Seattle elected a far-left socialist as the city's new mayor.
She's ready to destroy what's left of this once great city.
And woke Seattle Mayor has one insane plan that had police sounding the alarm.
Police union blasts "suicidal empathy" policy
Seattle Police Officers Guild President Mike Solan didn't mince words when he found out what the new mayor planned to do about junkies shooting up in parks.
An internal email from Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes landed in officers' inboxes on New Year's Day ordering them to divert all cases involving street addicts away from prosecution.
"The recent naive, ignorant political decision to not arrest offenders for open drug use in the City of Seattle is horrifically dangerous and will create more death and societal decay," Solan warned.
He called the policy "suicidal empathy."
The email directed officers to funnel every addict they catch using in public into Seattle's Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program instead of booking them.
LEAD supposedly connects users with case managers and treatment services rather than jail cells.
Mayor Katie Wilson insists she never ordered police to stop arrests.
But Barnes' email came from somewhere and Solan wasn't buying it.
"Most cops know that the LEAD program supports this ideology, and they don't want to refer cases," Solan said.
"It is a waste of time."
The numbers tell an ugly story
King County recorded over 1,000 overdose deaths in 2023 and nearly 800 more in 2024.
That's bodies piling up while bureaucrats pat themselves on the back for compassion.
LEAD connected 841 people countywide with referrals last year.
Meanwhile thousands more kept shooting up in parks and on sidewalks.
Seattle businesses watch addicts nod off in doorways and leave used needles scattered where kids walk.
The Washington Supreme Court decriminalized simple drug possession in 2021.
Public use exploded.
Seattle began prosecuting again in 2023 after the streets became an open-air market.
Now Wilson and newly sworn-in City Attorney Erika Evans want to reverse course.
Andrea Suarez runs We Heart Seattle, a nonprofit that works with homeless addicts.
She warned that without consequences addiction worsens and more people die.
"This is enablement in its worst kind, and people will die at a faster rate by allowing them to use illicit, illegal narcotics on our sidewalks, in our parks, under our bridges," Suarez said.
Suarez blasted LEAD as "a nice air-conditioned hotel room with smoking gazebos in the courtyard" where staff hand out "fentanyl foil and methamphetamine pipes."
That's City Hall enabling the problem, not treating it.
Oregon already proved this kills
Oregon voters approved Measure 110 in 2020 which decriminalized all banned drugs and pumped hundreds of millions into treatment.
Overdose deaths more than doubled from 816 in 2020 to a peak of 1,833 in 2023.
Oregon's overdose rate grew 22% in 2024 while national deaths dropped 10%.
Second-highest increase in the nation.
Portland became an open-air market where addicts shot up on every corner.
Oregon lawmakers finally admitted the experiment failed and recriminalized possession in March 2024 after years of destroyed neighborhoods.
Seattle's heading down the exact same path.
Wilson is a 43-year-old democratic socialist who's never held elected office.
She dropped out of Oxford six weeks before graduation.
Now she's running a city with 13,000 employees and a $9 billion budget.
What the email actually said
Barnes' New Year's Day email was crystal clear.
"Effective immediately, all charges related to drug possession and/or drug use will be diverted from prosecution to the LEAD program," Barnes wrote.
That means someone smoking fentanyl outside a school gets sent to LEAD instead of jail.
Barnes added that if individuals fail to comply traditional prosecution will apply.
Anyone who's spent five minutes on Seattle streets knows addicts don't comply.
They take the easy out and go right back to using.
City Attorney Evans insisted during her swearing-in that no policy changed.
"Officers still have the discretion to make arrests," Evans said.
That's corporate speak for we're not prosecuting anymore.
Seattle Police released a statement saying "nothing has changed."
Officers on the ground aren't buying it.
They've seen this before and know where it leads.
President Trump called Wilson a "liberal slash communist mayor" and suggested FIFA could pull World Cup matches from Seattle.
Wilson doubled down on her socialist credentials and promised more spending.
Why this won't work
LEAD has been around since 2011 in Seattle.
Critics point out the program created a revolving door with zero results.
Vikas Singh manages Dan's Belltown Grocery and deals with people high fighting with staff.
"Sometimes when people are coming, they are taking drugs so they are fighting with us because the mind of these people are not working properly," Singh said.
Businesses are fed up with City Hall tolerating chaos on their doorsteps.
Wilson wants to redirect housing funds to create 4,000 emergency units for the city's record homeless population of over 16,000.
She also proposed a city-level capital gains tax after Trump cuts federal funding.
None of this addresses that addicts need consequences and treatment, not free passes.
Pierce County Sheriff Keith Swank invited Seattle police officers to transfer to his department.
That tells you everything about what cops think of Wilson's policies.
Seattle approved increased LEAD funding by dedicating 25% of a sales tax increase to addiction services.
Throwing more money at failure won't fix it.
Wilson claims everyone deserves to be safe.
Her policies guarantee the opposite.
Seattle's about to become Portland — and voters have nobody to blame but themselves for electing a socialist with zero experience who thinks compassion means letting addicts destroy neighborhoods while City Hall hands out drug pipes.
Sources:
- Joshua Q. Nelson, "Seattle police union condemns new socialist mayor's drug enforcement approach as 'suicidal empathy'," Fox News, January 5, 2026.
- "Seattle mayor denies police guild's allegations of open drug use arrest suspension," KOMO News, January 5, 2026.
- "'I'll announce a policy change': Seattle mayor responds to backlash over apparent drug arrest stance," KIRO 7, January 5, 2026.
- "Rising crime, overdoses reflect pre-pandemic trends – not drug decriminalization – PSU study finds," OPB, August 14, 2025.
- "Overdoses killing more Oregonians as national figure drops," OPB, October 3, 2024.
- "What to know about Seattle's socialist mayor-elect, Katie Wilson," Axios Seattle, November 15, 2025.
