I'm not going to go through the whole run of show.
I'm just going to kind of hit the highlights of why we're here.
But I want to start this the way I have been taught to start a meeting by my Uncle Billy Frank Jr.
We want to start this in a good way.
Everybody just take a deep breath.
We're all here because we care.
I want to keep it tradish so those of you who watch Res Dogs know what I'm talking about.
We're here.
because there is gun violence and bullets on Aurora.
And the violence on Aurora, and we can pretty much clock it, from 85th to 130th on the east and the west side.
And we know the roots of this violence.
We've seen it, but it's gotten worse.
We know that it's the pimps.
We know that it's prostitution.
We know that it's sex trafficking.
and we know that it's drug activity.
We've all seen the clips of the shooting.
I sat as an elected for two terms, and trust me, we shut down motels, we worked with city attorneys, and by the way, I've been through two governors and four mayors and four chiefs of police.
I have a little bit of an idea how it works and what safety and public safety means.
The four things I just listed, are the root cause of what we're seeing, not just city, but right now on Aurora.
And I want to thank the Aurora folks that here and that came out Saturday night to walk the neighborhood.
So we're also here because we want to see a street closure.
We want to see barriers.
and I want to give you an update on the emergency legislation that we're going to be passing.
I want to thank Councilmember Kettle for that, and I'm sure he will speak to that.
Whether he stays to his three minutes is another issue.
So we know, currently, SDOT director has the authority to close the street.
And what we want to do with our emergency legislation in Councilmember Kettle's committee is expand the conditions and the scenarios in which you can close the street.
and that would be upon the recommendation of Chief Barnes that there's criminal activity, i.e. bullets, and the street needs to be closed.
And I want to apologize that we failed you, that the community had to get out on their own and put up barriers and put their own lives and family at risk.
And I assure you, myself and Council President have been up there.
Yes, I was there.
I didn't come up there with a bullhorn and tell everybody I'm here, but I was there and took pictures.
And I've lived in that neighborhood for almost 40 years, so I know Aurora.
Now let's get back to the street closures.
There are so many scenarios, and you heard Council President say this, in which SDOT, the director, and the mayor's office has the authority right now to close the street.
We do it at Lake Washington Boulevard.
We do it at Golden Gardens.
We do it at Alki.
We do it at Pice Plate Market.
We do it when we want to close down street racing.
We do it for safe streets, healthy streets.
During COVID we did it.
We do it for neighborhood barbecues.
We do it for traffic calming measures.
We do it for speed limits.
for pedestrians, for bikes, for neighborhoods, for families.
We've never closed down streets, and I think, and I've said this before, and I'll say it again, and you all know how I speak, if we can close down a street for these kind of situations, we sure as hell can close down streets for bullets.
And that's always been my point.
So I'm gonna be short, and I'm just gonna wrap things up real quick, because I want the other electeds to speak as well.
There's been talk about who's working with whom.
First, I want to thank Councilmember Moore.
She came after me, and she's the one that pushed a lot of the legislation under the Harold administration, and also Councilmember Lynn, who actually, when he was in the city attorney's office, did some of the street closure legislation in the authority of SDOT.
I want to thank Councilmember Hollingsworth, who has been working with me shoulder to shoulder.
I want to particularly thank City Attorney Evans.
We have been meeting since January.
about soap, stop, trafficking.
We met with the King County Prosecutor's Office.
What do we do about getting an FTE?
What do we get in the budget?
We have two King County prosecutors whose job is to file cases for all of King County, two for North and South.
And as you know, a lot of these crimes are misdemeanors.
They're not going to be in King County Superior Court, they're going to be in Municipal Court.
And we have our work cut out for us.
I want to thank City Attorney Evans because we did discuss and we are going to have a budgetary response as well regarding an FTE and filing.
And hopefully moving some of these misdemeanors into felonies.
Again, I want to thank Chief Barnes.
I so appreciate working with him and his leadership.
This is a chief of police that calls me and says, hey, Deborah, always says, hey, council member, we had another shooting.
We had a death here.
I want to give you a heads up what's going on.
That is leadership.
That is shared leadership.
That is how I learned to lead.
I want to thank Mayor Wilson and her staff.
All of you heard, we got asked the question, we just get the elephant out in the room.
No, I have not sat down and had tea with the mayor.
But I work with the mayor's office.
Where's Brian?
He's everywhere.
Mayor, deputy mayor and their team.
And I know a lot of the people that work for the mayor who handle public safety.
and we are working together.
And if we failed you, then we all failed you.
I want to thank Councilmember Kettle, whose chair is the Public Safety, and who was early in on these conversations in January and February on the sex trafficking.
I'm going to let Council President address that a little bit more.
On the sex trafficking issue, I want to leave you with two notes.
and this comes from my work on missing, murdered, indigenous women and girls, the laws that we passed, the FTEs we got in, what I've been working on for well over a decade.
And this is how I met City Attorney Evans.
She was prosecuting a major case up on the Lummi tribe.
So I understand what that means.
Those are our aunties out there.
Those are our sisters out there.
Those are our children out there.
Those are our students out there.
Those are our former neighbors out there.
We work so closely with the Royal Commons.
We've gotten them in the budget.
The eight years that I was on Council 9, we've gotten them in the budget every other year and expanded their resources.
And sometimes you just don't see the work we do behind the scenes.
So I hope to share that.
I have shared that with you today.
