Seattle councilmembers mourn Rainier Beach teen shootings and press for coordinated action

At a Feb. 2 Seattle City Council briefing, councilmembers repeatedly voiced grief over a weekend in which two teenagers believed to be Seattle Public Schools students were shot and killed, and urged faster, coordinated steps on school and neighborhood safety.

"My heart just breaks for these children," Councilmember Teresa Rivera said as she opened the briefing to condolences and a pledge to act. Rivera noted she had added $25,000 in last year’s budget to fund a youth gun-violence summit and said the council must do "not just thoughts and prayers" but concrete work.

Several councilmembers described community meetings and immediate responses. Councilmember Foster said she and others met with residents and community groups in Rainier Beach and emphasized the role of community violence intervention organizations in supporting youth in the aftermath of shootings. Councilmember Lynn described school-led supports at local campuses and urged sustained collaboration between the city, the school district, the police department and nonprofit service providers.

Councilmembers pressed for joint, practical interventions. "It is essential that we do better as a city, but that we do better as a community," Lynn said, urging regular engagement with Seattle Public Schools, parks staff, community groups, housing providers and violence-intervention nonprofits. Colleagues urged the mayor’s office and departmental partners to ensure resources are available and coordinated for trauma counseling, after-school programming and targeted public-safety responses near schools.

The briefing did not include a council vote on new emergency authority or new budget appropriations. Rivera said the $25,000 for a youth gun-violence summit already exists in the budget and that her office is developing a proposal for how the summit will operate and whom it will convene. Councilmembers said they expect additional committee-level discussion about school safety and public-safety strategies in the coming days and weeks, and urged members of the public and city departments to keep communicating concrete needs.

Councilmembers also raised the role of social media and mental-health supports when discussing youth safety, and called for attention to places and infrastructure where youth interface with transit and neighborhood public spaces. Several members signaled a desire for more frequent, structured meetings with the new school-district superintendent to coordinate prevention and response work.

Next steps: councilmembers said committees with public-safety, education and human-services jurisdiction will continue the conversation and that offices will share draft proposals and implementation plans in committee briefings.