Seattle's public transit safety talks intensify after shooting on Tukwila bus

Yahoo

19-02-2025

The Brief
The Seattle City Council hosted a roundtable discussion Tuesday to address public safety concerns on King County transit.
The meeting comes after the tragic stabbing of a Metro driver, and a shooting on another bus in Tukwila.
SEATTLE - Seattle city, county, law enforcement and transit leaders gathered Tuesday to address growing concerns about safety on public transportation hours after a shooting on a Metro bus in Tukwila.
"You can't make this stuff up. On the eve of this important regional roundtable, two people were shot," said Seattle City Councilman, Rob Saka, who organized the meeting.
The backstory
The incident, which left two people injured, including, reportedly, a 15-year-old who was shot three times in the chest, has compounded concerns already mounting after the fatal stabbing of driver Shawn Yim.
Greg Woodfill, President of Amalgamated Transit Union 587 voiced frustration over the lack of consequences for disruptive behavior on buses.
"Public transit is at a tipping point and at a crossroads," said Woodfill addressing the roundtable. "We need to end the finger pointing and start working together."
What they're saying
King County Metro's General Manager, Michelle Allison, pointed to improvements since last year, noting that incidents of violence have decreased significantly.
"Metro is certainly not immune to safety incidents," she said, but she highlighted that the number of violent incidents has dropped from 243 per million boardings at the height of the pandemic to just 71 per million in December 2024.
Allison shared efforts already underway to address safety include a planned increase in the number of transit police officers, from 70 to 170 by the end of 2025, and the installation of larger, stronger partitions for bus operators.
Metro police chief Todd Morrell also called for stronger criminal justice interventions.
Noting his department's "Operation Safe Transit" initiative, which began in May of last year, has already led to 475 arrests. Morrell emphasized that the initiative targets aggressive behavior, not criminalizing homelessness.
In response to these challenges, the city and county are working together to introduce new safety measures. A countywide task force will convene next month to further discuss the issue.
Additionally, Metro plans to reinstate fare enforcement by May and improve security with the addition of better partitions, additional security officers and surveillance systems.
"We're all tired and fed up, and we want to restore sanity civility and order on our busses and our transit system," said Councilmember Saka.
Saka, who is also the chair of the Transportation Committee, says he walked away from Tuesday's meeting energized, and feels the urgency needed to make public transit safe, but it starts with updating officers' policies.
"Now we need to adjust and tinker with their duties so that they can actually do their job effectively and efficiently and enforce our existing rules that are in place today," Saka said.
When asked about next steps and how this plan will be implemented, Saka said he's dedicated to collaboration.
"These are a complex set of challenges, and there's going to be no single magic bullet that helps us bring about the true transit security and safety situation that we need and improves the lives of riders and operators, but it's going to take all of us working together to really make progress, and I'm committed to doing just that," he said.
The Source
Information for this article comes from original FOX 13 reporting.
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