And I want to end on this note because I want to give an opportunity for my colleagues to speak.
And I've said this before and I'll say it again.
You can always judge a society by how they treat their women and girls.
and if you can't say that sex trafficking, we're not talking about OnlyFans, we're not talking about people that have our cam girl, we are talking about what the King County prosecutors came when they presented to Councilmember Kettle's Public Safety Committee, which I sit on, and did an hour and a half PowerPoint with pictures to show us what is going on.
And I can only guess it's gonna get worse under FIFA, and we're gonna have to do more monitoring and have a police presence and then I'll probably say something that everyone's gonna glob onto.
But I was there when we did the, when folks came forward and we wanted to have a new police station.
I had to endure, block the bunker, defund the police.
But at the end of the day, we took an oath to this city for public safety.
I have a social contract, not just with you folks, but with everyone across the whole city.
Yes, I represent and honor the needs of D5, but my vote weighs just as much as the other electives that are voted citywide, and I also take the responsibility for that as well.
Thank you, and I'll let you hear from Council President.
Good afternoon.
First of all, we are here united across multiple branches of government.
We have our legislative branch here, as you see behind us.
We have our executive branch, Mayor Wilson, and then our judicial and our city attorney.
Alongside with community partners, I also want to recognize we have the King County Office of Regional Gun Violence Prevention here as well.
What is happening along Aurora is violence.
It's violence against young women, it's violence against children, and it's violence against the residents who live in these neighborhoods.
And while today's press conference is focused on Aurora Avenue, the commercial trafficking of women and children and sexual exploitation and the gun violence that accompanies these things don't just happen on Aurora.
They do happen in Rainier Beach.
They do happen on Capitol Hill.
They do happen in the Central District.
They happen all over our city.
and so this violence cannot be normalized and we cannot let it continue in our city.
Far too long, our local government has created conditions, unfortunately, where traffickers openly flaunt and advertise on social media about the money that they can make exploiting women on Aurora.
We have created an environment where vulnerable young girls can be ordered through apps, through commodities, just like commodities right now.
We've created an environment where middle school students walking to and from school are solicited for sex.
The average age of those entering commercial sex is between the ages of 12 and 15 years old.
If that does not upset you here in this room right now, that is a problem.
And this should outrage everyone.
What you will hear today are first-step solutions and coordinated strategy amongst multiple agencies and branches of government.
And it requires more than one department.
It requires more than one elected official.
It requires more than an organization.
It requires all of us working together.
I do know that my council colleagues, the mayor's office, the city attorney's office, our police department are all aligned around four core outcomes.
Number one, we must provide pathways to healing, treatment, housing, hope, and culturally specific trauma-informed care for young women and girls who are exploited.
These are survivors and they absolutely deserve our support.
Number two, we must protect the residents along the Aurora corridor and throughout the city, families who have endured gun violence, intimidation, and fear in their own neighborhood is completely unacceptable.
Third, we must hold accountable to the traffickers, the pimps, the buyers, the predators who profit from exploitation of women and children.
Accountability matters.
And fourth, we have to educate our community.
That is one of the most important pieces here to the parents, teachers, schools, faith leaders, the ebony alerts that is really important.
These are protective factors in recognizing the signs of exploitation before it occurs.
So that work begins with awareness and strengthened by advocates and youth ambassadors, youth ambassadors to help educate their peers and organizations already leading in this space.
And so before I turn it off to our city attorney, I want to encourage everyone to educate themselves.
Watch the recent pop-up conversation on Converge Media featuring the Silent Task Force about the current state of which we are in right now.
The work will not be solved overnight, but today sends a message that Seattle is no longer willing to accept this new normal.
I also want to thank the Executive Councilmember Zahalai last night who talked about expanding the Office of Regional Gun Violence Prevention with investments and coordinated effort and be working closely with King County on these efforts as well.
So without further ado, I would pass this off to Miss Erica Evans.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council President.
Hi, everyone.
My name is Erica Evans and I'm your elected Seattle City Attorney.
I'm here to deliver two messages and to give you some updates.
Message number one, to the Johns or buyers that are coming to Aurora or in any parts of our city to buy children or people, you will be arrested and we will prosecute you.
I want to say that again.
If you're coming here to buy children or people, I will prosecute you.
Second, to the motels, bars, or businesses that are allowing criminal activity to occur over and over again on their premises, we will use the civil division of my office to shut you down.
Now here are the updates.
Update number one, we've asked the mayor and City Council, and I'm looking at you, Council Member Strauss, the budget chair, the money man, to give us funding for a dedicated Extreme Risk Protection Order prosecutor.
An Extreme Risk Protection Order, or ERPO, is a court order that allows us to get guns directly out of the hands of violent people.
We have already been partnering with King County Prosecutor Lisa Mannion on domestic violence ERPOs to remove firearms from people who pose a danger to themselves or others.
And we've had great success with this program.
So this new ERPO position for non-DV cases is something new, never done before in my office.
It is a measurable strategy to get guns out of the hands on people who pose extreme risks in our communities.
We will use this tool to target traffickers on Aurora and violent offenders who threaten any parts of our city.
The ERPA prosecutor that we've asked for is going to help keep our community safe from gun violence.
If you are out threatening violence in our community, we will use our ERPA prosecutor to take your gun away.
Update number two.
We are aggressively using the chronic nuisance tool to address properties that repeatedly generate crime on Aurora.
