Two Seattle police officers have been suspended for a day after taking over 20 minutes to respond to a shooting at a nightclub in late 2022, a delay that went against department expectations for responding to high-priority calls. The incident, which occurred at The Showbox SODO on Dec. 18, 2022, has prompted scrutiny and criticism from both the public and the Office of Police Accountability (OPA).
Despite being only a short drive from the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild building to The Showbox SODO, officers remained in the parking lot after marking themselves as "en route." In their initial reporting once arriving on the scene, the officers claimed that "nothing was going on." However, nearly an hour later, Harborview Medical Center reported a victim who was injured in a shooting trying to defuse a fight outside the nightclub, according to King5.
The officers' delayed response has raised concerns about their commitment to public safety and their decision-making under pressure. The actions following the incident were alleged to be a "cover-up" of their "lack of diligence"; initially, an officer indicated the shooting victim was not linked to the call at the music venue but later filed an incident report under the original complaint.
One of the officers, when questioned about the reason for the slow response, said he "was likely using the restroom, eating a meal, or '[sitting] there in the car and [writing] reports,'" a statement obtained by KGW. The OPA has concluded that taking 23 minutes to transition from non-emergency activities to respond to a priority one gunshot call is unacceptable, a decision that has been supported by Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz.
Meanwhile, the trainee officer present during the incident expressed remorse in an interview with OPA. "Makes me feel like we dropped the ball. We should have done more. Doesn’t make me feel good. Feel like definitely should have been some exigency behind that. Because lives could have been more in danger than they were," he said, as per The Seattle Times.
