Seattle police cameras could soon spread to more neighborhoods, keeping an eye over streets in the Capitol Hill nightlife area, around Garfield High School and in the stadium district.
A proposal headed to the Seattle City Council next month would allow the Police Department to expand where it uses surveillance cameras that are monitored by civilian analysts at the Real Time Crime Center with the goal of tracking suspects and collecting evidence.
Advocates for the cameras, including Mayor Bruce Harrell, see the Real Time Crime Center and the surveillance cameras as a “force multiplier” that will help officers become more efficient at fighting crime. However, critics point to privacy concerns and fret over how President Donald Trump’s administration could seek access to Seattle’s technology.
The cameras are currently installed along North Aurora Avenue, in the downtown Third Avenue corridor and near 12th Avenue and Jackson Street in the Chinatown International District. Harrell proposed upgrading and expanding the Real Time Crime Center, which opened in 2015, to bolster a Police Department that has seen an exodus of officers and challenges recruiting new ones. The City Council gave him $1.8 million to deploy the first 65 surveillance cameras in the three “crime hot spots.”
Gun violence around Garfield High and on Capitol Hill have prompted public safety concerns, and cameras in the stadium district aim to provide security during the FIFA World Cup games that Seattle will host next spring.
During a City Council public safety committee meeting Tuesday, residents worried about expanding the center in light of Trump’s announcement Monday that he would take over law enforcement in Washington, D.C. Trump cited a false “crime emergency” in D.C., where crime has fallen in recent years.
During Monday’s announcement, Trump suggested he would move into other cities, listing familiar Democratic targets: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago. Though unnamed, Seattle has frequently been a target of his ire, and in 2020 he threatened to send in the National Guard in response to the Capitol Hill Organized Protest.
Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck argued the council should not push for expanding the program without learning whether it’s effective.
“Why are we as a city eroding the trust of the people and oversurveilling our constituents in the face of a federal government that continues to push against our civil liberties?” she asked.
The Office of Inspector General for Public Safety is working with a crime lab at the University of Pennsylvania to evaluate the Real Time Crime Center during its first two years of operation.
“The arguments made are as if we’re a jurisdiction in some red state, red county America,” said Councilmember Robert Kettle. “We built in different protections, and we have different laws.”
The public safety committee amended the bill so cameras would be installed only on the arterial streets surrounding Garfield High School and the Police Department would annually report if a subpoena or court order has been used to obtain crime center data.
The Trump administration has shown little restraint in using federal databases against undocumented immigrants and has overtly attacked political enemies online and in person. Police Chief Shon Barnes has repeatedly stated he is keen to prevent federal overreach by Trump into his department.
The full City Council will weigh in on the expansion proposal Sept. 2.
Seattle Times staff reporter Mike Carter contributed to this story.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
