We should not live in fear of being shot by a gun in our homes or community. Sadly, that has become common across Seattle, as we have experienced recently in our neighborhoods along North Aurora Avenue. The level of gun-related violence and death from firearms is unacceptable. We live in a country where people have easy access to guns and sadly this violence, as we have recently experienced, erupted the past week off Aurora Ave N. We are feeling the weight of these past few weeks alongside our community.
To put our ongoing public safety challenges in perspective, Seattle’s population is approximately 801,200 people, an 8.5% increase since 2020. In 2020, the Seattle Police Department (SPD) had approximately 1,203 available and deployable sworn officers. Today, we only have approximately 861 available and deployable sworn officers citywide — this is a 29% reduction, with only one police precinct to cover 1/3 of the city (north Seattle) with approximately 250,000 residents. In sum, as our population has increased, our public safety services unfortunately, have not. This is a sobering fact. These circumstances contribute to the limitation of SPD’s ability to respond.
In spite of this public safety landscape, our office continues to work with the Mayor’s Office, SPD, Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) Department, City Attorney’s Office, and other city departments.
Our staff, as residents in the district, have been working over the past year to secure interventions and supports for these neighborhoods along Aurora Avenue N from N 85th St to N 145th St. We have been:
- Meeting with SPD and CARE leadership to be briefed on current operations
- Partnering with City Attorney’s Office and King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office to explore more ways to address sex trafficking
- Advocating at the state level for an increase in penalty for Johns
- Securing funding to complete a plan to leverage $50 million in state funding along the Aurora corridor North Aurora Initiative (formerly Northern Lights)
- Meeting with concerned North Aurora neighbors
Working with the Mayor’s Office, who directs city departments like the SPD, we have the following information to share:
- SPD is actively intensifying its investigative work and operational response to disrupt violent crime and remove illegal guns from North Aurora Ave. SPD recently implemented an organizational restructuring to strategically align their Community Response Group and the Intelligence Unit, enabling enhanced intelligence sharing and coordinated investigations.
- Officers are also utilizing advanced tools like the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) to trace recovered firearm casings from the recent crime scenes, such as those between 95th and 105th, and link shootings across jurisdictions. While Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) technology is temporarily offline, until at least late July due to mandatory software updates to meet state geofencing laws (SB 6002), detectives are leveraging alternative investigative resources to build prosecutable cases and collaborate with specialized teams like the Human Trafficking Unit.
- Simultaneously, operations are underway along Aurora Avenue. Nora Sector officers and a dedicated emphasis car are working to make Aurora specific contacts, enforcement, and arrests, actively targeting trafficking and drug use. Additionally, the SPD Project Officer is working closely with city cleanup teams to address encampments, graffiti, and neighborhood maintenance to restore safety and community wellbeing. These efforts are being supported by Parking and Traffic enforcement, the Community Response Group, Community Service Officers (CSOs), and CARE teams making contacts when possible.
As always, I encourage District 5 residents to keep sharing updates with my office (Debora.Juarez@seattle.gov). I also recommend reaching out directly to the Seattle Mayor’s Office and the Seattle Police Department to voice your concerns and urge action.
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