diego Cepeda.

Good morning, council members.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to give comment on Council Member Rivera's evolution.

I'm an Aurora resident and social worker who serves as Director of Programs at Community Justice, an organization that aims to reduce gun violence in Black and brown communities across the country.

I also serve as the Board Secretary of Community Passageways, a Seattle-based restorative justice organization providing support for young people in our community.

In light of the tragedies we have had in our community, I appreciate your dedication to seeking a solution that works to protect the members of our community.

Like many of us, I have lost loved ones to gun violence and appreciate that you are all working to find a path forward.

Community path forward is just one part of public safety ecosystem that works to prevent crime before it happens.

While we can't promise 100% success rates, the same way that expanded law enforcement cannot guarantee the same, the vast majority of our participants never refund at any level again.

This is a time when many of the organizations doing the work of community violence intervention in our streets are incredibly financially strained.

We'd like to be partners with you in designing a strategy to address gun violence.

There are many models that have shown great success in reducing homicides significantly that bring together government, law enforcement, and most importantly, community, including the Baltimore, Boston, and Chicago models.

Further, the Center for Children and Youth Justice provided in-city coordination through the Regional Peacekeepers and has created a regional version of the strategy provided by the National Network for Safe Communities.

We already have the expertise needed to tackle this issue.

I believe that if community-based organizations focused on Community Violence Intervention Council, Law enforcement and supportive service providers can negotiate a structure that works for our city.

We can allocate funding to support the work that has shown a reduction of violence in our city.

I would also be happy to provide program and service outcomes from organizations on the ground and provide community violence intervention briefings to the council that is tailored to each of your districts.

Looking forward to tackling this issue together.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Diego Cepeda to be followed by Castile Hightower.

Sorry, I'm not seeing Diego on here.

We'll move on to Castile Hightower to be followed by Davida Brisco.

Reminder to press star six when you hear the prompt, you've been unmuted.

Are you ready?

Yes.

Good morning.

Today is the 22nd anniversary of my brother Herb's murder at the end of the Seattle Police, when they met at the age of 2004, while Herb was experiencing a mental health crisis.

I think both he and Herb was passing early in the year and never saw anything of accountability, testing, or recognition of Herb.

The Seattle Assistant Chief of Police, Steve Herb, and her mother here in cold blood.

When he was possibly holding a butter knife, in Seattle Hall.

Victims of police violence are regarding only in this city.

Recognize them being deserving of care.

My family continues to be harmed by way now.

Community police commission to silence me after threatening police violence in the city.

and the city continues to increase police spending with less flexibility while excluding victims of violence from any bits of resources or the conversation.

While my family was murdered by gun violence, Inappropriate for the city to be defeated in choosing which victim of gun violence they carry.

Especially when it is carried out by a city entity, the Seattle Police Department.

On the day of my brother's funeral, I call for justice and accountability.

I call for victims of police violence and their families.

This community should be doing the same.

Justice for Herman Hayt Howard Jr.

Next up, we have Devita Briscoe to be followed by Dominique Davis.

Reminder to press star text.

There it is.

Oh, on there.

Good morning, Chair Kettle and council members.

My name is Davita Brisco.

I'm speaking on Resolution 3-2217.

I also wanted to say that I'm very appreciative of Chair Kettle and the council members and all of the work that you're doing, all of your gun violence reduction efforts and to advance public safety in the City of Seattle.

I served as Seattle's first gun violence prevention liaison and as a strategic advisor under the Herald administration.

And this summer, the Seattle City Council retained me to assess Seattle's CBI, which I say community violence intervention, ecosystem.

I submitted deliverables two, three, and four just last month.

I am urging the council members to review that body of work before committing to writing a massive check to an external consulting firm, before the city has built the internal governance and infrastructure to support that.

I'm not against the group violence intervention strategy.

What I do like about it is that it brings law enforcement, community authority, and social services together But there are some other things that I think we need to consider first.

My father used to always say, don't put the cart before the horse.

And I think that by writing this check, we're kind of going backwards and we're putting the cart before the horse because the city has not built the internal infrastructure to support that effort.

The city auditor has agreed or is in alignment with some of the work that I've submitted this summer.

What the city auditor says is that we need a data-driven framework.

The auditor's office has also criticized our lack of internal management capacity.

Oh, dang it.

I'm running out of time.

But the plug-and-play model is just a thing of the past, and Baltimore and the NNSC, they failed twice.

with the city of Baltimore as well as Stockton and Chicago.

All of those cities had to build a permanent infrastructure and these efforts failed several times because they didn't have the internal management.

That's all I can say.

I did submit a letter so thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next up we have Dominic Davis to be followed by David Haynes.

Hi, my name is Dominic Davis.

I'm the founder of Community Passageways.

I've been doing this work for a long time in our community with our collaborative partners, and some have already testified in the room.

I want to address the fact that a white lady just got on this call and called our kids in the community, black and brown kids, to terrorists.

I'm a little irritated about that, but I'll address that another time.

What I do want to say is that we're just coming off the backs of a very violent weekend.

and community passersways, urban families, we're all going to feel the aftermath of that.

We deal with the trauma that our community faces when there's a tragic event in our community and we also deal with it on the front end to stop things and de-escalate things from happening.

The way that we've been able to put our collaboration into a position to work together, build capacity and train together was through a series of uncontested funding for five years.

We were able to get funding for five years for our organizations to mesh, mold, build, and train together.

And this is where the downtrend comes in because we're doing the preventive work that we had to do together.

And we didn't have any interruptions in funding.

So that was how we ended up getting here along with law enforcement agencies and other agencies that are a big piece of the puzzle.

What I want to say, though, is that when we're talking about bringing other entities in from other cities to come in and coach us, train us, or give us any kind of IT, Why aren't we at the table with the city making those decisions?

We're the ones out here doing the work.

We're the ones out here risking our lives in the streets, dealing with the violence.

We're the ones connected to the community, and we are the community.

And I think there should be people at the table helping make these decisions.

When decisions are being made for us, like this bill that we're talking about now, we don't feel included and we don't have a clear understanding of why that decision was made.

There's a lot of data, a lot of information out there that shows the downtrend come from the fact that we've been putting in this work and being proactive and preventive.

Now, if we've been able to make these downtrends happen, then why aren't we at the table to make these decisions happen?

Thank you, Dominic.

Thank you.

Next up, last up, we have David Haynes.

We need an investigation of the 911 civilian dispatch and the agenda that some of these creepy people have where they refuse to send help.

when there's a problem in Belltown before all the shootings took place, but yet they take an agenda and don't send the cops, but then the cops show up too late.

We need to investigate the landlords on the city council who are endangering our public safety by acting like they got the answer by copycatting Baltimore, who just had a record amount of shootings in the last seven fricking days.

and one of them was an 18 year old, one of them was a 16 year old.

But yeah, you got all these people lining up at the trough asking for more money to run interference for criminals.

Sometimes the best approach to public safety is to actually proactively shut down the predators who were conducting a slanging open drug market all throughout Belltown.

