The Seattle Police Department (SPD) is doing its best to keep up with a spike in violent crime this summer — or at least that’s the report Chief Kathleen O’Toole recently gave during a press conference that focused mostly on gang activity in the city.
That report came after a whirlwind of shootings, beatings and deaths around Seattle last month. From January to mid-August, shootings were at 252 in the city, significantly higher than the 193 this same time last year. More than 64 people have been struck by gunfire.
While it doesn’t do much to ease the minds of those in neighborhoods that have witnessed these shootings firsthand, the police chief pointed out Seattle is still much safer than a larger city like Chicago, where 1,900 people have been struck by gunfire this summer. That would be the equivalent of more than 450 people here, O’Toole said, in comparison.
And it’s not just Seattle that’s dealing with this uptick in violence in the Puget Sound region, O’Toole said: “It’s not a Seattle problem. It’s not a Kent problem. It’s a regional problem.”
SPD has made removing firearms from the streets one of its top priorities, taking 548 guns out of circulation, so far this year, compared to 380 in 2014.
“Every gun we take off the streets averts a potential tragedy,” O’Toole said.
The Gun Crimes Task Force was created this spring, with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms partnering with SPD. This has provided data on ongoing homicide and shots-fired cases, with a number of firearms being identified through the Integrated Ballistic Identification System and National Integrated Ballistics Information Network.
The Real Time Crime Center is being used daily to analyze data, connect the dots, share information with regional agencies and allocate resources, but police simply can’t predict when a shooting will occur. Right now, SPD is reacting to what it knows and working on partnerships for intervention programs that may prove more fruitful in the future.
During O’Toole’s Aug. 25 press conference, she confirmed most of the violent crimes and homicides are related to ongoing gang activity, highlighting recent arrests of known gang members.
While gangs are targeting other gangs, the people doing the shootings show a complete lack of concern for the time and place for such violent behavior, as demonstrated by the multiple shots fired near The Baltic Room in Capitol Hill last month that resulted in the death of Ramon Mitchell, whom the SPD has tied to a specific gang. It’s remarkable no other people were hit, as many bystanders were around.
Mayor Ed Murray has asked O’Toole to speed up the process for hiring new officers, and the police chief says she thinks SPD is being smarter about the way it uses the staff it has now.
SPD should be applauded for its data-driven resource allocation, for sure, but everyone will still ask where the police are when the next shooting happens.