Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is rolling out new public safety communication practices for the Mayor’s Office and Seattle Police Department (SPD).
The move comes after criticism of how emergency communications were handled during the Bite of Seattle festival shooting. An independent review is currently investigating the city’s emergency response and public safety communications following that incident.
The new practices include:
- Clear communication roles when SPD leads and when the Mayor’s Office participates
- Transparent public updates through AlertSeattle, social media channels and media briefings
- Expectation of providing information to the media within one hour of a significant incident, when it’s safe and possible to do so
- Coordinated staffing to ensure on-call command and communications personnel are always identified
- Pre-event coordination between SPD and Mayor’s Office, including SPD briefs on activation plans, command structure and communication leads and Mayor’s Office providing policy, operational and communications contacts for events
“Interim (Seattle Police) Chief (Andre) Sayles and I have updated how we and our staff communicate,” Wilson wrote in a statement. “Going forward, we will be in direct contact during any significant event.”
Wilson’s office says the updated practices will clarify roles, expectations and coordination between SPD and the Mayor’s Office so there is no confusion or miscommunication.
KIRO 7 asked Mayor Wilson how these practices differed from those already in place.
“First of all, the public deserves clear, fast communication during emergencies. We fell short of that during the Bight of Seattle tragedy, so we are fixing it,” she said. “So we have been doing some work over the past few weeks to really strengthen our communications protocols within our teams and between SPD and my office to make sure that those gaps in communication do not happen moving forward.”
Wilson said that some of this was about “re-emphasizing” certain protocols and making sure that everyone is fully trained on them.
The new protocols will be in place for all major events moving forward, including at Bumbershoot this weekend.