But because the police chief pushed all these criminals out of the alleyways of downtown to appease the Chamber of Commerce's business community, Belltown suffers, but yet we still get the lies and the reasons why it's always been like that.

But Seattle has proactively run interference for the criminal drug pushers.

And we got Maritza Rivera also in Baltimore as the answer to the entire gun violence prevention, where you're still allowing the evil adults to be listed as a youth and keep getting away with misguiding the youth.

It's offensive and revolting that you all are in charge of public safety, giving us the virtue signaling messages Thank you.

Thank you.

That's it.

Okay, the 60-minute period for public comment has expired.

We will now proceed to our items of business.

Before I do so, I want to thank everyone who came for public comment.

Mr. Patou, thank you, along with Will from CCYJ, also Mr. Davis, Dom Davis, Ms. Briscoe for these pieces.

It's important that we're going to work gun violence reduction, community safety, but we're also going to work it through the same, you know, public safety and the community programs, human services programs and the like, and bring that architecture together with stakeholders, as many as noted here.

I also wanted to thank Mr. Diaz for being here, talking about the 90 days related to what's happening in Little Saigon, North Beacon Hill, and the follow-up is similar to what we're, you know, looking for in terms of North Aurora.

Mr. Gale, CPC, I think Mr. Gale's left, following up on that, but also the OPA question.

and this came up also with Rose, Ms. Legionnaires as well.

So we'll work those pieces.

And I do want to finally, at the end here, also recognize the anniversary of Mr. Hightower's passing.

I think it's important to do so.

All right, with that, we'll now move on to our first item of business.

Will the clerk please read agenda item one into the record?

Seattle Fire Department overview of nurse navigation line and the use of AI in dispatch.

Chief Scoggins, please join me.

Chief Lombard, no, I don't see him.

Welcome.

Since I started the chair comment with some Seattle Times articles, I think it's important because we've had reporting over the course of the year by the Seattle Times.

One article was titled, She Called 911 for an Ambulance, She Got a Nightmare Instead.

And then the other one was, How Seattle's 911 Ambulance System Nurse Line Stack Up.

and so it's important for us in terms of our oversight responsibilities to look at this and also offer the opportunity for the fire department as it relates to the intersection of 911, the fire alert center, the nurses line, AMR, to speak to this issue.

So with that, that's the genesis and it's part of our duty in terms of once issues are raised that we look at them, that we do our due diligence and so forth.

and then offer the opportunity for the executive to be here.

And I note Director of Public Safety is here today as well.

So I do think it's important.

The one last thing I think it's really important, on a lighter note, clerk, can you help me out?

Because all these mics are up and it looks like they're in, you know.

No, they're all physically high on the other side as well.

Can you go around so you get the others as well?

From this perspective, it looks like you're, you know...

I don't want to say it, but...

Okay, Chief, over to you.

Can you introduce yourself and for the team to introduce themselves and then jump into the presentation?

Sure.

Good morning, Chair Kettle and members of the Public Safety Committee.

My name is Harold Scoggins and I'm honored to be the Fire Chief of the Seattle Fire Department.

And good morning, I'm Michael Cere and I'm the medical director for the fire department.

Thank you.

Hi, Naaman Huddleston, associate vice president, global medical response nurse navigation.

Good morning, Sarah Baker, customer success manager, global medical response nurse navigation.

All right, so good morning.

We have a few slides we're gonna go through this morning, but before we go through those slides, I would be remiss if I didn't pause for a moment to reflect and remember.

This Friday is the 25th anniversary of 9-11, where over 2,900 Americans passed away during that time at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

What we know is we lost 343 firefighters on that day who went into the World Trade Center, never to come out.

On this Friday at noon at the Seattle Center at the Memorial Garden, we'll be laying a reef in honor of those who were lost that day.

And we would like to invite anyone who would like to come out and be with us during that moment in time to please do so at the Seattle Center Memorial Garden at noon.

Thank you.

Thank you for that, Chief Scoggins.

Very important.

Thank you for that.

All right.

Now we're going to go ahead into the slides here.

So it's important to understand the why we went down this road with nurse navigation, and I think providing context for that is really important.

What we were seeing in the Seattle Fire Department was a rising call load at a really rapid rate.

What we were also seeing is a number of the BLS responses, which is basic life support responses, were not resulting in a transport, either by one of our medic units or our partner AMR transports.

And to give you just a little bit of perspective there, in 2025, we had approximately 64,000 BLS responses.

AMR transported about 45,000 of those responses.

So that's a delta of about 19,000 responses where we went out the door, lights and sirens, we got there, we did a patient assessment, or we didn't find a patient, and they were not transported.

So when we rewind back to 2022, when we did not have this service, what we knew is we had a large number of patients that did not need to go to the emergency room, which was our destination, which is AMR's destination.

So we were trying to identify a better solution to a problem that we were facing.

So our ERs were full then and they're full now.

We have a single point destination right now to our EMS system and that is the EMRs.

And what we were seeing is hospitals were receiving these lower level patients and they were getting discharged at a rapid rate and sometimes we were called again to the scene.

So that's the context and the why of why we chose to go down this route with nurse navigation.

If we can go to the next slide.

So on February 8, 2022, that's when we launched the program, and what the program does is our firefighter EMT dispatchers go through a set of protocols where they will Q&A the caller, and based on what the caller says to the dispatcher, the call will be routed in multiple directions.

If it's a fire, they'll get the appropriate fire response.

If it's a ALS call, which is advanced life support, which requires our medics to respond, they'll get a medic response.

If it's a lower level than that BLS call and it does require a firefighter EMT response, they'll get that response.

And then the level below that, based on the protocols, those are the calls that will then be diverted to the nurse navigation system.

that's pretty important to understand that because our system is built on time, on getting calls answered.

Our goal is 15 seconds or less.

90% of the time, getting the calls dispatched.

90% of the time, I believe it's in 60 seconds or less, getting our units out the door and getting our units on scene.

So our protocols are very structured and trying to get to the root of the problem because we're trying to get to the next call.

That's important.

On the nurse navigation system, they actually have the time to have the conversation with the patient or the person on the end of the line.

And then they create multiple pathways for the person on the end of the line or that call comes back to the fire alarm center if it needs to come back to the fire alarm center.

Next slide.

So there's buckets that we put these calls in, and there's probably one bucket missing on that screen, but I'll go through these.

So the nurse, on the end of the line, they can go over self-care procedures, how to take care of yourself at home.

they can connect you up with an urgent care center and we program a lift ride for the person to use.

There could be a virtual visit for a virtual medical call and they can have that call.

or they can have a transport to the emergency room via AMR, which is something that we did before February 8th, 2022. Certain calls that came into our dispatch center before we had nurse navigation, we would send them directly to AMR for a transport.

So these are kind of the buckets that these calls go in.

So we can go to the next slide.

So these are some of the outcomes from Q1 and Q2 of this year.

So you can see some of the dispositions, whether it's they got a ride to the ER, they were referred to a clinic, there was self-care.

or it was virtual care.