When a business or property becomes a hub for trafficking, shootings, or criminal activity, that harms businesses and residents nearby.
Even right now, we have put another business on Aurora on notice that they are in the process of being shut down.
In the last five years, four motels on Aurora have been shut down under the chronic nuisance ordinance, and we are going to continue partnering with Chief Barnes and SPD to use this tool to shut problematic businesses down that exploit and profit from crime and violence in our neighborhoods.
So to the public, I want to make clear to please call 911 when you are seeing criminal activity happening at businesses, because with three reportable police incidents in 12 months, we're able to shut businesses down.
This is the final update, and this is something you just heard from Councilmember Juarez on, something that we've been working on since January.
We are working closely with Councilmember Juarez to have a dedicated, duly deputized prosecutor in my office that will work on felony trafficking cases on Aurora.
This is going to be in partnership with the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.
Again, something new, never done before.
It is going to have a direct impact on getting violent traffickers off our streets.
Both King County Prosecutor Lisa Mannion and my office, we need more prosecutors.
We need more officers.
This is going to help.
We are hopeful that this position will come hopefully very soon.
And I just want to thank Council Member Juarez for your leadership on these efforts.
Thank you.
As you all know, lasting impact requires a coordinated strategy.
that targets traffickers, reduces violence, and removes guns from dangerous people, and holds people accountable.
I want to close and plainly address something.
Do not believe all the hype you hear.
I am proud to be the first city attorney in 16 years that has come to this role with actual experience as a prosecutor.
I've spent my entire career working in public safety, from being a city prosecutor, a defense lawyer, being a pro tem judge, and most recently having the honor to serve as an Assistant United States Attorney, a federal prosecutor.
I have prosecuted drug traffickers.
I have prosecuted gun traffickers, pimps, people who hurt our children and people who stole from workers.
I have put them in federal prison.
I have prosecuted Johns on Aurora and we will continue to do this work.
Keeping the city safe and serving the city as its top lawyer is my responsibility and is being a good steward of our limited resources.
and this is a responsibility that I take greatly and one that is guided by my actual experience leading prosecutions.
It is my job to serve you, to show up for you, to listen to you.
I will come to your events even when you're upset with me because that's what you deserve.
My commitment to you is to lead with outcome-driven public safety policies You deserve strategies that produce measurable results and make neighborhoods safer.
My grandma moved here in the 70s and my family has been in the Pacific Northwest ever since.
This is my home and keeping communities safe so our families can thrive will take collaborative leadership.
Exactly what you are seeing happening right now with the people here.
Thank you everyone.
I'm now going to introduce our Mayor, Mayor Wilson.
Please come forward.
Thank you, City Attorney Evans, and thank you, Councilmembers, for your leadership.
As has been said, this and the public safety issues across our city are things that we can only tackle together, and it requires all of our branches of government working together in close coordination and also with our county and other partners.
So I want to start by thanking the residents, families, business owners, our council members and community leaders who are all here today.
I also want to thank council members Juarez, Hollingsworth and Kettle, City Attorney Erica Evans and Chief Barnes for being here as well.
We are unified in our commitment and resolve to address the serious violence that North Aurora is facing.
For weeks, neighbors living near Aurora have been sending a clear message.
People are tired of hearing gunfire in the middle of the night.
They are tired of bullets striking their homes.
They are tired of seeing violence associated with exploitation spill onto the streets where they are trying to raise children and live their lives.
And they are tired of feeling like they have to solve this problem by themselves.
When neighbors start building their own makeshift barriers, that is a sign that people do not feel that the system is working for them.
That's not where we want to be.
People should be able to trust that their city is taking action to keep their neighborhood safe.
The situation on Aurora is unacceptable.
It is unacceptable for the people who live there.
It is unacceptable for the people who work there.
And it is unacceptable to me as your mayor.
When residents took action and installed barriers on these streets themselves, they were sending a message to us at City Hall.
They were telling us that the status quo was not working.
They were demanding immediate action and we have heard that message.
We moved quickly to implement near-term measures.
We immediately installed partial barriers to slow traffic on two blocks and we also looked carefully at how to safely install stronger barriers while still allowing for emergency response, garbage collection, school transportation, neighborhood access and other essential services.
So after analysis by the Seattle Department of Transportation, our police, our fire and our utilities departments, today we are taking the next step.
I have directed ESCOT to systematically close streets at North 102nd, North 100th, North 98th, and North 96th Street.
We will be working with SPU to ensure trash pickup will continue in a safe and successful manner.
SDOT will also be exploring traffic calming measures in the surrounding blocks.
These measures make it harder for drivers to repeatedly circle through residential streets and evade enforcement.
These new barriers will remain in place at least throughout the summer.
During that time, we will be closely monitoring their impact, listening to community feedback, and making adjustments where needed.
We know that neighbors' concerns do not begin and end with traffic barriers, of course.
And of course, we deeply share their concerns about gun violence, gang activity, and human trafficking in the neighborhood.
That is why we are committed to a comprehensive approach.
As part of our public safety strategy in this corridor, I am directing the Seattle Police Department to intensify the focused enforcement, investigative work, and coordinated operations already underway to disrupt trafficking networks, remove illegal guns from our streets, identify repeat violent offenders, and hold those responsible for the violence accountable.
I'm directing SPD to continue working closely with the City Attorney's Office, the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, and our regional partners to ensure that those driving this violence face consequences.
