Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes canceled a planned Wednesday interview about 30 minutes before it was set to begin, just as his office released calendar records showing he spent close to 50 days away from his Seattle office from late March through the end of July. The records cover the period after Sunday’s Seattle Center shooting and show how often the city’s police leader was not in the office.
Barnes had agreed Wednesday morning to discuss the department’s response to the shooting, the communication failures that followed and his travel schedule. His office then provided portions of his calendar documenting movements across nearly a dozen trips outside the Seattle area.
Seattle Center shooting and Dallas
The calendar shows seven work-related conferences and four trips to Chicago, where Barnes has family. It also shows trips to Detroit, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Dallas and at least one additional location. Barnes was attending a conference in Dallas on Sunday when gunfire erupted at Seattle Center.
The shooting killed three people and injured several others. Barnes acknowledged at a Tuesday news conference that he was not in Seattle when it happened. Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis was listed as acting chief Sunday, and he led the department’s first formal news briefing approximately five hours after the shooting.
Tuesday remarks from Barnes
At that news conference, Barnes said, “I don’t travel as often as I would like to.” He also said, “I think any reports that I’m gone every weekend are grossly misstated.” Barnes added that his passion can be “in full display, especially if someone is questioning my work ethic or my integrity.”
The records show some of the dates were weekends or travel days, and they do not necessarily show whether Barnes was working remotely. They also include blocked-off time this week for a dental procedure and a medical appointment.
Seattle Police Department calendar
The calendar does show Barnes remained in Seattle throughout the city’s World Cup matches and that he is scheduled to be in the city during this week’s Seafair events. Even with those in-city dates, the documents provided by his office account for close to 50 days when he was not working from his Seattle office.
For readers tracking the department’s response, the practical point is simple: the travel log does not settle how much of that time Barnes spent handling police work from elsewhere, but it does put a number on his absences during a period when questions about his whereabouts were already active. His office has now put the calendar on the record, and the unanswered part is how those trips fit with day-to-day command of the Seattle Police Department.
