In a press conference on Friday, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson introduced Seattle Police's interim Chief Andre Sayles and defended her decision to appoint new police department leadership after the mass shooting at Seattle Center on Sunday.
Chief Sayles spoke to the media and announced the department will increase its staffing at all major events throughout the city this summer. He did not specify the exact number of officers that would be added, but said that foot patrol, bike officers, and other units from the department would be involved.
Sayles said the department has not released more information on the potential multiple suspects still on the loose following Sunday's shooting, saying the department wants to avoid taking the wrong person into custody.
The public, Sayles said, will not be entirely safe until "everyone responsible" for the shooting is apprehended.
Wilson said Sayles had previously been a chief in Wisconsin and had served on a SWAT team for 12 years before joining SPD.
According to Wilson, Sayles will lead the department while a city charter works to find a permanent replacement for former SPD Chief Barnes, who resigned Thursday at the request of the mayor.
When asked why Barnes resigned, a decision Wilson referred to as a "mutual agreement," she said there were multiple factors that led to the decision but did not specify further.
Following the announcement of Barnes's resignation Thursday, several members of Seattle's City Council expressed their disagreement with the decision.
When asked how she would improve the relationship between the mayor's office and the city council, Wilson said she has a "different window" into the police department than the council does and denounced the council's criticism of the leadership change.
When KIRO 7's Heather Bosch asked if Chief Barnes was the "fall guy" for criticism the department has faced over communication delays in the wake of the shooting, Wilson said that the department needed the "right leadership" ahead of future events.
Barnes is the third consecutive police chief to be asked to step down by the city's mayor. When asked whether this pattern indicated a systemic problem in police leadership, Wilson said the problem was not systemic and did not specify what Barnes had done wrong to warrant resignation.