Seattle police say they were ready to face reporters about 90 minutes after gunfire broke out at the Bite of Seattle on July 26. The first official update did not come until around 11 pm.
Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis, who is serving as acting police chief, walked the City Council’s Public Safety Committee through that evening. He said officers were prepared to speak at roughly 7:30 pm.
Before heading to the briefing, Davis said, he alerted Deputy Mayor Brian Surratt as a courtesy.
“I was told we needed to wait for the Mayor,” Davis testified.
Davis said he pushed back with a compromise. Police would update the media immediately, then hold a second appearance once Wilson showed up. He said the answer was the same: wait.
When Davis finally spoke near 11 pm, he told the committee, he shared the same information he could have given hours earlier.
A newly released voicemail adds a recorded voice to the timeline. KIRO Newsradio obtained the message through a public disclosure request.
On the recording, Public Safety Director Alison Holcomb calls Detective Brian Pritchard, the officer handling public information at the scene. She asks him to postpone a media appearance set for 9:45 pm.
“So, if you could please hold on the 9:45 availability until the mayor is able to join you, that would be great,” Holcomb said.
The voicemail matches text messages made public earlier. At 9:42 pm, Holcomb wrote to police: “Mayor’s on her way. Please wait for her.”
Fifteen minutes later, at about 9:57 pm, Surratt sent a message of his own. “Waiting on Gov and Jayapal,” he wrote, a reference to Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson and U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
Police communications tell a similar story.
Then-Chief Shon Barnes asked why no press conference had taken place. SPD Chief Operating Officer Sarah Smith answered: “They were delayed because they were waiting for the mayor to arrive.”
Smith later relayed that officials were waiting on the governor. A police message at 10:37 pm said Ferguson was parking and preparing to go inside.
Mayor Katie Wilson addressed the matter at a public event on October 5. Asked whether Surratt told police to hold off, she said, “My deputy mayor did not do that.”
She directed attention to the Office of Inspector General’s investigation and raised doubts about relying on “people’s memories.”
Wilson has previously accepted her office’s responsibility for the last stretch of the delay, from about 9:45 to 10:45 pm.
Davis’s account places Surratt’s instruction more than two hours before that window opened. Wilson has denied that claim.
Separate internal messages from the mayor’s office show aides discussing when and where Wilson should appear.
In those exchanges, the mayor expressed concern about coverage that depicted her as absent.
The Seattle Police Department’s after-action report measured a gap of roughly five hours between the shooting and the first public briefing.
That report also found that senior and elected officials diverted officers from releasing timely information to the public and from making decisions at the scene.
Three people died in the shooting, and four others were wounded.