I'm also directing our Human Services Department to ensure that our community-based partners have the tools, the resources, and the support they need to safely conduct trauma-informed outreach, build trust, and help survivors out of commercial sexual exploitation.
We absolutely need to stop the human trafficking and we also need to take care not to push women further into the margins, create more danger for them or blame them for causing this problem.
I know that people are frustrated and frankly they have every right to be.
My administration is committed to this neighborhood and we are committed to continuing to show up for North Aurora.
I want to acknowledge the many members of my team who have been up in North Aurora over the last few weeks, leading walks, talking to neighbors, talking to business owners.
And in the coming days, I will be planning a community meeting on Aurora to hear directly from neighbors, business owners, and community leaders about what they are experiencing and what more they need from our city.
I'll also be rolling out in a Seattle Police Department patrol car on a ride-along along the Aurora corridor to get a first-hand view of the conditions that our officers are encountering on the ground and the challenges that they're working to address every day.
The people who live and work near Aurora deserve leaders who are willing to show up, listen, and see these challenges for themselves.
And that is what I am committed to doing.
We are committed to doing the hard work necessary to ensure that the people who live in this neighborhood can feel safe in their homes, walk their streets without fear, and raise their families in peace.
So we will continue listening and we will continue taking action.
This is a collective response.
Thank you all.
And with that, I'm going to hand it over to Councilmember Bob Kettle.
Thank you, Mayor Wilson.
I want to say thank you to Council President and Councilmember DJ D5, who represents North Aurora, but also Deputy Mayor Serra, who I see out there, of course, City Attorney Evans, Chief Barnes, and I also see former Councilmember Moore, and I was told Representative Pellett from the State House is there.
Yes, okay.
Thank you for being here.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak on our public safety challenges in North Aurora, which are similar but different, by the way, than those seen in Rainier Beach and the CID.
Also, the factors impacting North Aurora are present at Little Saigon, 12th Jackson and King, Downtown, 3rd Pike and Pine, Belltown, 3rd and Blanchard, Sackleton and Nora, also the CD, Cap Hill, Lake City, and other areas in our city.
I'm not overly confident right now that this press conference or the community march that I attended on Saturday night will accomplish our goals or stop basically the standard running to standstill that we see in our city when it comes to public safety.
And as I said in chair, comment, and committee many times, it's because we're of two minds as a city.
Over the past decade plus, I've noted that there's a lack of balance in the singular focus oftentimes on our neighbors in crisis.
And we should always start there.
We should have the compassion.
But not having the focus, too, on our neighborhoods in crisis, like North Aurora, it's so important.
You know, there's been a lack of leadership that is sustained with an element of follow up and follow through.
There's been a lack of implementation of ordinances passed into law.
Councilmember Moore, former.
There's been a lack of accountability to match the compassion in our efforts.
And we have to increase the compassion, but we also need to have the accountability.
And as I've been saying lately, there's been a lack of integration on one hand public safety, but on the other hand of public health, housing and human services, on the other hand.
So the of two minds issue challenge that we have is an element of the paralysis.
Why the blade has been the blade for as long as it's been.
And there's been different efforts that have been undertaken that sometimes cancel each other out and again leads to that paralysis.
So to actually move forward in addressing the neighborhood crisis on North Aurora, we need to pass that emergency legislation Councilmember Juarez.
But we also have to achieve our goal of 1,258 officers in SPD.
Why is this important?
Because we had to take so many officers from detectives and specialty units and put them into patrol.
That's had a major impact, which shows up in what we're seeing on North Aurora.
We have to leverage the great force multiplier that is the real-time crime center in our CCTV program, and especially in this case, the automatic license plate reader program, given the nature of what we're seeing.
You know, this SDOT action is because of cars, and the ALPR system is key.
Other levels of government are working this.
We should be as well.
It's important to implement our ordinances, SOAP, BUT AS I MENTIONED, AND I'M WILLING TO WORK WITH THE CITY ATTORNEY, THE MAYOR AND EVERYONE, IF WE NEED TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS, WE CAN DO THAT.
WE CAN UPDATE THESE ORDINANCES OR WE CAN CREATE NEW ORDINANCES.
I'M WILLING TO WORK WITH OUR COLLEAGUES ACROSS THE EXECUTIVE AND JUDICIAL BRANCHES TO BRING THESE NEW ORDINANCES OR TO FIX OR UPDATE WHATEVER THE CASE MAY BE, JUST LIKE WE DO WITH CHRONIC NUISANCE PROPERTIES, TO MAKE THEM EFFECTIVE.
and by the way, thank you city attorney for using the chronic nuisance property.
That's not been a characteristic of our city attorneys in the past.
We also need to advocate for state law to address this problem.
I'm thankful that you're here, Representative Pollack, because you know, HB 1265 shows that the of two minds challenge affects Olympia as much as it does Seattle.
Imagine if that bill had passed, but it didn't.
and if you want to understand you have two minds issue, look at what happened to that bill.
Key, as I mentioned, the two hands piece is the services, so I thank the mayor and all those, HSD and all the people that worked that element.
Because at the end of the day, it's the young women, the girls, the minors, the minors that are on Aurora.
And since I said the word minors, I should add sex with a minor is rape.
Again, go back to 1265 on that point.
But we also have to work public safety really hard.
I've been advocating for a director of public safety for a long time.
So I want to thank, based on this morning's announcement, Mayor, for the placement of a Director of Public Safety and her team.