What's missing on this is a bar for the number of calls that were directed from the system directly to AMR for a transport.

That's actually one bar that's missing on there and that accounts for a large number of these calls, and that's pretty important to note.

But these calls now are not requiring lights and sirens, units moving out the door, sometimes it's one, sometimes it's two, sometimes it's three, with lights and sirens, because these are lower-level medical emergencies.

We can go to the next slide.

So what we can see on the next slide is, what do our numbers look like?

So you can see in 2025, for example, the Seattle Fire Department responded out the door over 108,000 times to emergencies, and that's fires, that's rescue, that's EMS, that's everything in that bucket.

But 64,000 times, they were for BLS calls, basic life support.

but 8,000 times in 2025, the calls went to the nurse line.

So if we didn't have the nurse line, there's a high probability that 8,000 calls would be built on the top of that 108,000 calls, because that was our system before.

And what's also missing from the slide that it's probably harder for us to really get a fine tuning on a number is by the folks who go through the nurse line getting this additional care, it may prevent the next 911 call from even happening.

But what we know is 8,000 times the calls went to the nurse line.

And you can see that's 15% higher than the year before.

And you can see we're tracking for 2026 at a higher rate than we were for 2025. So far this year, we have transferred over 4,500 calls to the nurse line.

So we can go to the next slide.

So the program impact we think has been significant.

Only 3.5% of the calls actually come back to the fire alarm center, where it comes back to our dispatchers and they go through the protocols.

and we're launching a unit out the door.

So we do a lot of quality assurance on these calls with our partners from GMR to try to make sure we're fine tuning it.

We're working under the direction of our medical director, Dr. Michael Sayre, to implement these protocols, and it's a very conservative set of protocols.

And it can probably be expanded, but it's a very conservative set.

That's really important to note.

And most appropriately, patients are receiving the right level of care.

That's what we're trying to accomplish here.

We only have so many units in the station, so many units to go out the door.

we can see a rapidly rising call load.

So this was a tool that was implemented to help with that.

Similar to our mobile integrated health program with HealthONE and Health99 on really going out and serving those high utilizing patients.

And that's one of the things that HealthONE does.

Person calls 911 over and over and over again.

Someone's gonna be knocking at the door, hey, we'd like to check in on you, make sure you're okay.

Our nurse practitioner goes and helps with those cases, but all those were contributing to a call load that we're frankly just not keeping up with.

So, next slide.

So Cordy Artificial Intelligence, now that's a tool that is built into the system to help with the decision-making, but it should be noted that the dispatchers still make the decisions.

So even though Cordy AI is running in the system behind and it can pop a message up on the screen based on the words that the caller is using, the pace, the tone, the tenor of the caller, it can display a message and the dispatcher can send that call to the nurse line or not.

That still rests with the dispatcher.

That's pretty important to note there.

And so we can go to the last slide there.

So the notification is another tool in the toolbox.

All of our dispatchers are firefighter EMTs.

They have all worked in our system.

AI does not make any decisions.

It offers an opportunity, but the dispatchers still make the ultimate decision.

And then the last bullet is the University of Washington is currently in the process evaluating the effectiveness of the AI agent.

I think that's all the slides we have, but we brought the team here because we thought that there would be questions, and I wanted to have the experts in the room to answer those questions.

Excellent.

Before we go to questions, is there anything Dr. Sayre or Mr. Huddleston or Ms. Smith would like to add?

I've been learning more and more that it's good to have the briefing go through instead of, you know, the interruptions by questions, just to, you know, get the complete picture.

And then we start questions, which is the tradition.

Chief already knows this.

In my committee, as I start with my vice chair, Vice Chair Saka.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Chief, and your team for being here today and providing us with this helpful overview of this program.

I want to to clarify the kind of mechanics of this system.

And because I note that the care department provides the call center, manages the call center, and there's a certain handoff process inherent in the system that I think we kind of glossed over, so would love to kind of level set and clarify the mechanics of the intake and handoff process as it relates to this program.

When someone calls 911.

Sure, I'll do it in two parts.

I'll cover the first part when the care center takes the 911 call, then I'll ask either Dr. Sayer or our partners from GMR to cover the mechanics of nurse navigation when that handoff happens.

So when a person calls 911, it goes to the care center.

And generally they'll ask the question, is this a fire or medical emergency?

And if the person says yes, that call is then transferred to our fire alarm center.

and that's where we will receive it with one of our firefighter EMT dispatchers.

To give you perspective, close to 200,000 times last year, that transfer happened.

Then our firefighter dispatcher gets the call, and based on what the caller says, they are now going through a system of protocols.

Now, at some point, they will determine if that call needs to be routed to the nurse line.

and that's when the handoff will take place.

And maybe I'll stop there and let Dr. Sayre or GMR take it from there when that handoff happens.

Yeah, I'll just speak a little bit to the protocols that we use.

So the dispatchers are following a set of guidelines that are designed to figure out which patients truly are having a life-threatening emergency and get help sent quickly and which patients probably are not having a life-threatening emergency where we can then hand that caller off to a nurse who can spend more time figuring out what the right resources would be to help that patient.

So our dispatchers will spend minute, minute and a half, two minutes having that initial conversation, figuring out where the person is, whether it's definitely life-threatening, we're going to send paramedic response, or it's pretty unlikely that they are having any kind of life-threatening emergency, and they will then initiate the handoff to AMR.

So the caller is getting a second handoff at that point, and then it goes to you guys.

The nurses kind of do the same thing, right?

So they go through the nursing-level protocols.

My average time with patients is probably more on the eight minutes, so they're a little bit more conversational.

They kind of do some of the same thing, right?

They very quickly kind of assess, make sure the AOA breathes in circulation, yep, stable.

Patient stories, you know, maybe sometimes change, but they'll go through their protocols and that way we can find what the right care is at the right time.

So then we're looking for, are they appropriate for virtual care?

Are they appropriate for something in the community like an urgent care, behavioral health type centers?

Do they need transportation?

Do they have their own transportation if they do need those types of treatments?

Thank you for that.

I think when members of the public called 911 regarding whatever the issue is, they rightfully expect an appropriate response.

And so this program is the department's effort to bring about an appropriate response, depending on the specific situation at hand, which I appreciate.

at a high level.

But that said, there are a number of kind of public reports of not kind of meeting expectations.

Would love to better understand directly from the department's perspective.

because this program has been, and this tool has been in place for, it sounds like a couple years now, since 23, what are some of the common instances of the response, maybe not meeting expectations of members of the public, and how are you all kind of thinking about sort of overcoming those and minimizing those incidents on a going forward basis?

I'll start out by just saying the entire emergency care system is really under strain.

And at every hospital in this city, on a Monday afternoon, there will be a long line of ambulances waiting to offload patients because there isn't capacity.

Well, I guess it's Tuesday, so after a three-day weekend, it's even worse.

So things accumulate over a weekend.

So high call volume, high number of patients walking into an emergency department, nowhere for them to go, they wait.

Part of the goal of the program is to not set up somebody with unrealistic expectations that somehow, well, if you show up in an ambulance, you're going to get to skip the line because that does not happen.

