From Newsgroup: alt.law-enforcement

I'm a retired police manager. The points raised in this are very
fair and valid. Especially:
"But Calkins made a point that reframes this. A chiefrCOs first job is to train subordinates so the operation runs when the chief is away. Chiefs
get to take breaks. They get to have surgery. They get to go on
vacation. What they donrCOt get to do is leave a department that canrCOt communicate with the public during a mass casualty event."
DO BETTER!

from
https://mynorthwest.com/kiro-opinion/bite-of-seattle-shooting-2/4260960

Harger: Three people are dead at the Bite of Seattle. A two-year-old was
shot. The city deserved better than what came next
Jul 28, 2026, 6:45 AM

bite of seattle dead two-year-old shot...
The U.S. flag flies at half staff as cleanup continues at the Space
Needle the day after a shooting at Seattle Center during the Bite of
Seattle food festival, Monday, July 27, 2026. (Photo: Lindsey Wasson,
The Associated Press)
7
BY CHARLIE HARGER
Host, Seattle's Morning News
Do better.

Two words. Because this is a city that deserves answers, and clarity,
and transparency. And right now, werCOre not getting that.

It was a beautiful day in Seattle. The Bite of Seattle, by all accounts,
had been uneventful. Hundreds of thousands of people from around the
region. Good food, the Seattle Center, families. A summer Sunday in one
of the most beautiful cities in America.

And then gunfire broke out. People died rCo three of them.

Police now say at least two people were shooting at each other in the
middle of Seattle Center, in broad daylight, surrounded by families. A 19-year-old man, who investigators believe was one of the shooters, was
killed at the scene. A 44-year-old man was killed. A 56-year-old woman
died at Harborview after surgery.

Two innocent people, dead in a crossfire they had nothing to do with.

Four others, including a two-year-old boy, were shot. A toddler. It was
so bad you can hear it on the dispatch audio, someone asking for a
tourniquet small enough for a child that age. Witnessed by hundreds. The immediate aftermath shared by thousands, if not millions, online. Blood
on the ground. Vendors abandoned their booths. Shoes left behind as
people ran. A fence knocked down by the crowd trying to get out.

Last month, Seattle celebrated its first murder-free June in more than
50 years. I wrote about it. I praised the department. I praised the
trend. Twenty-six days later, three people are dead at the Seattle
Center, and a toddler is in the hospital.

The first question in a mass shooting is simple. It took five hours to
answer
Bob Calkins is a retired Washington State Patrol public information
officer. HerCOs spent a career handling crisis communications for one of
the staterCOs largest law enforcement agencies. He posted an analysis of
the cityrCOs response on Facebook.

The first thing Calkins pointed out is that a mass shooting always
begins with a simple, two-part question: was this a random shooter
targeting people indiscriminately, or was this a confrontation between
armed individuals shooting at each other? The answer to that question determines whether every bar, restaurant, and grocery store in the city
needs to close. Whether thererCOs an ongoing threat to the public, or
whether the immediate danger has passed.

You donrCOt need five hours to figure that out. Officers on the scene knew
the answer long before anyone shared it.

Instead, nearby residents didnrCOt know what was happening. Was this an ongoing threat? Had it been neutralized? The people whose job it is to
provide direct, clear information to the public were not providing it.

rCyWhat you know, as you know it.rCO ThatrCOs the standard. SPD didnrCOt meet it
In a Facebook post, Calkins laid out the basic rule of crisis
communication: share what you know, as you know it. The operative word
is rCLknow.rCY You canrCOt guess or speculate. That requires discipline. But you also donrCOt need to know everything before you say anything. Do we
know the caliber of the guns? No. Detectives will figure that out. But
you can tell a terrified public whether the threat is ongoing, and you
can do it in minutes, not hours.

The Seattle Police Department (SPD) has had this problem before. Calkins
said the agency has excellent public information officers, but a history
of detectives lowering a cone of silence over major incidents while they
sort out details that the public doesnrCOt need immediately. The nuts and bolts can wait. Whether your family is safe cannot.

Someone decided to hold the information. The question is who
Much of that delay, it turns out, was connected to dignitaries wanting
to be present at the briefing. Governor Bob Ferguson. Congresswoman
Pramila Jayapal.

A police public information officer told reporters waiting outside the
Museum of Pop Culture that the delay was to wait for dignitaries to
arrive. Mayor Wilson denied it at MondayrCOs press conference, saying she
was at a different location with Ferguson and Jayapal, waiting for SPD
to clear the nearby IMAX theater after reports a second suspect may have
run inside.

rCLAs soon as we coordinated with SPD and agreed that it was time to talk
to the media, as soon as we knew that we were going to be doing that, I, Governor Ferguson and Congresswoman Jayapal arrived on the scene within minutes,rCY Wilson said.