Someone that we can work with and that we have been working with to ensure that these pieces are being, you know, brought together.
And so I thank the Mayor and I should add the Deputy Mayor because we've had conversations along this front.
Because it's important and it shows the importance of the Public Safety mission set as well.
Now I can be just to lighten the mood up a little bit, a little funny, but this is a great decision, but it cannot be one that we turn on or off.
So here we are, and I just wanna thank everyone for your attention and for listening to this, and I think it's important that we do take this action to move forward in terms of the challenges that we're facing today.
And with that, I'd like to turn over the mic to Chief Barnes.
with protocol having already been established by previous speakers.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Good afternoon.
Thank you.
My name is Chief Sean Barnes.
I have the privilege of being the Chief of Police for the Seattle Police Department.
Gunfire and violence against some of our most vulnerable communities and individuals who have been exploited has plagued this area for too long.
The people living and working in North Seattle have endured enough Let me be clear, the Seattle Police Department has an unwavering commitment to address community's unacceptable public safety nightmare in corroboration with our partners to protect survivors of sex trafficking and exploitation.
We will not let this community be exploited as a place of business for criminals.
To immediately address criminal activity, we at the Seattle Police Department are taking a two-pronged approach.
One that focuses on a short-term, day-to-day response and another on a longer, complex criminal investigations with our partners.
At the end of May, we assigned two dedicated officers to actively patrol this neighborhood during the day of every shift with special emphasis on the night hours.
These two officers are not only simply driving in their cars, but they're also proactively getting out of their cars to address any criminal activity they witnessed and hopefully to prevent criminal activity from happening in the first place.
Starting next week, we will have bicycle officers in or around the neighborhood to deter crime and look for criminal activity as our staffing allows.
To come back further in this neighborhood, we'll begin deploying officers from our community response group to conduct focused enforcement efforts to hold criminals accountable.
These operations include the use of undercover officers.
That is a notice.
We will also have our community service officers walking in the neighborhood daily, connecting with business owners and residents as well.
Secondly, regarding our long-term strategies, our investigation bureau is actively investigating numerous cases involving both gun violence and human trafficking.
Currently the unit has 23 active shooting investigations underway from that area.
To further enhance the results, we have assigned a dedicated detective specifically to investigate shootings that occur in that area as well.
I want to be clear.
Our detectives will be taking a survivor-centered approach in every trafficking and exploitation case.
The detectives' first priority is the safety, stabilization, and connecting individuals to services such as advocacy, medical care, and long-term support.
Arresting sex workers may put their lives at risk, and we need to call it what it is.
This is modern day slavery.
Our community serves as a moral compass and plays a critical role.
Many cases are solved because someone stepped forward, pointed us in the right direction, or provided us information when no other leads existed.
The crimes that they are connected with are also connected to other crimes and enterprises like money laundering and wire fraud.
These connections complicate, but do not deter our efforts.
And we're gonna be going after the money as well.
We're seeing results.
Four shooting cases have been filed with the King County Prosecutor's Office just last week.
Thank you to our King County Prosecutor who's here with us.
Detectives arrested a human trafficker who is currently being held on a $1 million bond.
I want to close by emphasizing that there's much work to be done and the officers and detectives reflect an unwavering commitment to thorough, deliberate and proactive patrols and meaningful and impactful investigations.
Unfortunately, these are not quick, but they are meaningful cases.
They are about protecting survivors, holding offenders accountable, and elevating the safety and well-being of the community.
Our focus is clear.
We must do more to strengthen community safety and hold those accountable for violent actions in our community.
To effect this change, we are taking a whole of government approach.
we must come together with other city departments, elected officials and community members to act strategically with a renewed sense of urgency.
It is only through the comprehensive, collaborative and sustainable approach that we have our best chance to finally deliver the results that our community has been asking for.
Thank you.
So now we have two more council members that want to say brief remarks.
We have Councilmember Rivera and Councilmember Strauss and then after that we will take questions and I will call on Brad from our comms person to help us navigate some of the questions that all of us here will be able to answer.
Thank you.
So I don't know who's first.
Councilmember Rivera and then Councilmember Strauss.
Thank you, Council President.
Young girls are being sold for sex on Aurora.
It is believed to be the second busiest track for juvenile sexual exploitation in the country.
Not in the city, not in the state, in the country.
And the gun violence that comes with that is unacceptable.
So I want to talk about two quick things.
One is follow-through and additional approaches to gun violence.
On the follow-through, I really want to thank my colleague Councilmember Juarez for her leadership in bringing emergency legislation.
But let's be all so honest.
It shouldn't take emergency legislation to do something that we have the authority to do today.
Nevertheless, I do want to thank Councilmember Juarez for her leadership, not only on the legislation, but being with community and her community in D5.
I do want to talk about some things that Council did prior to Councilmember Juarez being appointed recently when Councilmember Moore was still here.
We co-authored a bill to give HSD or to require HSD to support victims of survivors of sexual trafficking and exploitation.
This was for the 25-26 fiscal year.
How that funding is being used to help these victims get away from pimps and get the services or treatment that they need, I do not know.
I had a conversation with director of HSD this morning to ask where the department was in hiring the full-time employee to serve as a victim advocate to work with SPD on this, and I have not received an answer yet.
and I say this to say because we can pass to Councilmember Kettle's point all the legislation and notices that we want, but if the city departments do not follow through, we will not get results.