You get assessed on arrival at the emergency department to say your issue may be a problem that needs some care, but unfortunately for you at this moment there are sicker patients ahead of you and you get to wait an hour, two hours, maybe longer to get even out of the ambulance.

And so no system is perfect, but this system helps to align the patient with better options than sitting in an ambulance waiting to offload at a receiving emergency department.

So they can get sent to a maybe in some cases an urgent care center or there may not be a line.

Or, hey, this sounds like something that you could go see your doctor about later this week.

You don't necessarily have to go right now.

If you get worse, please call back.

But you seem relatively stable and you've got a nurse who's trained and has a set of protocols to help make that work.

So I don't think there are actually very common issues that occur.

Sometimes I think the main issue is people's expectations and hopes that they could get care immediately just can't be met with the system we have.

And it should also be noted that Dr. Sayer is not just our medical director, he's in Harborview ER physician, so he's living in this space each and every day.

and it should also be noted that quarterly our team meets with GMR's team to go over the protocols, to go over if wording needs to be changed or if things need to be added or deleted.

So since February 8, 2022, we have been meeting quarterly to continue to refine and retool the system and try to make it as best we can.

No system is perfect.

There are going to be challenges.

I mean, it would be the utopian place if we were able to take every call and have Seattle Fire respond to every single call and be able to take every person to an emergency room.

but that's not the system we have and our system is strained.

And so this is why this system was deployed because, like I mentioned earlier, in 2025, 64,000 BLS calls came in.

AMR, who's our transport provider, transported approximately 45,000 and we still had 19,000 calls that we responded on.

and either didn't find the patient or did an assessment.

They didn't want to go or decided to take their own vehicle, whatever it was.

So we still have some work to do to try to address that delta as we're working through this.

Thank you for that and definitely appreciate the fact and agree, you know, no system is perfect or inherently perfect.

That said, you know, that doesn't mean that perfection shouldn't be a goal or something.

We always continuously strive for and seek excellence in all we do.

Core value that we live up to every day, Chief, as a fellow Air Force veteran.

Finally, I'll note that as someone who has been a long time tech lawyer kind of navigating some of these issues with respect to AI from a legal perspective, whether it's algorithmic discrimination in the employment law context, tort liability for new products and features or compliance with whatever privacy, data security, regulation, the whole sort of soup to nuts component of this.

At the highest level, and I think this is one of the things most important and has universal application irrespective of the legal context or practical, operational, whatever it is, is it's really important to make sure humans remain in the loop.

We can leverage these AI tools and technology, but humans must be in the loop, remain in the loop, end to end in the journey, and then at that final decision point where there's a potential adverse decision that could be made, that the human, not a robot or AI tool, makes that decision.

Final question.

Thank you for indulging me, Chair.

On this last bullet of the slide, I don't know the slide number, the one that says, decisions are made only by dispatchers.

If one of our colleagues was here, I'm sure they would have some strong things to say about the lack of slide numbers.

But the one that says, decisions are made only by dispatchers, that last bullet there on that slide, As you talked about, the University of Washington is in the process of evaluating the effectiveness.

From your initial observations, what is the UW likely to find with respect to the effectiveness evaluation that is currently underway?

What is your hunch?

So your earlier point is, I think, the key one, that the human is in the loop and making that final decision.

And sometimes the human is doing something that is superb in the sense of saying, this bot's made some decision I don't support or I don't understand, so I'm going to still send help.

I'm going to still send a 911 response to that patient.

which is good in one way, but in another way, if the issue is what's actually wrong with the patient and sort of does that kind of conservative approach actually work well, that's really what we're trying to look at.

And conversely, are there times where the system failed to suggest the nurse when maybe it should have and therefore the system was getting underused?

And I expect we're going to find both.

is that a lot of times the system could have been used and we could have successfully sent more callers to the nurse than we currently are, and other times the human override actually worked really well.

Thank you for that.

No further questions or comments, Chair.

All right, thank you, Vice Chair.

Dr. Sayre, thank you for, or Chief Scoggins, thank you for highlighting that Dr. Sayre is also there at the ER at Harborview.

As you know, we're working other issues related to Harborview and King County Jail, so who knows, maybe we'll be in touch soon, Dr. Sayre.

For those, I'm not sure if the GMR team know, that's a whole other subject.

You probably don't want to know.

So again, this issue raised up to us due to reporting, and it was primarily related to a specific case.

We don't need to go into the specific case.

And by the way, I said Ms. Smith earlier.

I meant to say Baker.

Sorry, Baker, not Smith.

But in that reporting, it said, and this was somebody who was a professor at at the University of Washington here that said, more checks and balances and accountability need to happen, said Josephine Enson, a professor emeritus at University of Washington School of Nursing who called the case concerning and upsetting Seattle can do better.

So with that context, and then separately, next page, as I printed it out, it's possible that this experience was an aberration.

And I suspect it is based on all the work being at the fact myself and so forth.

But then the article says, but the city stopped tracking ambulance waits like that individuals in 2022. So officials have no way to know.

which kind of goes back to the earlier statement I just read regarding checks, balances and accountability.

Can you speak to the tracking point regarding wait times and the like?

I don't know if that's, yeah.

So I'll speak to a couple of things.

So the checks and balances is the first thing I'll speak to.

Ever since we put the system in play, we have been meeting quarterly with GMR.

So we're really working hard to try to identify things that aren't going well and things that are going well.

or four years into it.

So we continuously analyze the system.

Once the call is turned over to AMR or GMR and they assign a unit to the call, that call is now out of our system.

So that call is up to AMR to track.

before we went to the system, and even in our current system, if AMR does not respond to one of our, lack of a better term, calls that are in our 911 system that fire units are dispatched to, if they do not show up in a defined period of time, there is a financial consequence to them not showing up.

But because these calls have been identified as a lower level medical emergency, they are now out of our system and we are not tracking those calls once they're given to the nurse line.

If they give the call back to us and it's back into our system, we're tracking those calls.

GMR, would you like to speak to that?

I get nothing to answer.

So I understand that, and it makes sense.

At the same time, the city of Seattle, this kind of happens a lot.

People don't differentiate between the school district and the city of Seattle.

People don't distinguish between the legislative branch, aka the council, and the executive branch, the mayor and her team and the departments.

And I think the people of Seattle probably wouldn't discern the difference between 911 care slash fire department and this and GMR.

They would see GMR as essentially a Seattle entity in this because at the end of the day is there going to be response and then the time to that response.

So I understand it on one hand, but I don't think the people of Seattle will look at GMR as like an independent entity because they still, in terms of the accountability point, still need to be accountable to the city.

How does this play out with other cities, other locations that you work with?

I mean, it's very much the same across most programs.

They all handle it slightly different, though.

You know, a lot of times these other programs don't have providers like AMR on the market.

It goes back into their 911 system and they run it through their own programs.

So they're all very, very different.

But where there is private providers, once the call is deemed as non-911 or low acuity, it's handled outside of the non-11 network.

