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By Sarah Goh, UW News Lab/Special to CHS

Tensions over community support for public schools, representation, and spending on police bubbled over in a community meeting on school safety in the wake of shooting incidents at Garfield High School and threats across the school district headed into holiday break.

A meeting organized by the Seattle Police Department’s African American Community Advisory Council and the Garfield parent–teacher association Thursday was hoped to address concerns from recent incidents at the Central District public high school including a shootout after school let out on Thursday, December 2nd that left dozens of shell casings scattered around a school parking lot but fortunately caused no injuries.

Before the meeting could be held, the district was paralyzed by a wave of threats spurred by social media that brought school closures and investigations headed into the two-week winter break.

Victoria Beach, chair of the council organized and funded by SPD, told parents because of the recent push to defund the Seattle Police Department and the loss of many police officers, usual security at Garfield High school has decreased.

“Defunding SPD has taken our police officers down at the school without even asking the kids,” Beach said, “They build relationships with those kids.”

Her comments found some support with attendees saying they wanted to bring back familiar police officers to campus. A SPD officer participating in the meeting said he had been removed from campus and sent back on patrol in the South Precinct.

Police Chief Adrian Diaz took part in the meeting that was held both in-person and online. The chief said he does not have enough police officers to bring school security back at Garfield or other public schools in the city. Diaz said he plans to work with Garfield to bring back campus security, but says in the short term, SPD does not have enough staffing.

In June 2020 in response to ongoing Black Lives Matter protests and following similar actions in districts across the country, the Seattle School Board voted to suspend a partnership that stations five armed police officers at Seattle schools.

Diaz, meanwhile, remains the city’s interim police chief as the previous administration has left it to Mayor-elect Bruce Harrell to make a final decision on who will lead SPD.

Beyond police
Other solutions that center around community and the larger systems at play were also proposed.

“I want to focus on community based solutions,” Garfield PTA president Kayla Epting said, “Parents stepping up and patrolling…mental health resources for kids and addressing the root causes of these issues.”

Garfield Principal Dr. Tarance Hart agreed with Epting.

“There’s a lot of needs that aren’t about security,” Dr. Hart said. “This is a systemic issue, we need to talk about how to solve those issues.”

Hart asked parents and community members to volunteer at Garfield. Once school is dismissed, volunteers are needed to patrol campus during late practices and other school activities. More broadly, he wants students to have mentorship and exposure to different pathways and careers.

Communication and other practical solutions at Garfield was also discussed. Some parents spoke up asking for a better communication system, and better surveillance with improved lighting and hall pass monitoring.

Dr. Hart says a new, security buzzer system has been approved allowing administrators to better monitor who is being let onto campus grounds. He says they are enforcing stricter hall pass rules and are looking into more solutions for communication and security with the limited resources they have.

Social media threats and hoaxes
The serious concerns about gun violence around Garfield have also been mixed with a growing number of pranks and threats driven by social media. Those types of issues at Garfield have been a harbinger for the district. In November, the school was hit with a series of threats that turned out to be unsubstantiated including this November 4th incident.

Last week, SPD investigated a burst of threats across the district including the arrest of a 17-year-old girl for a threat in a hoax that shut down Franklin High School.

Police also investigated a similar threat at Capitol Hill’s Meany Middle School. According to SPD, police were called to the school to investigate reports that a student had brought a gun onto the 20th Ave E campus and threatened to shoot up the school on December 17th. Police say they investigated the reports but determined the story to be unsubstantiated after interviewing “all involved.”

“The incident appears to be associated with a viral Tik-Tok video announcing school shootings throughout the US,” the SPD report on the incident reads.

Chief Diaz, meanwhile, said that these threats and upticks in gun violence are not only a problem in the Central District but rather a citywide, nationwide problem.

“This isn’t just one incident,” Diaz said, “This is impacting our whole city.”

As for the shooting that sparked the meeting, Diaz says SPD is using ballistics to track specific guns used in the shooting. Diaz said that anyone with any information, especially students, would help the investigation by reporting what they saw to SPD.

The Seattle School Board, meanwhile, is also planning to begin 2022 with meetings to “develop both short and long term solutions to these very immediate problems.”

“We hope that this brief respite will provide your family with a bit of peace and we look forward to working with you to address these issues head on in the new year,” board president Brandon Hersey and vice president Chandra Hampson write in their letter to parents and the public schools communities.

The University of Washington News Lab gives advanced journalism students an opportunity to build a dynamic clip portfolio by reporting for any of 70 client news outlets in the greater Seattle area. CHS is proud to work with young journalists and feature their work. You can learn more here.

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Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.