New questions are being raised about how Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is handling the fallout from the deadly Bite of Seattle shooting, after she asked the city's Office of Inspector General to review what went wrong the night of the attack. FOX 13 Seattle reported that the move, framed as a step toward transparency, has instead drawn scrutiny over who is really being examined and who chose the office doing the reviewing.
At the center of the dispute are communication failures between the Seattle Police Department and the mayor's office over a roughly five-hour delay in informing the public. FOX 13 sources said Seattle police were ready to share details by 8 p.m. during nearly every update that night. Wilson, however, doubled down and insisted her office did not tell SPD to hold back information, saying there was absolutely no direction from her office not to share information.
To get answers, Wilson turned to the city's Office of Inspector General. In a blog post, the mayor said she had directed all city departments and offices to fully cooperate with the review by sharing records and sitting for interviews. The request was presented as a way to get to the bottom of the breakdown in communication that left the public without clear information for hours after the shooting.
But there is a structural problem with that choice. According to the city's charter, the Inspector General is tasked with investigating the Seattle Police Department, not the mayor's office. That raised the question of why Wilson turned to the Inspector General rather than an outside independent firm or the city's human resources department, either of which would have the standing to question the mayor's office directly.
By steering the matter to an office that oversees the police, critics argue, the review effectively infers that SPD is at fault for delaying critical information to the community. FOX 13 also noted that past Inspector General work, such as the review of how the CHOP protest-zone situation on Capitol Hill was handled, produced recommendations but no disciplinary action against city leaders, with such after-action reviews tending to focus on lessons learned rather than accountability.
The story shifted further at the council meeting. Contrary to her earlier insistence that her office had not urged SPD to hold back information, Wilson told council members that her office could not confirm nor deny whether it had any role that night. She said she did not know, and that this uncertainty was precisely why the review was needed, a notable change in tone from her previous flat denials.
That left open questions about how far the scrutiny will reach. FOX 13 said it had asked whether the mayor, her own staff and everyone working that night would turn over their personal devices, work phones and emails, and whether they would face the same level of examination as the police department. As of the report, the mayor's office had not responded, and the station said it would continue to follow the case.
