Seattle police chief contender in national spotlight after Wisconsin school shooting leaves 3 dead

Shon Barnes, police chief at the Madison Police Department in Wisconsin, is a top contender for Seattle’s police chief job. Now Barnes finds himself in the national spotlight, as he leads police response after a school shooting that has left at least three dead.

On Monday, a teenager opened fire on their classmates and teachers, killing two and wounding more, at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, before turning the gun on themselves.

“Our detectives are working hard on the investigative process to find out as many answers as we can so that we can further prevent these things from happening not only in this community, but in other communities around our country,” Barnes said during a press conference Monday. “I think we can all agree that enough is enough. And we have to come together to do everything we can to support our students.”

The shooting hits home for Barnes, who began his career as a public school teacher in 1997 and taught for four years.

“Every child, every person in that building is a victim and will be a victim forever,” Barnes said during an interview with CBS News. “These types of trauma just don’t go away.”

Barnes’ interviews with national media offer the best insight into the candidate, as the police chief search has remained mostly hidden from public view so far.

Jason Rantz was the first to break the news that Barnes was a candidate – and had a reputation that could follow him to Seattle, if he were chosen. In one instance, an officer in Madison, Wisconsin, said Barnes asked her about her sexual orientation during her exit interview in 2021, and that it made her uncomfortable.

After an investigation, Barnes was cleared of accusations that he created a hostile work environment.

The mayor’s office declined to comment on whether Barnes was a finalist, although police department sources confirmed he was the likely choice. Even as the mayor’s self-imposed deadline of picking a new chief by the end of 2024 looms, his office is not sharing with the public who’s in the running.

KUOW asked the mayor’s office if they planned to release the names of finalists before a choice is made, and asked about the appearance of secrecy during the process.

“We will continue to follow the requirements of the city charter, and we will make a public announcement when we have an appropriate announcement to make,” spokesperson Jamie Housen said by email.

The city charter has no requirements around releasing the names of police chief finalists. If the finalists are not announced, it would be a departure to the chief selection process of 2022, in which the mayor announced his three finalists before choosing Seattle Police insider Adrian Diaz to take over. And unlike other searches, there hasn’t yet been a public forum for community members to get familiar with candidates.

Seattle Deputy Chief Eric Barden said he wasn’t asked to be part of the process and to his knowledge with the exception of interim Police Chief Sue Rahr, no one else in the department was either.

Barden said he had heard the name of San Francisco police chief William Scott come up as a potential contender, but that he was just “hearing the same rumors everyone else is hearing.”

Since May, the city has been in need of a new permanent chief. That’s when, after several discrimination lawsuits and unproven allegations that he hired a romantic partner, Diaz stepped down and Rahr, a former King County sheriff, stepped in on an interim basis. Diaz denied the lawsuit allegations and rumors.

With the chief vacancy, the city recruited former Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole to help with the search process. A non-funded contract obtained by KUOW shows that O’Toole volunteered to co-chair the Mayor’s Police Chief Selection Advisors Group, alongside Rahr.

The group’s objective was to identify and recruit semi-finalist candidates they backed to be the new chief. The mayor will make the ultimate call, and then his pick will go before the council. If councilmembers approve the choice by a majority vote, the chosen candidate will be confirmed as permanent chief.