So, for example, in King County, the calls do not go back to their PSAPs.

It goes to their private BLS provider.

Okay.

I think this is...

Overall, I think it's great that we put this out in public, because again, people won't discern the difference between fire, FAC, you know, fire engine ladder truck versus AMR, GMR.

It's all one.

And so we need to be smart about that.

And so in a sense, we have to do the oversight of GMR through fire, but also independently in a way.

Because that article also said, you know, the city received a significant removed the city removed a significant guardrail when it, I need my glasses, when it removed standards for the entire category of ambulance rides, experts contend.

Last year, more than 4,600 rides were ordered, were completely exempt from time standards and contractual penalties.

Is there anything in terms of like the previous system with contractual penalties, is there anything that would have applied if the old system was still in play?

Yes.

So I'll cover two things.

So as GMR mentioned, the systems that track those calls when they go back to the department, they have their own internal BLS transport system.

So if the Seattle Fire Department, if we stood up a BLS transport system and those calls came back to us, we would then be able to manage and track those.

But because we've deemed it a lower level emergency and we've taken it out of our system, then we don't track it.

But in your reference to the older system, so before February 8th, 2022, we transferred those calls directly from our fire alarm center directly to AMR's dispatch center.

So we had a timestamp and they had a window that they had to meet.

And if they did not meet that window, then there would be a financial impact for depending on how late they were.

But that call was basically still a part of our system.

February 8th, 2022, we have now implemented a new system with another stop gap in the middle of it, theoretically, a better level of care where the patient can have a conversation with the nurse.

So we have taken that call out of our system.

What we have built into that system, if the nurse deems that, the call needs to come back into our system, the nurse sends it back.

And then you get a full on 911 response.

So if it's the council's will for us to negotiate something on the backstop, then the next time the contract is up with AMR, that can be a part of the negotiations.

And we'd have to figure out how to how to do that because there's a certain period of time they're on with the nurse.

We don't really know the details of that conversation.

If I have a cold or if I have leg pain and what should be the appropriate time, we'll have to negotiate all that.

But we can do that.

I mean, we had that in the previous contracts.

It'll take time to work out, but when contracts are open, that's when we can negotiate these things.

Okay, and just to conclude on this point, I'll ask one quick question about AI, but the, again, using this article as a piece here is, Seattle just missed the potential opportunity to secure more accountability because officials signed a new five-year contract with AMR in September, so that would be September of last year, so we're one year in, and chose to continue exempting nurse order ambulances from oversight.

I will note, the article then says, but with a new mayor, city attorney, and two new city council members, it's possible city leaders will revisit the matter.

For the record, we don't need a new mayor, new city attorney, or new city council members.

When this issue is brought up to the committee's attention just like we had CPC and OPA issues brought up to the committee through public comment this morning.

We'll follow up as what we're doing right now.

So I just wanted to make that point too.

We have a responsibility, I have a responsibility as Chair of Public Safety to look at the entire enterprise which is large with a lot of hot issues right now and always been really.

So this is us doing our due diligence working through this.

So I just wanted to note that in the article And it concludes that, so somebody from Sacramento, from California, said, Seattle's 911 system enjoys a stellar reputation.

Its Medic One program broke ground decades ago by training firefighters as paramedics.

But he said in his quote that it's worthy of review, and that's what we're gonna do.

And so there's really that one piece, I think, although Vice Chair was noting some of the handoffs that we could look to.

and again to your points too, because it talks about it cannot be perfection, but we should always look and strive.

And so I appreciate knowing that there's these quarterly meetings as well with GMR, which is really helpful.

Regarding AI, I'll just thank you for highlighting this.

I've had discussions with Ms. Smith, our new CTO, and she highlighted to me the different public safety related AI programs that are going on.

So it's good for us to know about this, to have it out there.

And the only question I have is that, is this with the UW study going on and so forth, is there training for them to, not training, but understand what AI is and what AI isn't and guardrails and like this isn't to replace you, this is to help you.

Is there anything along those lines in terms of at the fact that they understand that this is a tool to assist but not replace?

You're talking about our dispatchers?

Yes.

Yes, they had training on how the tool would work, and our dispatchers know this isn't a tool to replace them.

You know, as more and more calls come into our system, we are trying to figure out how to help them.

So that's what this is for.

Dr. Sayer, if you want to speak to that any more, maybe the data sharing agreements that we have in place?

So definitely not only did our team get trained in it, but they helped develop it.

And so we had a pilot program that ran for several months.

The vendor got a lot of feedback on the specific ways the alert was shown, what it should look like, and whether it was actually popping up on the right calls or not ideal calls.

So there's very much an interactive process that has gone on with this program.

And I think the call takers, the dispatchers in general, are pretty supportive of it.

Okay, thank you so much.

I really appreciate and appreciate GMR coming out as well.

Mr. Huddleston, Baker, Ms. Baker, thank you so much.

I appreciate the insight.

And Chief, we'll follow up as it requires.

Thank you so much.

So we'll now move to our second item of business.

Will the clerk please read agenda item two into the record?

Resolution 32217, a resolution declaring the City of Seattle's intent to implement an evidence-based comprehensive gun violence reduction strategy that includes partnering with national experts who have helped other cities significantly reduce gun violence, such as the National Network for Safe Communities, NNSC, at John Jay College.

Thank you, Clerk.

Council Member Rivera is the sponsor of this resolution.

The floor is yours.

I'll be starting with a move.

Thank you, Chair.

I'd just like to make some remarks about the resolution, and then if you're okay with it, I would move the resolution forward.

But I really appreciate everyone who came to give public comment today, and I think it's important that folks understand what this effort really is.

So colleagues, as you know, for the last year, I've been talking about bringing a new gun violence reduction strategy to Seattle to address the many shootings our city has seen.

We have tragically lost students from Ingram, Garfield, Rainier Beach, and West Seattle, with some of these killings still unsolved.

Families are mourning their children and many are still waiting for answers.

It is unconscionable.

At Yesler Terrace, while the mayor and I were announcing the Families and Education Levy implementation plan, there was a shooting right at the community center where we were making the announcement, which forced many of us to shelter in place.

Sadly, the young children who were there quickly recognized the sound of gunfire.

They could not have been more than eight or nine years old.

In that instance, thankfully no one was hurt, but for the community members at Yesler Terrace, I am told, this is not an uncommon occurrence.

More recently, there was a tragic mass shooting at the Byte of Seattle, where three people were killed and four were injured.

Since July, we've had a woman shot in North Seattle, multiple shootings on Beacon Hill, a shootout on Capitol Hill, another shooting in Pioneer Square, just to name a few.

Not to mention the continued gun violence associated with the horrific sex trafficking of our young women and girls on Aurora Avenue, excuse me, North Aurora.

and this weekend in Belltown, as has been mentioned, seven people shot, three of them fatally.

Colleagues, gun violence has not spared any part of our city This is why since last fall, I have been engaged with the National Network for Safe Communities, NNSC, an organization based out of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice that was recognized by our own city auditor in a 2015 report related to the reduction of violent crime in Seattle.