So I am calling today and I am happy to work with the mayor to make sure that departments are having follow through on the things that we pass.
That is what's going to keep our girls on Aurora safe.
The other thing I quickly want to address is gun violence in this city, which we've seen increased.
And yes, I am very appreciative to Chief Barnes and his team for the work they've done, and our numbers have gone down.
But they are not down to the levels of 2018, so we still need to do a lot of work in this regard.
and so what I have done is on Monday, I hosted a gun violence symposium and I'm happy to say that King County Prosecutor Lisa Mannion was there all day with us, City Attorney Erica Evans was there all day with us, Deputy Mayor Brian Surratt was there all day with us, the U.S.
Attorney's Office was there, Chief Barnes was there all day with us, and many community-based organizations who work in the prevention and intervention space.
and it was to learn about an additional approach.
We do a lot in the gun violence intervention and prevention space and there is more we can still do.
And that effort talks about focused deterrence and making sure that we are identifying the few people that are actually creating the most violence related to guns in the city, in any city.
and learning from other cities, we had representatives from Philadelphia and Baltimore and South Bend, Indiana to talk about this approach.
And the approach is simple.
It's a carrot and stick approach.
We identify the few people that are creating the most harm.
We tell them, what do you need to stop running around with guns and terrorizing our streets?
We offer services, which we already, the city does so much to fund services for folks.
And if they decline services, then we're going to hold them accountable.
And that is it.
It's simple.
And I look forward to working with our city leaders on next steps because this was not intended for me to be simply a gathering of people.
That is the first step and I'm so grateful that everyone was there together all day because I know everybody cares.
And now we need to take the next steps and there's gonna be more to come on that.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council President.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
I'm Council Member Dan Strauss, elected by the people of Magnolia, Fremont, Finney, Green Lake, Greenwood, Crown Hill, Ballard, many other micro-neighborhoods, and it's an honor as a district representative to also represent the entire city of Seattle.
I didn't expect to speak today, so I'll keep it quick.
I want to thank Council President Hollingsworth for bringing together all of these different levels of government.
In my time in government, I have found momentum is easy to lose and hard to build.
With that said, I watched as Council President Emeritus Juarez transitioned to Councilmember Moore and back to Councilmember Juarez, and what I saw was the two of them working together did not lose an inch of momentum on their work together.
The things that you have heard from Councilmember Juarez today could not be built or developed within five days since a march in North Aurora.
These are the things that she has been working on since day one of being back here and for nearly a decade.
What we're talking about here is Councilmember Juarez was an initial took the idea of the Aurora Commons and helped build that into a nonprofit that serves and protects many members of the community.
And what we also see today is that through her work that did not happen just this week, that has been going on, is working to bring together the county and the city prosecutors to ensure that anyone who is engaging in criminal activity up there will be prosecuted.
Gun violence is preventable.
The buying of children and humans is unacceptable.
What you see today is this group together through many different levels of government coming and saying, we are not going to let this happen anymore.
In my time growing up here in the city of Seattle, Aurora has constantly been an underlying issue.
The issues that we see today on North Aurora used to extend down to the Aurora Bridge.
and did so until my 20s.
When I lived on Motor Place in Aurora, it was just after the Thunderbird Motel had been closed down through a chronic nuisance order.
We saw I lived in that community as it was starting to re-thrive after many decades of having this same type of activity on their streets.
When I took office, this criminal activity was occurring all the way down to 80th.
Chronic nuisance orders shut down the motels on 83rd and 87th, and we see this issue continue moving north, but not not addressed at the level that you see today.
And that's what brings me hope, is that through this coordinated effort, we will take this moment to again protect the survivors, protect those that are not in their own way there, and make sure that anyone that is engaging in the selling of children or humans as commodity, or shooting guns or engaging in criminal activity on the streets where people raise their families, will be arrested by the Seattle Police Department, will be investigated by Assistant Chief Powell, will be prosecuted by County Prosecutor Mannion and City Prosecutor Evans, and they will be held to account because this is unacceptable and again I appreciate the decade of work that Council Member Juarez has engaged in to be able to set us up in a good way today and I thank Council President for bringing together these levels of government.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilmember Strauss and Councilmember Rivera.
Now we'll take questions, a couple questions, but would you call on folks, please?
Sorry, and then we can figure out who jumps in and takes those questions.
And just a precaution, we have some pretty hard stops at 1 p.m., so we'll take about 10 minutes' worth of questions.
Jeremy?
This is for either the mayor or the police team.
A lot of what was said today really is going to come through Seattle Police Department.
They're going to have to be the ones that take the enforcement action.
Cities of similar size in Seattle have double the number of police officers that we do.
How realistic are these plans with a department that is already stretched so thin?
And the PIVS and even some of the girls know this and have even taunted the officers up there on North Aurora.
So how realistic are these plans with such a short-staffed and strapped police department?
Thank you for that question, Jeremy.
Let me be clear, since I'm my arrival, I've made one thing clear and I'll do it again.
I'm focusing on what we have, not what we do not have.
We're being more strategic with our resources.
We're making sure that we're chipping in.
One of the models that we started when I got here was empowering our precinct captains to work across districts, across bureaus to pull in resources.
Precinct captains under this administration, they're almost kind of like many sheriffs of their own department.
The only difference is they're able to pull in different resources.
And so we're using resources like our CRG team that's under investigations to go into precincts when officers can't be there.
