Ten--count them-- ten SPD officers managed to break up this "organized" criminal operation, and recovered "three pairs of children’s shoes ($26 a pair), beanies ($7 each), cologne ($10), two sweatshirts (at $30 each, the highest-value items stolen), and a pet toy (price unknown)." 🙄

Seattle Spent Thousands on "Organized Retail Theft" Operation at Marshall's, Arresting Five and Recovering $400 in Merchandise The operation involved at least 10 officers and suspects were jailed for up to a week for stealing knit caps, sweatshirts, and a pet toy. publicola.com/2025/10/14/s...

Banishment Orders and Mandatory Addiction Assessments Haven't Helped Drug Users, Court Records Show The city now sends public drug users to jail and releases them after a brief assessment, dropping charges if they avoid arrest for 60 days. This costly approach appears to be ineffective.

Who do we mean when we say “Black Seattle”? This mayoral race isn’t about personalities—it’s about whether symbolism becomes substance. What do “seats at the table” mean if the rest of us go hungry? My latest column for the @soseaemerald.bsky.social

NEW: After paying for hotel rooms to shelter homeless people, Seattle deliberately left them vacant. By the end of 2024, taxpayers were spending $4,200 a month per empty room at a time when thousands of residents were without a roof over their heads.

Seattle voters, this is an important read! Take this into consideration when you vote for our next mayor. My personal view is that we need a mayor who will stay present and dogged in the pursuit of addressing our housing crisis.

This is fantastic local journalism 👏

Harrell repeatedly accusing Katie of dishonesty is offensive. I hope these moderators do their job.

For the love of god PLEASE no one do this.

This SDOT contract was first reported in the @soseaemerald.bsky.social I believe: southseattleemerald.org/voices/2025/....

Way to go @glentalk.bsky.social! “An independent journalist, Glen Stellmacher, requested some of the logs detailing Sinderman’s key card access to City Hall earlier this year and shared them with The Seattle Times after the newspaper published a Sept. 7 story about Sinderman.”

I continue to hear myths in Seattle about people moving here to be homeless, despite studies to the contrary, the obvious link to rising housing costs, and many heartbreaking stories like those Brian shares. Most homeless people in Seattle were housed in Seattle and we should not accept it.

No reason to fear the wrath of someone who will be out of power soon.

It's so exhausting to hear people talk all the time about how jail, loss of housing, or constant check-ins with a judge serve as great "accountability" tools when one of the most successful forms of accountability is peer accountability that doesn't have the threat of punishment behind it.

Duh

"I just want to say, go birds, fuck ICE and free Palestine," "Hacks" star Hannah Einbinder at the #Emmys

Notice what Westneat won't examine: How Harrell's corporate-friendly policies are working out. Cut tenant assistance ✅ Eliminated shelter beds ✅ Diverted housing funds ✅ But sure, *Wilson's* plans are "unrealistic" 🧵3/3 www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

Several retirements coming to the Washington Supreme Court. In addition to Justice Yu, there are two others that will have to retire in the coming years due to the constitution’s age limit. Justice Yu - 2025 (per article ⬇️ ) Justice Johnson - 2026 (turning 75) Justice Madsen - 2027 (turning 75)

NEW // Seattle Council Greenlights Police Surveillance Expansion, Ignoring Community Objections By Amy Sundberg via @theurbanist.org // 🔗 www.theurbanist.org/2025/09/11/s...

Harrell's repeated insistence that opponents have no right to criticize his policy priorities shows that he's on the defensive. It also highlights the tendency among this mayor and this city council to express high umbrage at the dissent their dissatisfied constituents have every right to express.

Bruce Harrell could have used resources to address homelessness and crime. Instead, he has wasted that money pushing both around the Seattle. Now a kid was shot in my neighborhood. Whose neighborhood will suffer next? Elect Katie Wilson. rondezvouswa.com/p/crime-comi...

They're looking at you to keep you safe, even if research shows it won't keep you safe. More on a vibes-based conservative council here. www.thestranger.com/news/2025/09...

While Trump is using data from local govs for its mass kidnappings (including data from Washington public agencies, which aren't supposed to cooperate), Seattle just voted to put up hundreds of cameras. Nelson, Rivera, Saka, Juarez, and Solomon won't even vote to require evidence that it works.

Seattle City Council: “Don’t worry, Trump doesn’t want our surveillance data.” Trump:

The pattern is always the same: 1. Manufacture urgency (FIFA! Trump!) 2. Promise "safeguards" 3. Rush through despite opposition 4. Normalize permanent surveillance Seattle just followed the playbook perfectly. 🧵 www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

The most generous interpretation of CM Juarez’s take is that (1) she personally doesn’t think Trump will access the surveillance data that Seattle is planning to collect, (2) it’s worth the risk of that happening to solve crimes, and (3) it’s “privileged” to be concerned about (1) occurring.

“Not worrying about a data breach is how you get a data breach.” 🎯

Thank god Katie will be mayor.

Cannot be overstated how deeply wrong this is. Apple Health access for immigrants in Washington is one of the things that makes our state great. Now, a public service that’s supposed to protect health and safety could cause devastating consequences for thousands of people in our community.

Providing sanctuary protection for people targeted by the federal government requires extreme vigilance in how local governments collect and maintain information about their residents. Shield laws are well intentioned, but authoritarians like Trump are not going to be deterred by them.

Local and state governments have to operate from the premise that data they collect about their residents will inevitably fall into the hands of ICE. To do otherwise is naive and reckless.

I’ve only gotten through the Intro to Copaganda and it is a must read, especially us working in local gov’t and politics. Extra: follow the author in real time ⬇️ to unpack the media’s propping up of our ‘punishment bureaucracy’. It’s important to see how we can actually create safety for all.

This book rules

Are you a human being, and not a car? Would you like your health, safety, and quality of life to be more important than someone else’s money? Vote @wilsonforseattle.bsky.social in November.

😬 “Sinderman was paid $50,000 during the transition period, then $52,000 for the rest of 2022. That rose to $58,000 in 2023 and $67,000 in 2024. Those … were just below the thresholds that would require a city consulting contract to be advertised for competition — in 2024, the limit was $67,000.”

Good thing our next mayor can just not install the cameras!

“Once surveillance data is collected, it is notoriously challenging to protect against federal misuse…Department of Homeland Security and ICE have successfully accessed data from the Washington Healthcare Authority and the Washington Department of Licensing. Seattle should not line up to be next.”

Any city official supporting this surveillance expansion should never be taken seriously again if they talk about "Trump proofing" Seattle

If you are okay with this, if you think this is justified, if you think people living on the street have brought this upon themselves, if you think this is good leadership, you may be able to fool yourself that you care about others but you don’t fool me

To hell with this until the end of time

If data from the DOL were hacked and used for financial crimes, Washingtonians could file a multimillion dollar class action. When ICE accesses data from the DOL and uses it to target people for deportation, the result is not the same. Time for civil penalties that would fund immigration defense.

WTF indeed

See below for an example of the many ways criminal law in Washington state is authoritarian and regressive. Another example: in 1993, Washington became the first state in the country to enact a 3-strikes law. And it’s still on the books.

Today’s Executive Order creating a *nationwide* military “quick reaction force” and setting up an online portal to permit random fascist vigilantes to join soldiers is one of the scariest things I’ve seen in U.S. politics in my adult life. Why is it not getting more attention?

With cash bail in the news, it’s a good time to highlight that the United States is one of only two countries in the world that have a for-profit cash bail system. The other is the Philippines.