Harrell last week in Seattle’s Real Time Crime Center (Image: City of Seattle)
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell is proposing legislation that would bring Seattle Police Department surveillance cameras to Capitol Hill’s Pike/Pine nightlife district.
CHS first reported on the plan in December as Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess included the proposal during a public safety meeting with the neighborhood’s business community sparked by ongoing challenges around street crime and drug use around the Broadway-Pike/Pine core and Cal Anderson Park.
Last week in a press conference to tout the success of SPD’s Real Time Crime Center, Harrell’s office said the mayor backs an expansion of a pilot program that already has cameras along Aurora Ave, 3rd Ave, and in the International District to include areas around Cal Anderson and Pike/Pine.
The mayor’s office is also backing expansion of the 24×7 surveillance program to include the area around Garfield High School where the city and the district are spending thousands on security upgrades and community services to counter deadly gun violence that has marred the campus.
Garfield is also being considered for a pilot program beginning this fall that would pay for a Seattle Police School Engagement Officer on the campus.
The Harrell administration says it recently proposed legislation to the Seattle City Council that would expand “the geographic areas where City CCTV cameras can be installed, including public streets and sidewalks around Garfield and Nova High Schools, the Capitol Hill Nightlife District, and the SODO Stadium Area,” according to a statement from City Hall.
“The legislation also authorizes the RTCC to view and record SDOT traffic cameras at select intersections and along major arterial roads in the city,” the mayor’s office adds.
(Image: City of Seattle)
The proposed expansion comes as Harrell and new SPD Chief Shon Barnes touted the early success of the RTCC and the pilot creating the new SPD surveillance system combining Closed-Circuit Television Camera systems above the city’s streets with “real-time crime center” software.after only two months of operation.
The city says the new system “integrates various video and data streams for enhanced analysis and investigation of crime incidents.”
Since its launch on May 20, the upgraded center has played a role in investigating 600 reported incidents and was currently supporting 90 active criminal investigations, officials said last week.
According to the city, RTCC analysts provide patrol officers and detectives with incident details, video images, and other relevant information, “often as incidents are happening.”
“RTCC analysts can communicate directly with officers in the field via police radio channels,” the city says. “During a recent gun violence incident near Aurora Avenue North, RTCC analysts used CCTV cameras to observe the shooting suspect, send an image of the suspect to responding patrol officers, and then advise officers of the escape route that the offender was taking.”
SPD first rolled out the RTCC in 2015 funded through a $411,000 Department of Justice grant. The mayor hasn’t put a public price tag on the new upgraded capabilities of Seattle’s RTCC or the proposed surveillance camera expansions. The addition of the initial set of Aurora, 3rd Ave, and ID cameras was reported as $1.8 million.
“Our Real Time Crime Center is already proving to be a vital tool in solving crimes and improving public safety across the city, supporting hundreds of investigations and accountability for dangerous offenders,” Harrell said in a statement. “By investing in and leveraging evidence-based technology, we’re giving our officers the resources they need to respond effectively while ensuring these tools are used responsibly and with strong safeguards. Public safety remains our top priority, and this initiative shows our commitment to creating safer neighborhoods for everyone in Seattle.”
“Our Real Time Crime Center is already proving to be a vital tool in solving crimes and improving public safety across the city, supporting hundreds of investigations and accountability for dangerous offenders,” said Mayor Harrell. “By investing in and leveraging evidence-based technology, we’re giving our officers the resources they need to respond effectively while ensuring these tools are used responsibly and with strong safeguards. Public safety remains our top priority, and this initiative shows our commitment to creating safer neighborhoods for everyone in Seattle.”
In the East Precinct, SPD has focused on drug issues and street disorder centered around Pike and Broadway and the area around Cal Anderson and Deputy Mayor Burgess’s renewed efforts sparked by neighborhood outcry — and a key email from a neighborhood developer — over an October murder on 11th Ave.
(Image: City of Seattle)
Burgess said earlier this year his office was working on a plan to add the area around Cal Anderson and Pike/Pine identified by SPD as a trouble zone for drug crimes and street disorder to the anti-crime camera system pilot being rolled out in the area around Aurora Ave N, the International District including Little Saigon, and the 3rd Ave corridor downtown.
Other City Hall initiatives including one of its biggest haven’t made much of an impact. CHS reported here on the so far rarely used Capitol Hill Stay Out of Drug Area and the first recipient of a banishment order for the zone.
Meanwhile, in the Central District, the 2024/2025 school year at Garfield High School began with new efforts around gun concerns at the 23rd Ave campus and across the city as Seattle officials led by Harrell announced a $14.5 million plan focused on intervention, mental health, and increased use of “school-based safety specialist” private security guards following the deadly lunchtime shooting of teen Amarr Murphy-Paine in June 2024 in the Garfield campus parking lot.