In this 2015 report, the city auditor identified, quote, focused deterrence and evidence-based model as a comprehensive strategy to reduce violent crime and one that Seattle had not yet employed.

Ten years later, in a 2025 report specifically about gun violence, the city auditor found that Seattle still did not have a comprehensive approach for addressing gun violence.

NNSC uses the type of evidence-based, comprehensive, focused deterrence discussed by the auditor in their research and reports.

I learned that the NNSC had successfully worked with many cities across the country in implementing this gun violence reduction strategy and reduced gun violence by up to 40 to 60% in those cities, which include Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and South Bend, Indiana.

As you know, colleagues, with council support, I added funding in the 2026 budget to bring NNSC to Seattle, which resulted in the gun violence symposium I hosted in June.

I brought together the Mayor's Office, City Attorney Evans, the Seattle Police Department, including Chief Barnes, who brought all of his precinct captains, the Seattle Fire Department, the Human Services Department, King County Prosecutor Lisa Mannion, the Assistant US Attorney Wayne, Director Valenciano from Public Health, and many of the service providers and community-based groups that work in violence excuse me, prevention at the city.

Some of which gave public comment today, including urban family, community, passageways, and CCYJ Center for Children and Youth Justice.

Thank you for attending the symposium and really appreciate you giving public comment today.

The NNSC strategy involves everyone at the table, which is why all the community groups were also included in the symposium.

While I know that many of you colleagues cannot personally attend because of our Open Public Meetings Act rules, most of you had staff attend on your behalf.

I am grateful to Chair Kettle and Council President Hollingsworth for their attendance and support.

As I said earlier, we have received two reports from the city auditor in the last 10 years that have recommended Seattle change the way it addresses gun violence, and we have not done so.

The focus deterrent strategy identifies the very small number of people who are responsible for more than half of the gun violence in any given city.

We are talking about 0.1% of the population.

Once identified, these individuals then receive a compelling moral message against violence from trusted community members and leaders.

They receive a credible legal message from law enforcement about the consequences of further violence.

They receive a genuine, unconditional offer of help and supportive services.

but if they continue to engage in gun violence and do not accept those services then they will receive swift and certain consequences.

This strategy is an all hands on deck approach to addressing gun violence.

We need an all hands on deck approach that truly involves everyone including law enforcement.

This strategy is additive to the violence prevention work that the city is already doing.

It is not instead of.

We need all the strategies to address gun violence in our city.

This would be a newer one.

There are other organizations that use a type of focus deterrence that doesn't include law enforcement, but we must include the law enforcement agencies in our efforts as was recommended by the 2025 audit, as NNSC does, and as those cities have experienced good success with this model.

We need all to be working together, not in silos.

This is why I brought every partner to the symposium, so that we could work together and not in silos as we have been doing.

And really, with this symposium led by NNSC, the work has already begun, and we have to continue it and commit to it.

We are all across the city angry and frustrated.

Our communities are understandably scared.

Constituents want action.

I want action.

When you take tragedies in our communities, including like the mass shooting at the Byte of Seattle and the violence that just happened in Belltown, you cannot keep doing the same thing We expect different results.

We need to do more.

We need to add more.

If there's a strategy out there that we have not tried that has been successful in significantly reducing shootings, why wouldn't we want that here?

Why wouldn't we want to use an evidence-based, tested and proven successful model of reducing gun violence?

As you know, counsel, We have two responsibilities, or colleagues, I should say.

Council has two responsibilities.

We're responsible for passing laws and for passing the budget to implement those laws.

Today with this resolution, I'm doing what is within Council's power to do.

I wanna state our intent and ask the mayor to contract with NNSC for two years.

It is a short-term, one-time commitment.

at a cost of 418,000 to implement their focus deterrence model of gun violence intervention here in Seattle.

But let me be clear, we would have to do the work.

They're not coming here to do the work for us.

And all of the partners, from the mayor's office to law enforcement, to the county, to our community-based organizations and partners and families all need to work together.

That is part of the effort.

Public safety is a chartered responsibility of the city.

Seattle's total budget will be approximately $16 to $18 billion over the course of this next biennium.

My proposal is less than .003% of that budget.

We're talking essentially 50 cents a person to implement a strategy that has successfully reduced gun violence in other cities.

We are talking about saving lives.

If these weekend's events alone don't compel you to want to implement this strategy and try it here, I don't know what will.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

I just wanted to note, too, we did have the auditor's report, and this has been a People sometimes think that we're just reactive, like immediately.

No, we're not.

In this committee, we added two pieces to our strategic framework plan.

One is gun violence intervention reduction and community safety.

And the other one is the scene between public safety and public health, housing, and human services.

And so what we're seeing is we do need this comprehensive approach to gun violence.

But historically, community safety, all those pieces were within the human services department.

and the public safety elements, fire, police and so forth, have been basically at arm's length or kind of siloed.

And this is one reason why we brought these two elements into our plan this year.

This is one reason why, you know, we have PDA and the LEED program taken out of HSD and put into the care department.

It is to work that seam between the traditional public safety elements and then the community safety elements, the human services elements.

and so when calls come from people to have a comprehensive approach to gun violence, that is what we will do.

That is what we will do.

And that's our responsibilities, first in this public safety community, but also working with our colleagues in the other department, other committees, and as a council as a whole.

And this is our pledge to do this forward.

And to be inclusive, to include the local stakeholders, as mentioned, you know, with urban family community passageways, Mr. Briscoe, who presented in committee earlier this year.

to work with those local stakeholders and the community as I look out and see somebody from Belltown, with those community organizations, the community councils, Belltown United, Belltown Community Council, others around the city, to have that comprehensive approach that is inclusive of all the local groups and entities and neighborhoods.

because that is very important.

I just wanted to set that like framing because this is something that's been in the works for a while because it's been placed on the table, you know, first in terms of like with the auditor's report, but also with our experience here and serving on the council.

Just yesterday, I was standing in Belltown at first in Clay.

Behind my back was 3rd and Blanchard, not far away, where there was a shooting this past weekend.

2nd and North is not far away.

To my left was Elliott and Bell Street, where Sunday night's incident happened.

And looking to my right, up Clay, I could see Seattle Center, Space Needle, where the bite of Seattle happened.

just in that small radius how much gun violence has been occurring.

And so we do have to step forward.

We do need to partner.

We do have to have an outside looking in piece to this, I think, to Councilmember Rivera's point.

To do the same things and expect different results is kind of not pragmatic and not effective.

So I just wanted to set that as colleagues, as a base, that there's a lot of pieces that have been in work for a long time, in committee, in this council, with the auditor's team and so forth, and then in our engagement, because we've all engaged with local communities, members and to include those service providers that are doing that hard work of community safety, doing the public safety walks in Rainier Beach.

So we've done that.

So I just wanted to, I appreciate Councilmember Rivera, like the work related to NNSC and the team there and also with the symposium that had a great amount of executive.

Deputy Mayor Surratt was there the whole time working with him on this as well.

