SEATTLE — A Seattle city leader is calling for a new strategy to curb violence after a deadly shooting downtown last week.
Perhaps it’s an acknowledgement that status quo isn’t good enough.
“This is unfortunately all too common, this crime that is in the downtown core of the city. This is the Third and Pine I've known all my life,” said Seattle City Council newcomer Andrew Lewis.
The 29-year-old represents the downtown Seattle district, which was scarred by a mass shooting on 3rd Ave. on Wednesday. The suspects remain at large, and two victims still sit at Harborview Medical Center.
“This can’t be the way that Third and Pine operates anymore,” he said.
Lewis says the events of last week prompted him to make his first public policy rollout in his new term. He pointed to data, as reported by Crosscut, that the city has already spent $221,000 on “emphasis patrols” along the Pike/Pine corridor or 2,718 additional officer hours in 2019.
“A police presence alone is not going to be sufficient to solve these longterm problems,” Lewis said.
That’s why he’s pitching the city invest in a new 24-hour community storefront in the corridor staffed by community service officers, who are already scheduled to be dispatched in February. The CSOs are non-commissioned officers who do not carry weapons but are trained to mediate non-violent disputes and public safety issues.
The storefront idea has worked in other locations throughout King County, in places like Skyway and White Center.
“It starts by putting a stake in the ground that this can't happen anymore. We need a permanent brick and mortar presence,” he said.
Seattle City Councilmember Lisa Herbold, who chairs the Public Safety & Human Services Committee, was quick to back the proposal on Monday, although the financial terms and location are undetermined.
A spokesperson for Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan responded to the Lewis request stating, "Mayor Durkan appreciates Councilmember Lewis’s commitment to addressing our City’s public safety challenges downtown. The Mayor has had conversations with the Councilmember, residents, and businesses downtown about the need for an increased SPD presence in the Pike/Pine corridor. Downtown, specifically the Pike/Pine corridor, has been a focus of the City’s public safety efforts for months. Last year, the Seattle Police Department focused community-based emphasis patrols downtown and has added thousands of hours in emphasis patrols - that work will continue in the coming weeks and months. In addition to SPD’s emphasis patrols, the recently-added SPD Mobile Precinct will add SPD presence downtown.”
Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best is scheduled to address the Council on the latest with the investigation Tuesday.