By Liz Steen

Tuesday was the first meeting of the Seattle City Council Public Safety Committee since seven people were shot, three fatally, in the Belltown neighborhood next to a hot yoga studio and the iconic green-and-white city building that doubles as the hospital in Grey’s Anatomy, the 23-years-and-counting medical drama that introduced a fictionalized version of Seattle to millions.

It’s like a mass shooting at the Cheers bar in Boston.

Committee Chair Robert Kettle called the gun violence a “crisis” in his opening remarks.

“The officers deserve more backup, and the citizens deserve more officers on the street,” he said, saying that “budget constraints” have “undone much of the hard work” previous administrations expended to try to reduce emergency response times and other issues connected to staffing shortages.

Increased staffing for police and other emergency services was not on the table Tuesday, however. Instead, the committee recommended hiring a new consultant, approving a brief, one-and-a-half-page request to the full council for a $418,000, two-year contract with the National Network for Safe Communities at John Jay College to implement “a comprehensive Gun Violence Intervention (GVI) strategy to address gun violence.”

The program is used in Philadelphia, Boston and Baltimore.

“We have to do something,” Council Member Maritza Rivera said. She hosted a gun symposium in June and, on Tuesday, recommended the city hire NSSC to help identify and target services for the people most likely to engage in gun violence.

“We can’t keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” Details were sparse.

The resolution says, “The NNSC should: provide an analysis of the violence dynamics in Seattle; facilitate in-depth, closed door working sessions on GVI for key stakeholders; provide regular strategic advising; and provide access to management and development tools, peer support networks, and collaborative learning opportunities.”

During the 20-minute public comment period, council members promised to be responsive to “stakeholders” and said the NNSC was chosen because they promised to work with the police department. “They are not coming here to do the work for us, and all of the partners from the mayor's office to law enforcement, to the county, to our community, based organizations, and partners, and families, all need to work together,” Rivera said.

In a robust public comment period, Seattleites spoke for a full hour on the topic of gun violence before the committee voted to hire the consultant. There were full cosplay costumes including a Skeletor head and body armor, spoken word poetry supporting the city and victims of violence, and memorials to men shot by police in the last two decades, Representatives of the former Neighborhood District Councils, disbanded by then-Mayor Ed Murray in 2016; members of the queer community who provide outreach to people living in tents in Cal Anderson Park; volunteers with We Heart Seattle, which cleans needles and other debris from city parks; the Center for Children and Youth Justice; and the Greater Seattle Business Association all came with different perspectives and essentially the same request: someone needs to do something to help people feel safer.

Each had different ways to get there, but shared the same goal. All except for Skelotor. Speaking as “Dr Victor von Doom,” the man in the Skeletor mask opposed the cameras posted downtown that he said would ensure “that no citizen shall live without knowing Doom secure Iron hand. “

The council meeting can be viewed here: Public Safety Committee 9/8/2026 | seattlechannel.org

The brief summary of the $418,000 contract with NNSC is here: Res 32217 - Amendment 1

SIDEBAR- AI being used to screen 911 calls

The Seattle City Council Public Safety Committee heard a brief report on the AI screening 911 calls to divert non-emergency calls under the “Nurse Navigation Program.”

Seattle’s Fire Department has been using artificial intelligence as part of an effort to address emergency medical response times that were resulting in financial penalties. It’s a cost-cutting measure, but the data remains spotty.

The AI system “listens” for words and patterns in a 911 call, then recommends diverting the call to a nurse who can evaluate the caller without an emergency response to their location. A human dispatcher reviews the recommendation and makes the final decision. A diverted call then disappears from the 911 system.

“It’s gone,” a presenter explaining the program said. An estimated 9,000 calls were screened away from the city to a contractor with no data or other tracking information available.

The council members asked that the next contract include a request for data to track the calls that are removed from system. “We can do that,” the representative agreed, saying they will check when the contract cycle opens again.

The city’s contract with American Medical Response led to $1.4 million in penalties for late ambulance responses in 2022, with late being more than 11.5 minutes. The department also contracted with Global Medical Response in late 2022 to route 911 calls with non-emergency injuries to a nurse for assessment.

The Corti Artificial Intelligence program to recommend which calls a human dispatcher can transfer to a nurse started in 2023. The presenters noted that while ambulance response times appear to be better as a result, injured people transported still face significant waits of an hour or more when they reach the hospital because an ambulance transport doesn’t affect “the line” when they reach the hospital, where staffing shortages have impacted responses.