Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes canceled a planned KOMO News interview on Wednesday after agreeing to discuss the department’s response to the Seattle Center shooting, the communication gaps that followed and his travel schedule. The cancellation came as questions intensified about where Barnes was when gunfire broke out and how often he has been away from Seattle.
That matters because the shooting killed three people and injured several others, and Barnes has become the face of the city’s answer to it. On Tuesday, he pushed back hard on suggestions that he is routinely absent, saying, “I don’t travel as often as I would like to” and calling reports that he is gone every weekend “grossly misstated.” He also said, “My passion can be in full display, especially if someone is questioning my work ethic or my integrity.”
His office later provided portions of his calendar covering late March through the end of July. Those records appear to show he was out of the office and outside the Seattle area nearly a dozen times in that span, including seven work-related conferences and four trips to Chicago, where he has family. The calendar also shows travel to Detroit, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and Dallas, plus blocked-off time this week for a dental procedure and a medical appointment.
The records do not fully explain whether each absence was personal, official or part of work done remotely, and they do not settle the broader debate over how much time Seattle’s chief should spend in the city. KOMO News counted close to 50 days when Barnes was not working from his Seattle office, though some of those were weekends or travel days. Barnes also acknowledged he was not in Seattle when the shooting occurred, having been at a conference in Dallas on Sunday when the gunfire erupted at Seattle Center.
Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis was listed as acting chief that day and led the department’s first formal news briefing about five hours after the shooting. Barnes is scheduled to be in Seattle during this week’s Seafair events, but the larger question is simpler and more immediate: why he chose to cancel the interview just as the public scrutiny over his whereabouts and the department’s response was peaking.