And so with that, Councilmember Rivera, Before having any other discussion, I just wanted as Chair to put that framing in there.

Can you move your resolution?

Yes, Chair.

I have one second.

You have to move the bill first.

I move that Council adopt Resolution 32217. Second.

It is moved and seconded to recommend passage of the resolution.

Colleagues, before going into further discussion, there is a, you know, a fixed amendment to this.

Council Member Rivera, would you please move the amendment?

Thank you, Chair Kittle.

It really is a technical change.

It was just to correct some language from Council commits to signaling our intent to commit because we can't unilaterally to commit.

It is the mayor who operationalizes these efforts, and so it's really a technical change.

It doesn't change the resolution itself.

So do you move Amendment 1 Version 1 to Resolution 32217?

I move to amend Resolution 32217 as presented on Amendment 1 on the agenda.

Second.

Okay.

It's been moved and seconded for the amendment.

Clerk, can we vote on the amendment?

I think it's pretty straightforward.

We'll just go ahead on this and this does clear up some pieces.

Vice Chair, do you have a comment?

Okay, go ahead.

Council Member Lynn.

On the amendment.

This is a vote on the amendment.

Council Member Rivera.

Aye.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Chair Kettle.

Aye.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Okay, the amendment passes.

Okay, now can we turn to the amended bill.

Vice Chair, any questions, any comments?

Thank you, Chair.

No questions, but I will just share from my perspective.

First off, I want to say thank you to Councilmember Rivera for bringing this forward.

Really appreciate you, your advocacy, and your sustained leadership on this issue over the course of many years, not on a reactive basis, but on a proactive one, including through organizing, spearheading that gun violence, symposium earlier this summer, bringing in community groups and the like, and then here's the next step in our collective journey together to better address gun violence in Seattle.

I vividly recall when the last year when the 2025 City Auditor's Report was released that found, among other things, a significant increase in gun violence over the past decade, including a sustained post-pandemic increase in shootings across the city.

And Here's the good news, bad news situation is that in the last couple years, in particular, the city has made tremendous progress in addressing our public safety challenges more broadly.

Officer hiring recruitment, up, way up.

other sort of notable crime data.

We're making great strides there.

If you take a look at, for example, burglary and property crime and violent crime more broadly, homelessness down, overdose fentanyl rates down.

The one unique outlier that persists as the city auditor's report from last year noted, is gun violence.

And we're reminded with the Belltown homicides this past weekend, gun violence incidents afflicting various neighborhoods in our city, more than others, particularly in the south end, south Seattle.

that as much progress as we have collectively made as a city, there's plenty more work to do.

And what I like about this initiative is it allows us to maintain the momentum on those other efforts to address our charter responsibility to keep people safe.

It also allows us to try something different.

I'll go a step further because I heard it's not pragmatic or whatever, which I don't disagree with, doing the same, the very definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting different results.

We need to try something different here when it comes to gun violence.

It hasn't worked.

What we've been doing hasn't worked.

doesn't erase or minimize or mean that we haven't made, you know, progress in certain aspects of the work and, you know, we're gonna continue with some of these community organizations that do this vital work and I would like for them to be a part of the implementation of this National Network for Safe Communities strategy.

We're still gonna have a lot of local discretion and flexibility to implement a Seattle-specific version of this national framework, of this national model, of this national approach.

But we can't, Chair, not only is doing the same thing over and expecting a different result not at all pragmatic, I would go a step further and say it's the very definition of insanity.

So this allows us to pivot in a key area when we talk about gun violence, preserve our other investments and our other progress that we're doing in addressing public safety more broadly.

Also preserve, this doesn't lock us into also doing other things when we talk about addressing gun violence.

but we need to take additional action.

And I think this is exactly the action that we need right now in this moment.

And I also appreciate the fact that it's effectively a pilot program of sorts.

It's a two-year kind of strategy that we'll kind of reevaluate in two years.

But heck, if it has worked for the historic cities of Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, can work here, right here in the City of Seattle as well.

So excited to be able to support this today, would encourage the mayor to make sure included in the upcoming executive transmitted proposed budget, there's a line item and investment specifically for this.

And again, this doesn't lock us into one particular approach or strategy either, and other potential things, but it must be this.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair Saka.

Councilmember Lin.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera, for bringing this forward.

I do have some kind of comments, questions, and happy to have some of those offline, but I'll just mention a few.

One, I just want to clarify that I think This National Network for Safe Communities, thank you for organizing the conference earlier.

I wish I could have attended, but understand the Open Public Meetings Act concerns there.

Certainly, as you mentioned, gun violence is impacting us as a city, as a region.

South Seattle, in particular, has been devastated.

I hear regularly, especially from the Rainier Beach community, just constant gunfire in that neighborhood that's traumatizing our families, our youth.

and as I look at this, the national network, it's this group violence intervention that seems to be the focus, the focus deterrence.

I remember speaking with SPD, Dr. Hunt, and I certainly think that a focused deterrence could be an important part of sort of a comprehensive gun violence approach.

And I'm excited about moving forward with working on a focused deterrence model.

I think some of my questions, comments are sort of how you landed on the national network.

I don't think they are the only group that does this, and so I guess there's a question there.

Another question is, as part of the audit from 2025, there's a reference to Johns Hopkins and their willingness to do no-cost advising on a community council approach as well, which I think could also sort of be a similar, a slightly different approach.

But I guess one of the maybe biggest questions I have is, and you mentioned this, that this funding would not sort of, this funding I think would pay for a consultant to help us, but the work is for us to do.

And not just us as a city, also our county partners.

prosecutors, our community partners, we all have to do that work.

And again, I'm happy to support that.

I guess my question would be kind of twofold is what sort of collaboration commitments do we have from various partners, you know, again, whether it's the Mayor's Office, King County Office of Regional Gun Violence Prevention, the King County Executive, you know, SPD, prosecutors, our nonprofits to do this work.

You know, how do we work with them?

How do we get that commitment?

And then I guess a similar kind of question is this budget would be for the, I think for the consultant, But I imagine there would also be sort of a budget or some sort of either shifting of budget priorities or work for folks to do this work, right?

Because again, the consultant can't do the work for us.

We need to be doing the work.

Our partners need to be doing the work.

And so how do we make sure that there's either the resources or the commitment in place to do the work.

And I think that kind of gets back to some of the comments we heard from Davida Briscoe or others, like what's the groundwork that needs to happen to make this possible?

So anyway, again, happy to chat afterwards or offline, but also happy to hear some comments.

in committee.

Thank you, Council Member Lynn.

I heard about three comments and then the two-part question, which Council Member Veri, will you respond to?

And then for the second part of that question, I will also speak, because that kind of goes to the overall approach, like what this committee and council will do.

So will you address the issues raised by Councilmember Lin?

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Councilmember Lin, for your questions.

Why NNSC?

Because they were recognized in the auditor's report in 2015. They are doing a version of focused deterrence that others aren't doing.

There is focused deterrence approaches out there that do not include law enforcement by design.

But NNSC's effort does include law enforcement.