We're using dedicated officers, what we call our 90 car, to say you're not in the dispatch plan for this amount of time.
We're using other resources like our investigation.
So obviously if we're doing an undercover investigation, we probably don't want to be around in uniform.
But the truth of the matter is, everyone is chipping in on this problem.
Not just in Aurora, but in other parts of the city as well.
This is an all-hands-on-deck approach.
to a problem.
And what we want to do is we want to make sure that it's consistent, which is why we have regular meetings to test the efficiency of where we are.
Do we need to move or change our resources?
We're measuring our proactivity through our crime analysis unit.
And most importantly, we're going to measure community sentiment.
They may not always see us all the time.
I can't promise that if you sit on your front porch, you're going to see and count a police car every 10 minutes.
But what I can promise is that we're going to do everything we can, and we will be held accountable to doing that and making sure that you know that we are dedicated to this problem.
Thank you, Jeremy.
Erica?
Actually, a related question for the Chief.
In a presentation to Councilmember Kettle's committee that didn't end up happening, but the presentation about the police department said that y'all are going to have to slow down hiring if the continued pace of hiring happens because of budget constraints.
And I know that the mayor's office has asked for cuts.
I'm curious, are you going to ask for additional money for hiring this year or work within those limitations?
Yeah, I have not been notified that the police department will slow down on our current hiring plan for this year.
We're moving forward.
We've currently hired 78 police officers.
We've lost 38, which is in line with what we lost last year.
Officers are excited about FIFA.
They're still sticking around.
They want to work.
They want to be a part of such a great event.
and so we want to continue with that number and make sure that we hit that number.
Again, it's a rolling number.
We could get, you know, we could get ten, five retirements or separations after FIFA and then we would adjust, but I like where we are with our plan right now and there's been no, nothing communicated to me that we're not going to do that.
I think we all share that we need more police officers, but we also understand the constraints of a budget and until I hear anything differently, we're going to continue moving forward.
Thank you.
I believe we are doing that ASAP I don't want to put you know
data on it and be wrong, but we are moving rapidly to do that, so I don't know.
Oh, hi, Angie.
Hi.
Okay, hi.
This is my SDOT Director.
Angela Brady, City of Seattle, SDOT Director.
We'll be making those installations happen in the next two weeks.
I just want to confirm that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Right there.
I have a related question for the Mayor of Epcot Director.
My name is Andrew Steel-Smith.
I'm part of the group of neighbors that live in Long Aurora.
The 97th was not mentioned.
I just wanted you guys to check your notes a couple times on that one because it's one of the most violent streets.
There's a hotel that's there that cannot keep people there because they have so many cancellations.
They have bullets in their building as well.
And my second question was, North 103rd, North 104th, and North 109th are also some of the most violent ones, and they're going to be next on what the places are going right now.
There was an Asian elderly couple that was beaten, and she was put into the ICU.
They lived there on the corner of 109th, and they also had bullet holes in their building, and that's also A big priority for us is that it was on SDOT's previous plan.
100th Dark Island 4th and 109th to close those streets.
And I'd appreciate if you guys would take a look at that.
Thank you for the question.
I'm just going to reiterate our current plan as of today just to make it super clear what we're doing.
So we've got, we're closing access at North 96th, North 98th, North 100th, and North 102nd streets.
Those are new closures.
The temporary closures that are in place today at North 101st and north 107th streets will remain in place.
And then there were some recently installed measures, as you just noted, on north 97th.
Those will also remain in place.
Those are measures that calm speeds, so they slow vehicles down.
That is an important circulation access street, so we need to maintain that emergency response route and keep that available for police, particularly for the north precinct and folks.
So we are working with the fire department, with the police department on all of these closures and street calming measures to ensure that we're not just closing down all the streets and limiting that really important access to police, fire, garbage pickup, all of those really important access needs.
Hope that answers your question.
We have time for two more.
This is a question for City Attorney Evans.
Ms. Evans, you heard Councilmember Bob Kettle offer an olive branch in some ways.
What concessions or changes would you need to start enforcing and prosecuting these soap and soda ordinance that's already on the books?
Thank you for that question, Jonathan.
I'll start by saying soap and soda have been orders that have been in place for over 30 years.
And if they were effective, Aurora and other areas of Seattle, including Little Saigon, would be safe.
And they're not.
What we are focused on are policies that are outcome driven in data that are gonna be effective.
SOAP orders don't work.
IRPA orders work.
Getting guns out of the hands of folks that are committing violence in our neighborhood is an effective way to stop the gun violence.
That is what our office is being led by.
To experience prosecutors, myself and Jenna Robert, who's also here, my criminal division chief, we have a combined over 20 years of experience as prosecutors.
And those are the policies and procedures we are leading in.
Things that work, that are measurable, and not just things that sound good.
Thank you for the question.
One more to wrap it up, Omari.
Yeah, first, Omari Salisbury, Converged Media.
First and foremost, I want to say thank you These are our daughters, our nieces, our sisters, a lot of times that end up here in North Seattle.
And to our North Seattle friends, thank you for being allowed.
Thank you, Council Member Moore, for leading the charge.
We appreciate that.
Sorry for what you're going through there.
And I just wanted to say here, and in this group of thankfulness, and with all due sincerity, I've never seen the city pull together like this, where we have all three legislative branches, all hands on deck, everything together.