Those two accounts donrCOt match. Somebody is wrong, and the public
deserves to know who.

I suspect Ferguson and Jayapal would have wanted SPD to hold a press
briefing about whether there was a public threat sooner than five hours
after the shooting, and would have wanted to be present for a fuller
press conference later in the evening. I donrCOt believe theyrCOd want critical safety information held back so they could stand in the
background giving statements about how awful this is and what a great
response there was.

But Calkins raised something that is a concern. Governor FergusonrCOs
office requires state agencies to get media releases approved before
they go out. Axios reported earlier this year that this policy has
produced real delays inside state agencies, with one former
communications manager calling it rCLgruelingrCY and a rCLcontinual barrier.rCY
Calkins, who worked under Governor InsleerCOs communications team for
years, says that team routinely trusted the expertise of agency PIOs.
They didnrCOt sit on information. They didnrCOt require approval before
facts could reach the public.

If Mayor Wilson has adopted a similar approval requirement for city
agencies, that would explain the five-hour vapor lock. It would mean
SPDrCOs public information officers, people who know how to do this job,
were muzzled by the higher-ups. This is a question that demands answers.

There is a time for elected leaders to speak. Sympathy. Empathy. Policy. Resources. rCLWe are Seattle strong.rCY But as Calkins pointed out, that
press conference doesnrCOt have to delay the release of basic safety information. In fact, it probably shouldnrCOt happen at the same press conference at all. A worried restaurant owner trying to decide whether
to close for the night doesnrCOt need your empathy statement. They need to know whether thererCOs a gunman loose.

The chief wasnrCOt in town. The real question is why his people werenrCOt ready Chief Shon Barnes wasnrCOt in Seattle when the shooting happened. He said Monday he had a medical procedure on Friday that took him out of town. ThatrCOs a legitimate reason to be away, and IrCOll take him at his word.

But Calkins made a point that reframes this. A chiefrCOs first job is to
train subordinates so the operation runs when the chief is away. Chiefs
get to take breaks. They get to have surgery. They get to go on
vacation. What they donrCOt get to do is leave a department that canrCOt communicate with the public during a mass casualty event.

Barnes went through a mass shooting at his previous department. With
that experience, he should have been training his people and setting expectations long before Sunday. The five-hour silence suggests that
training either didnrCOt happen or didnrCOt stick.

And when South Seattle Emerald reporter Connor Nash asked Barnes about
his absence after todayrCOs press conference, Barnes got in his face.
Inches away. On camera. KOMO recorded it.

rCLI donrCOt have to tell you where I go,rCY Barnes said. rCLI have been here working as hard as I can for this city from the day I got here.rCY


His own staff had to intervene, pushing him toward the door.

It was a fair question. Nash is a journalist doing his job. The question
of whether the chief was in town when three people were killed, and a
toddler was shot, is exactly the kind of question reporters are supposed
to ask, and chiefs are supposed to answer. Calmly. Professionally. With
the weight of the office in mind.

And it raises another question that preceded this incident. Does Barnes
have a full-time residence in Seattle? The word is his family still
lives in Chicago, that Barnes keeps an apartment here and heads back on weekends and for extended stretches. That deserves a straight answer.

RELATED STORIES
'Something's not right': Gee questions why it took 17 hours to confirm
second shooter at Bite of Seattle
Bite of Seattle shooting victims identified as police investigate
possible gang connection, gunman still at large
'Crickets from city leaders': KIRO reporter blasts 5-hour silence after
Bite of Seattle shooting

Why canrCOt you just say what this was?

As of MondayrCOs press conference, police have confirmed this appears to
be gang-related. At least two people, possibly three, were exchanging
gunfire at the Seattle Center in front of families and children.

So why couldnrCOt that have been said Sunday night? Why leave people
wondering for hours whether thererCOs some ongoing mystery threat, when investigators on the scene could see what this was?

Telling the public what happened, clearly and promptly, is the most
basic function of crisis communication. You donrCOt need five hours and a governor to do it. You need someone in a uniform looking into a camera
and saying: This is what we know, this is what werCOre doing, and this is
what you need to do right now.

This was an epic communication failure
The officers who responded to the scene did their jobs. The firefighters
and medics who treated the wounded did their jobs. The people
responsible for telling the public what was happening failed them.

IrCOve covered this city for decades. IrCOve praised this department when it earned it, including last month. IrCOll praise it again when it earns it again. But the communication failures here point to a leadership problem
that existed before the first shot was fired.

Seattle just showed the world its best face for the World Cup. Two weeks later, three people are dead at a food festival, and a two-year-old was hospitalized, and the people in charge couldnrCOt figure out how to tell
us what happened for five hours.

Do better.

Charlie Harger is the host of rCLSeattlerCOs Morning NewsrCY on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here.
Follow Charlie on X and email him here.






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