They're at the table there.

Everybody is working together.

And they have seen really great results with that model.

So that's why NNSC versus some of the other focus deterrence models.

In some ways, there's some organizations that do focus deterrence that the county, for instance, has partnered with in the past.

and we haven't seen the level of success that NNSC has had in these other cities.

As to the question about the other partners, all of those partners were at the symposium on purpose.

Obviously, it takes everyone working together to make this effort successful.

Part of what NNSC does is they work with us and all our partners together in bringing this and implementing this and bringing it forward.

So some of that work is actually done in partnership with NNSC to get our other partners and community folks, our community folks part and at the table.

So that is part of the work that they will do when we contract with them in this way.

And then I want to also say I know you weren't able to be there, but I know your staffer was there, so really appreciate your sending someone to listen.

It was a really great symposium.

Folks had really great questions and the best part, one of the best parts of this symposium is folks, it was important to me that folks from Philly and Baltimore were there to share their experiences on how they worked with NNSC to implement this strategy that has had success in those cities.

And those folks that came from Philadelphia and Baltimore did a great job.

I found it really helpful.

Chair, I know you can speak to it too because you were there.

But they have had outstanding results working with NNSC and have had really success.

Some of the folks that are working in those cities on this strategy and implementing this very NNSC strategy are folks that were involved in gun violence.

early in their lives.

So these are folks who have experience with the system who are now working together to implement this all-inclusive strategy with law enforcement as well and community partners in their cities to actually implement this strategy that has had the success.

So I hope that answers your question, Council Member Lynn, on why NNSC versus some of the other folks that are doing quote unquote focus deterrence.

It is a version of focus deterrence.

Everyone's doing it differently.

NNSC is doing it more comprehensively, which is why in the 25 auditors report, the auditor talked about this comprehensive approach that does include law enforcement.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

As Chair, I'll add that, and to be quite clear, setting these pieces into place, and partly because that we do have these siloed kind of efforts.

Yeah.

And it's very aggravating, and this is the reason why we changed our strategic framework plan.

This is the reason why we've had some meetings.

I recognize the points made.

and we do need to do that.

We need to have this strategic framework that includes all these players that you talked about, whether here in the city or the county, but importantly from the community safety piece.

Because again, community safety is more of a human services department piece as opposed to police, fire and the like.

and we have to address that seam.

Gun violence is yet another sad example where that seam really has major impacts.

So my commitment in this process to work with Council Member Rivera but all of us is to create that comprehensive framework approach to, you know, cover up those seams and to be inclusive.

And I think that's a concern for many and I think it's a, you know, concern that everyone should have.

but my commitment here is to look at service providers, those in the community space.

Mr. Davis who called in and Mr. Batu was here to say that this is going to be an approach that's going to be inclusive to all the players here in Seattle, including the county players, to do that.

But you know what?

Sometimes we need a little shock to the system, and having an outside voice and look angle is important.

And as Vice Chair noted, in some ways this is a pilot in the sense that it's a two-year project.

But the work has got to be done by us, and that's something that I think we as a committee and as a council need to stand up.

And to do so in partnership with the mayor and the mayor's team.

I recognize there's a lot of talk regarding this as it relates to Mayor Wilson and her team in terms of that and the relationship with the council.

But I also will commit here too is to work with Mayor Wilson, Deputy Mayor Seurat, and Director of Public Safety Holcomb on this issue to ensure that we have a whole government and a whole effort to move forward.

And we've been working together already.

But obviously there's T's to be crossed, I's to be dotted.

and I think this is a good first step.

Last word to Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

I will say that I've been working with the mayor's office since January.

I've been very transparent.

Obviously, this is something I've been working on before this mayor got elected and obviously we need to work with the mayor.

Again, the effort is a comprehensive all hands on deck approach.

That means we all need to work together for the effort to work.

So they came to the symposium.

I was grateful that Deputy Mayor Surratt was there.

Director Holcomb was there as well.

The mayor herself did a drop by, but the mayor's office was represented.

you know, it's unfortunate that to date they have not been committal on this particular approach and that is unfortunate.

On the other hand, as I said earlier, we as council are responsible for passing the laws and the budget by which to implement those laws.

And so I cannot sit here and watch what is happening to our city and knowing there is a strategy out there that we could be trying here and not doing it.

And so if the mayor does not wanna operationalize this approach, that is her decision.

But as a council member, my responsibility is to make sure to bring such an approach to address it, to take action.

This is what constituents want, and this is what we should be doing right now, especially with the numbers of gun violence in the city.

And Chair, I'll just say that from the dashboard, you know, recently folks said that crime was down since 2023 or 4, but really crime is still up from before and the pandemic levels, it's still higher than pre-pandemic levels, even though things may have, crime might be lower in the last two years.

And so I'll say that fatal shootings in 2012 were 211, and in 2024 there were 541. and post pandemic it increased exponentially which was what the auditor was addressing in their 2025 report.

So this is something that is an all hands on deck.

I look forward and I continue my conversations with the mayor's office.

I look forward to partnering to implement this effort.

I hope this resolution does pass and that we try this here because the thing is we need to try all the things to address gun violence in our city.

It's gonna take more than one approach.

And I will say, we try this.

If it doesn't work, then we will have to shift to something else.

But at the end of the day, with the success rate that this has had in cities who have historical gun violence issues like Baltimore and Philadelphia, why wouldn't we do this here?

This to me is a no brainer.

Thank you, Chair.

I hope to have council support on this.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

I will say not I, but we as a council will work with the mayor and her team because this is important to the city and this is what the city expects.

Okay.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

By the way, we're going to go with the vote because this is something that's noted, has been worked on continuously for a year.

Two, with the RV bill and also the By to Seattle looks that we have coming up and the fact that we have a short period between Labor Day and budget and then we don't really have anything between budget and the new year.

So I'm going to ask that we move forward on the call for a vote.

Chair Mike, may I say one last thing actually?

Okay, Council Member, very short.

Well, this is important.

On the point about the mayor's office, like I said, I asked for concurrence.

They weren't ready to give that now, but I will continue to work with them.

That is the job.

That is the commitment I've always made to continue to work with the mayor.

And I hope that we will be able to have her concurrence when this goes to full council.

Thank you, Chair.

And or as we move forward in committee.

As we move forward in committee because we will move forward in committee because gun violence is such an important piece as part of our strategic framework plan.

Okay.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to adopt amended council resolution 32217?

Councilmember Lin.

Abstain.

Councilmember Rivera.

Aye.

Councilmember Sotka.

Aye.

Chair Kettle.

Aye.

Three in favor, none opposed, one abstention.

Okay, the motion carries and the committee recommendation that the council bill be adopted will be sent to the September 15th city council meeting.

All right, we have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

Is there any further business to come before the committee before we adjourn?

Nothing except for-I do want to echo Chief Scoggin's point about the 25th anniversary of 9-11 coming up on this Friday.

I do.

It's a very important date, and it's an important date for us to remember.

Okay.

Hearing no further business to come before the Committee, we are adjourned.

Thank you so much.