And I just want to know, you know, maybe it's today, tomorrow, you guys let us know, when can we see this as well?
for the south end of Seattle and the Central District in South Seattle for what's going on over there.
Because again, it takes an older city approach for that issue.
And you guys have now proved today, I've never seen this before.
Dan, you the old guy on the seat up there.
I've never seen this before.
You've proved it's now possible to now tell us in the Central District and tell us in South Seattle and other areas that you can work together to solve the issue.
And so I don't know when it's gonna happen, but I hope that it happens soon.
Okay, so let me tell you, thank you Amara for that question.
Let me tell you the first reason why you hear a lot of passion with some of the women that have presented today.
An article came out yesterday about 40% of the women, the children that are being trafficked in our city are black women and they're bought by white men, 70%.
and so these stats are really, you hear the passion from folks that are up here that look like us because of the issues that we're seeing because a lot of those girls are being brought from Rainier Beach, they're being brought in from the Central District, they are being all over the county being brought on Aurora, South King County.
Auburn, Kent, Federal Way, brought to Aurora for this activity.
And so that's why you see a lot of the passion that is behind me running.
And so, okay, exactly.
And then the second, you did.
That's why I said for us to go to Converge.
The second thing, Omari, is that that's why I acknowledged that this is not just an Aurora issue.
This is Rainier Beach.
This is Central District.
this is all the neighborhoods so when I'm in these meetings and I'm going to have conversations with all the branches of government I'm going to make sure that I am elevating Rainier Beach Central District all these folks so we can have a coordinated effort across the city to prevent the gun violence South Seattle is 17 or 13 percent of the population 30 percent of the gun violence Southeast Seattle we know that this is a crisis not just on Aurora you all are seeing it on your front porch right now but this has been going on in the Central District and the South End for years.
And so we understand that and looking forward to working with that.
And I'll let Council Member Juarez say some comments before the mayor.
Thank you, Mayor.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to just, I've got to say this, and thank you, Omari, for the question because we've had these conversations before.
This city is what, 850,000 people?
We represent all of us, the north and the south, not just our base, not just the people who voted for us, but the whole city, the whole damn city.
If we have bullets flying and we have seen it in the south end, now we're seeing it in the north end, more and more and more, Aurora has always been a track, and as you heard from the city attorney and Lisa Manning, where is she, my friend, we know that the track starts from north of Bellingham all the way down to Portland.
But one reason I want to touch on what Council President said and what Erica, my friend Erica, City Attorney Evans, and I'll just say it because it's the truth.
As women of color and working on these issues and having our sisters, our aunties, our cousins lost and no one goes looking for them, they get trafficked.
Now we're not talking about OnlyFans.
We're not talking about cam girls.
This isn't an episode from Pretty Woman.
These are 13 and 14 black and brown girls being sold.
So going back again, not just Aurora and the South and the gun violence, the root of that is these children are a product and we know what social media has done.
It's made it easier.
So we are calling on this city to not just make this, I'm not gonna, you know me, I'm not gonna give you a bunch of government word salad.
It's just bullshit.
It's time we say that women, girls are valuable and we're going to dedicate resources.
And if that means closing down streets and I've seen this city closed down streets for bikes, for pedestrians, for barbecues, for the park, I've seen it.
I've seen actual streets closed off with like a metal barrier like you can't cut through anymore because the neighbors were upset that people were cutting through their neighborhood.
I've watched S-Dot put up bike lanes and curbs.
I've watched them change parking configurations so you can not allow people in cars and RVs to park there.
Doesn't make you a bad person because you don't want 18 RVs in front of your house.
So what I'm getting at and what Council President spoke, and thank you, Omari, for that question because that's the elephant in the room.
We talk about being a progressive city and we all care about our BIPOCs.
Well, this is an issue where you can show that you value us and that's important.
And again, I want to end it again, what I've always say and I've said it many times in council meetings, you can tell and you can value a city, a government, a people about how they treat their women and girls.
That's right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilmember.
Omara, I just want to affirm that every single neighborhood in this city that is experiencing persistent public safety problems deserves this level of coordination and collaboration between our departments, between our branches, between our levels of government.
And we're here committing to this today.
Now it's up to us to follow through, and we know that we will be held accountable in that.
And Rainier Beach deserves this.
And the Central District deserves this.
All the neighborhoods deserve this.
And I'll say that in the work that we have been doing in Rainier Beach over the last months, a lot of this coordination is happening, right?
My office, we are working with council members.
We are working with our city attorney's office.
We are working with our police department.
We are working with community partners.
So we haven't all stood up here like this, but that coordination is happening behind the scenes, and we are committed to doing that better, right?
Because I know that we have a ways to go.
So we are committed to continuing to do that work, and every neighborhood deserves this.
Some of the other speakers have talked about FIFA and sex trafficking during FIFA, and you've all talked very passionately about the need to prevent trafficking of women and girls.
My understanding is not that, I guess my question is, is there any specific evidence that people are going to go to Aurora as opposed to going online during FIFA if there is going to be a spike in sex trafficking?
And what is being done about online sex trafficking during that period?
This might be a better question for our police department.
I'm not aware of specific evidence, but do you want to speak to this, Chief?
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
I'm Nicole Powell, Assistant Chief of Investigation.
So, as you were saying, Erica, with FIFA, we're doing several operations that's going to be both focused on Aurora and online.
Can't get into specifics, but we are addressing those things.
And with that, we have to wrap it up.
Thank you, everyone, for being here.