It was a bad weekend in Seattle.

There were three separate shootings in the city over the Labor Day weekend, which resulted in three people dead and four people wounded. Among the dead was a 17 year old who was killed in the Belltown neighborhood, not far from where tourists were disembarking from cruise ships.

NEW: One of the most violent Labor Day weekends in Seattle history is getting worse. Three murders and seven people shot in the city’s busiest corridors.
No sign of socialist Mayor Katie Wilson.
Like I said, avoid Seattle if at all possible. https://t.co/gapWMcX9m1

— Jonathan Choe (@choeshow) September 7, 2026

Where was Mayor Katie Wilson? Well, she’s busy avoiding everything. She took her child to a picket line in order to brush up her socialist street cred. Street safety? Murders? Shootings? Why should Katie Wilson worry about that when there are workers of the world to unite!

NEW: After a weekend murder spree, socialist Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson should be consoling victims and reassuring neighbors about public safety.
Instead she is standing with her comrades protesting a hotel.
The far-left activist inside Wilson is clouding her judgement. https://t.co/b1Y5XaE7YH

— Jonathan Choe (@choeshow) September 7, 2026

Katie Wilson has a whole lot that she’s carefully avoiding right now. Local media has gotten a hold of her office’s text messages from the day a gang shooting took place at the Bite of Seattle festival that resulted in three people dead. After that mass shooting, Wilson fired the police chief, Shon Barnes, apparently in order to look like she was “tough” or something. Barnes has since given an interview stating that since he was out of town, he was operationally out of the loop of information, and that delays on the ground were not his call, though he was able to be reached.

According to Barnes, he still doesn’t know why Wilson asked him to step aside.

“I will let her answer that question. But what I can tell you is, I was not provided any explanation other than she wanted my resignation, which leads me to believe that most mayors, hey, they want to pick their own police chief. When we first met, I knew that was the case, but she said on three separate occasions that she thought, or that she said that she was going to keep me. I assumed that we were going to move forward,” he explained.

Asked again if he’s been given an explanation, Barnes said, “We did not have that conversation.”

Remember, Katie Wilson has been mayor for only eight months. It should be obvious to everyone that she is in deep over her head, and the text messages show that she’s simply doing what her staff is telling her to do – and they’re workshopping it on the fly.

Within minutes, Wilson’s staff knew they were potentially dealing with a mass shooting. Yet the communications show Wilson’s senior aides, rather than Wilson herself, repeatedly debating how the mayor and her administration should respond publicly.

At 6:36 pm, one staffer noted, “Mayors have historically shown up to mass shooting scenes when they stabilize FYI. Just wouldn’t want to draw a comparison.”

Another responded, “The stabilization part is the key.”

Hours later, as aides debated whether Wilson should appear at Seattle Center or Harborview Medical Center, one pleaded, “I reaaaaaaally think the mayor should go down there.”

Another pushed back: “What’s the point? Harborview, where victim’s families are, makes more sense, and I’m not sure that makes sense.”

The aide then disparaged the media while arguing against Wilson going to the scene. “Media aren’t looking for an in-depth conversation about gang violence, they’re looking for sound bites,” the message said. “Good time for the Mayor to be letting first responders do their jobs and not be armchair quarterbacking.”

Wilson’s own texts also reveal concern over media optics. As KOMO News reporter Chris Daniels tried to reach her, Wilson told staff, “Chris Daniel’s is calling me, fyi,” then said KOMO was reporting that she and City Council members were expected at Seattle Center. “We should consider whether I should come down to talk to KOMO, if that expectation has been created,” Wilson wrote. “I’m sure they would love to spin an ‘absent mayor’ story.”

Rather than decide to go, Wilson again asked her aides what she should do. Deputy Mayor Brian Surratt responded, “I’m inclined to have you come down.” Another staffer agreed.

Wilson then asked whether her Executive Protection Unit should pick her up immediately or whether she should wait until after an internal briefing. “Wait until you’ve finished this briefing so you can say you’ve been briefed and provide accurate information,” Public Safety Director Alison Holcomb told her.

Later, after officials learned SPD planned a media appearance, Holcomb wrote, “SPD is doing media at 9:45. I’ve let them know Mayor needs to be part of it. They’re working on it.”

Wilson again asked for direction: “Ok so I should call EPU and head down now?”

“Yes, get EPU and go,” Holcomb responded.

This presser is the one that turned into a disaster as local media ripped apart the mayor for the lack of information and the massive delays involved. That 9:45 pm presser was delayed so “dignitaries” could arrive, and pushed back until 10:45 pm, which was more than five hours after the mass shooting took place. Katie Wilson has been dealing with the fallout ever since, and firing the police chief didn’t help. Which is why, after a weekend in Seattle with three murders and four wounded, the mayor was using her child as a human shield on the picket line, while she sent out the interim police chief, Andre Sayles, to talk to the local media on Monday. And he promptly made headlines for a different reason.

So in Seattle we aren't calling them "shooters" anymore? Now they are "trigger pullers"? pic.twitter.com/fiYvVMYpQO

— Ari Hoffman (@thehoffather) September 7, 2026

Insert facepalm here.

“Working with business owners and increasing patrols, bike patrols, working with our community response group and our gun violence reduction unit as well,” said Andre T. Sayles, Interim Chief of the Seattle Police Department.

“Looking at ways to where we can identify individuals that are known, we call them ‘trigger pullers’ in our community,” he continued, “identifying them, making sure that we’re putting cases on those individuals, working with the King County prosecutor’s office to bring these individuals to justice for the families that lost loved ones throughout this year and years past.”

Look, I’ll give interim Chief Sayles a sprinkling of grace here. He’s not talking about looking for a specific suspect for a specific crime, he’s looking at individuals who are “known” to police because they either have a record, have a warrant, have a gang affiliation, and are looking to start some shit in the city. But that’s about all the grace I can spare after three people are killed, and this is supposed to be a press conference about public safety. The suspects from the weekend’s shooting are still at large, police have no idea who to be looking for, and Sayles is trying to euphemistically sugar coat the city’s decline by calling criminals “trigger pullers.”

There’s a reason Katie Wilson’s approval numbers are in the toilet less than a year into her job. Zohran Mamdani, for his part, oozes a snake oil salesman type of charisma that at least comes off well on camera most of the time. Katie Wilson looks like the Temu version of Lilith from “Cheers” with about the same amount of warmth, and none of the wit or brains. And unless a recall effort actually sticks, Seattle is stuck with this incompetent who is LARPing as mayor for another three and a half years. I would say that the city deserves it, but if “trigger pullers” are running amok with no one to actually enforce the law, then it’s not just the city that is screwed – it’s anyone who dares to set foot there, and there is a bleed-over effect in the area at large.

Featured image via LioPhotography on Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license