Just over a week after Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced a pause of the city's expansion of a police surveillance camera network, she hosted a town hall in d
Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced a pause of the city's expansion of a police surveillance camera network The event was held at the Wyncote NY Forum, with Mayor Wilson and Executive Director of the South Seattle Emerald, Florangela Davila, where they discussed security, surveillance, and their impacts on Seattle’s communities.
It began with about 30 or so minutes of Q&A between Wilson and Davila, which included pointed questions from the local journalist, and opportunities for Wilson to expand on her thought process to pause the expansion of the Real Time Crime Center , which is made up of 62 public and private cameras in high-crime areas within the city.Wilson explained that the RTCC is not monitored 24/7, noting that there are other cities that do have continuous monitoring, and that Seattle has a very minuscule surveillance network compared to other major cities, like Boston, for instance. Within the RTCC, which is monitored by civilian employees, the video is recorded and stored for five days before it is deleted — unless Seattle Police or the CARE team flags an incident. Any saved footage is uploaded to servers on Evidence.com, the storage mechanism for the company that runs the technology, Axon. Wilson says that having seen how the crime center works, and having been given data from the police department on the efficacy of the cameras, it led her to keep the current 62 cameras in operation, while pausing the planned expansion due to her skepticism. The mayor stated that the cameras are effective for tracking and deterring property crimes, but have still been useful for violent crimes as serious as homicide cases. She acknowledged that the official 'metrics' or means of measuring the success of the cameras will ideally be revealed within a third-party audit this summer, and a long-term RTCC evaluation that should finish by the end of 2026. Moreover, Wilson added that she's spoken to certain neighborhoods and the families of gun violence victims, who have said why they support the CCTV camera network. She made mention of a Chinatown International District petition that garnered over 1,000 signatures on the matter.When Davila asked if there were any places within the city that Wilson did not feel safe, the mayor stated she felt pretty safe everywhere, but did cite one instance in particular. It was a time when she and her young daughter were getting off the light rail stop at SODO at night, where there was a person experiencing a mental health crisis who was being aggressive toward them. However, when Davila asked the mayor, who would have felt safer knowing there were cameras there, Wilson responded "No", which led to cheers and applause from those in attendance. Throughout the Q&A, jeers and comments began to blurt out from the seated crowd, leading up to the eventual public comment period.Once the two wrapped up their dialogue, a long line of attendees formed to ask questions, consisting of concerned residents, people who do community work in parts of the city, as well as people who formerly helped campaign for Wilson and knocked on doors. Several attendees claimed Wilson was going back on her campaign promise to halt surveillance, which Wilson repeatedly refuted. "I think what I'm doing now, pausing the expansion while we do an audit of data security, storage, and sharing practices, is very much in line with what I was saying during the campaign," Wilson told KOMO News after the meeting. Wilson explained that the NYU Policing Program is handling the third-party audit to evaluate the integrity of Axon's Evidence.com storage. When asked, she stated it will cost about $50,000, which comes from SPD's budget, while the existing long-term evaluation of the RTCC was accounted for in the 2026 budget.On March 19, Wilson held a press conference where she addressed the surveillance network of cameras that are used in the Seattle Police Department's Real Time Crime Center , an issue she talked about during her campaign for Mayor. The RTCC is a system of 60-plus CCTV cameras, both public and private, that are utilized by officers to track down criminal suspects and catch incidents along Aurora Avenue, 3rd Avenue, and the Chinatown-International District. In March 2026, SPD stated that a data analysis performed by the department showed that officers and detectives were three times more likely to arrest an offender when they worked with Real Time Crime Center analysts. In August of 2025, then-Mayor Bruce Harrell and the city's Public Safety Committee gave the green light to an expansion of the pilot camera network, to add cameras to certain streets in Capitol Hill, around Garfield High School, and in the Stadium District/SODO. Wilson stated that those cameras would remain on and in use by the department, further expansion of the network would be on hold. “I am pausing expansion of this pilot until we have completed a privacy and data governance audit and taken significant steps to strengthen our policies," Wilson said during the March 19 press conference at Seattle City Hall. “I believe it is not good governance to expand a pilot program without completing an evaluation of its impacts." Wilson stated that she would make an exception due to the unique nature of the FIFA World Cup coming to Seattle this summer and allow the installation of 26 cameras within the SODO neighborhood. However, Wilson said that those cameras would remain off after installation, unless a "credible threat" was identified by law enforcement. She added that once that threat was handled, then the cameras would return to being turned off.“In the event of a surge of immigration enforcement, similar to what was seen in Minneapolis, I will, of course, turn off all cameras to prevent them from potentially being used by federal authorities,” Wilson said.Hundreds across the state are expected to join nationwide “No Kings” protests on Saturday, according to event organizers.Indivisible, which helped organize thatNancy Guthrie has been missing since the end of January, amid speculation that she was kidnapped for a potential ransom.Coast Guard investigates rescue swimmer's fatal fall as family mourns A U.S. Coast Guard rescue swimmer has died after being injured while on a medical evacuation mission off the Washington coast.But before he passed away ThursdayOne person is dead following a shooting on Friday afternoon in the Renton area, the King County Sheriff's Office confirmed.
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