The timeline for expanding the cameras to Pike/Pine and 23rd Ave is not clear as chair Bob Kettle must now move the legislation forward with the council’s public safety committee.
Harrell, meanwhile, is engaged in a closer than expected race with challenger Katie Wilson as the August 5th primary approaches.
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Wow yeah let’s literally increase AUDIO AND VISUAL spying in the neighborhood with the central public high schooI. Genius strategy to build trust!!! Ignore the wealthy private schools where the actual institutional white collar criminals of society are bred. Tax the rich and house the homeless if you want to keep the streets safe…morons.
Bruce Harrell deserves jail imo. I think the immense corruption he’s facilitated in this city over the years until now may even surpass negligence. This man has been responsible for so many socially destructive policy choices in the face of our housing affordability and supply crisis. Choices that anyone could guess were likely incentivized by his corporate benefactors. Who knows, maybe even his texting buddy and authoritarian developer/resident Dykiki pariah Stuart Sloan? Wouldn’t surprise me one bit.
Though, admittedly I do have trouble even giving Harrell credit for having such a dumb-ass, harmful, and wrong governing strategy because he’s already shown that he stands for virtually nothing while holding elected office. He may not even be personally capable of the true malice that his virulently anti-social policy and budget decisions would suggest, especially since he knew he had to triangulate with the Rinck co-sponsored B&O tax adjustments…but regardless…he looks like he’s just doing what he’s told and trying to keep his head above the water. And functionally, he’s a pure cipher for corporate greed and a political shapeshifter. GET HIM OUT!
Private schools are breeding grounds for the criminals of society? No sane person actually believes how ridiculous and rude this sounds.
Also many private schools already have strong security programs for their students in place which have proven successful. Public schools should follow their lead.
Yes, imprison politicians whose policies you don’t agree with. Now let’s get back to criticizing Trump and the excesses of his authoritarian regime shall we?
“Tax the rich and house the homeless if you want to keep the streets safe…morons.” no wiser werds have ever been spoken.
Lol. You are sick. Your ultra-liberal bs prevents kids in marginal neighborhoods from safe schooling, etc. Tax the rich so they change domiciles and take their jobs? Housing affordability? How about talking about the opioid and meth crisis. Oh wait, let’s not address the real issue. That’s too real!
Crawl back under your rock.
Good idea.
Increase patrols as well, and remove any illegal drug user + squatter on the streets and we can have a city again.
The highly authoritarian states of Sweden, Germany, and other EU fascist dictatorships have been using CCTV for public safety for decades. It would be a tragedy if we ended up like them. /s
Yes it would.
False equivalence.
The right to free speech is not in their constitution. In fact? They really only get the rights the people in power want.
Surveillance? for what? Save the ridiculous amount of money that’s going to cost, and get more police officers out in the streets. Get out of your cruisers, leave the bikes and swat costumes at the station and just walk the streets and actually protect and serve. Get to know the streets, people and businesses in the neighborhood and be more visible. I see drug use in the street every single day, and I don’t mean marijuana usage, I mean needles, crack pipes, and aluminum foil devices. You’re not gonna stop these people from doing this out in public if all you’re doing is videotaping them. Police need to be out there every single day multiple times a day telling these people that it’s not ok to be doing that in public without the need for residents to have to call it in.
The police state is here folks. They have a SODA law they never enforce. That’s to keep it a political issue. Don’t put that crap here. CA. cops are illegally monitoring smart meters from PG and E and other places according to an article that came out recently. Threatening people to let them in w/o legal authority etc. Yeah, they are all being sued. We will not be so lucky. You’ll suffer micro harassments everywhere you go. That’s Gangstalking. Study up.
Gangstalking is just like regular stalking. But it involves law enforcement. KKK, etc. and technology available to them. Laws are completely disregarded.
So here it is. The corporate masters have taken Seattle. Good job. Why not go full MAGA Bruce? Cheetolini LOVES this plan. YOU said “I’ll work with the POTUS wherever I can” Well? Here it is. Give him a call with your plan for Seattle so he can implement it nationwide? You could be the Czar of the new federal post. Huge raise and benefits. Plus yunno…That sweet sweet PAC money.
But do not under any circumstances make any real effort to enforce what you’ve already crammed down our throats w/o a popular vote. Just allow all the open drug use and no enforcement. A total of what? 2 people have been banned in how many months? I can see from my window right now. You missed a few. It’s a blatant political stunt used for centuries before dirt was even invented. Fear is primal.
PUT IT ON THE BALLOT BRUCE!
or are you lying?