Mayor Wilson will have a new Chief of Police — and a new rift with the Seattle City Council

Barnes at the Law Enforcement Torch Run for Special Olympics (Image: SPD)

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson has announced a letter of resignation from Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes following his response to the deadly shootings at Seattle Center and criticism that the chief was, once again, out of town during a major emergency in the city.

The maneuverings come despite pushback from a group of Seattle civil rights organizations, community advocates, clergy members, and leaders in the city’s Black communities calling for the mayor to retain the chief. The change now represents a new rift between the mayor and Seattle City Council and its leader Joy Hollingsworth.

In the announcement, Wilson thanked Barnes for his service and acknowledged the department’s efforts under his tenure.

“I am proud of the work we have done, believe in the direction the city is headed, and have full confidence that the department will achieve success in tackling its most urgent public safety challenge, addressing youth gun violence and preventing more tragedies,” Wilson said. “That work is too important, and Seattle deserves nothing less.”

Deputy Chief Andre Sayles was named interim chief while the city prepares a search for a permanent successor.

Originally appointed by Mayor Bruce Harrell in late 2024, the veteran law enforcement leader continued to serve Seattle as Wilson opted to stick with Barnes as she took office last year despite uncertainty about the chief.

During her campaign, Wilson had been highly critical of Harrell and Barnes for not including more of the city’s departments and leadership in its approach to important and long-running challenges like gun violence, pointing at more inclusive approaches that have been successful in other cities like Baltimore and Milwaukee.

Wilson has championed efforts like the city’s CARE crisis responders and said she would clear the ways CARE has been “systematically undermined” by SPD.

Barnes, the former Madison, Wisconsin chief hired to lead SPD as it operates without federal oversight for the first time in more than a decade, represented organizational stability after the troubled leadership of dismissed chief Adrian Diaz. Barnes had overseen progress in what officials have said is a reversal of SPD’s hiring challenges and a department trying to grow its ranks from just under 1,000 officers on patrol in 2022 to nearly 1,500 by 2027.

But the Seattle Center blunders weren’t the only problems along the way. Barnes contributed to his exit with with incidents like the bumbled promotion of a new commander in the East Precinct, May 2025’s policing debacle around the anti-trans Christian rally that led to a police crackdown on counter-protesters in Cal Anderson Park, his continued deployment of “directed patrols” as part of abatement efforts at the Denny Blaine Park nude beach, and the chief’s rejected push to station a police officer inside Garfield High School.

In the end, the Bite of Seattle shootings were the chief’s undoing. While Publicola first reported last summer that Barnes spends most of his weekends out of the city visiting with his family in Chicago or attending conferences, his absence as the city responded to another emergency without its police department leader at the helm put Barnes on the defensive and had the chief lashing out, literally, at media.

Hollingsworth has been a strong supporter of Barnes, praising his integrity and leadership. In 2025 as Wilson took office, the current Seattle City Council president, alongside downtown business leaders, advocated for the new mayor to retain Chief Barnes to ensure department stability after years of executive turnover.

Despite his resignation, Hollingsworth said this week she had full confidence in his capacity to head the department.

“We stand with community members who came forward today to express their support for Chief Barnes and the work he has been doing,” Hollingsworth said in a joint statement with Councilmembers Dan Strauss, Debora Juarez, and Bob Kettle. “We are disappointed to see his departure and thank him for his service.”

Wilson will now lead a search for a replacement with a plan for public safety in Seattle closer to her own vision for the city.

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