Seattle mayor proceeds with violence prevention plan as council offers alternative

The useful part

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is moving ahead with a plan to reduce gun violence while at the same time showing that she is in charge by skirting a City Council resolution offering a different approach to the problem. Wilson's plan puts the city's Community Assisted Response and Engagement Department, which runs the Seattle 911 Communications Centers and provides crisis services to people in distress, in charge of stopping gun violence. Wilson said community violence intervention workers will be part of the city's emergency response system, acting in conjunction with law enforcement officials.

How it works

• "We have a responsibility to make sure that communities in this city feel safe, and today I am acting on that responsibility with a coordinated, data-driven plan that brings every too...
• The City Council's plan, which would have involved executing a more than $400,000 contract with the National Network for Safe Communities to identify violent offenders and offer intervention such as...
• Other parts of the plan include increased police bike patrols and reviews of homicides to identify prevention failures and prevent future homicides.
• Under the council plan, arrests would be made if those known to participate in gun violence did not change their behavior.
• The council approved its plan on Tuesday by a 7-2 vote, on the same day Wilson announced her violent intervention plan.

What to take from it

"Seattle will not accept gun violence as inevitable, and neither will I," said Wilson.