Three People Died at the Bite of Seattle Festival. Seattle’s Mayor Had Shut Off the Cameras Watching the Scene 19 Days Earlier.
Gunfire broke out just before 6 p.m. on Sunday, July 26, 2026 — the final night of the Bite of Seattle food festival — outside the Seattle Center Armory. Three people were killed and four more were wounded, including a 2-year-old boy. Police say it was a targeted gang gunfight between at least two, and likely three, shooters caught in the open, not an attack aimed at the festival crowd around them.
When investigators went looking for camera footage to help identify the gunman still at large, they ran into a problem of the city’s own making. The Stadium District cameras covering that stretch of Seattle Center had been switched off on Mayor Katie Wilson’s (D) orders nineteen days earlier.
Wilson is a self-described democratic socialist who once wrote there is “a strong argument for simply disbanding police departments and starting over.” She now runs a city where that argument met a mass shooting — and a police chief who, at a briefing the next morning, admitted he still didn’t know whether there was any video of it at all.
- 19 days from when Mayor Wilson deactivated Seattle Center's Stadium District cameras (July 7) to the shooting (July 26) — American Greatness, KING 5
- 3 dead, 4 hurt including a 2-year-old boy, when gunfire broke out at the Bite of Seattle festival — CBS News, SPD Blotter
- 50%+ the SPD budget cut Wilson co-demanded in a 2020 "Solidarity Budget" letter, years before she became mayor — Fox News
The three-day Bite of Seattle festival was closing out its final evening when the shooting started. Seattle Police say two people exchanged gunfire outside the Armory building at Seattle Center — the city-owned campus that also holds the Space Needle — and seven people were struck by bullets in the crossfire. Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis called it “senseless violence” and said officers reached the scene within seconds and began emergency aid before Seattle Fire Department medics arrived.
Three people died: Junior Cee Niko Semo, 19; Carlos Israel Sanchez Villalba, 44; and Ashley Whitehead, 56. Four more were hospitalized, including the 2-year-old boy caught in the crossfire. Investigators quickly concluded the shooting wasn’t random — it was a targeted exchange between rival shooters that happened to unfold in a crowd of festivalgoers.
A 15-year-old was arrested at the scene carrying a 9mm Polymer80 ghost gun fitted with an extended 33-round magazine. Prosecutors charged him with second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm and three counts of first-degree assault — not homicide. He is being held in secure juvenile detention without bail, with an arraignment set for Thursday, July 30, at 9 a.m.
Investigators believe one of the three people killed, 19-year-old Semo, was himself a second shooter in the gunfight — killed in the exchange he took part in. A third gunman remains unidentified and at large as the manhunt continues.
King County Prosecuting Attorney’s office spokesman Casey McNerthney said the 15-year-old had no cases previously referred to the office “either for a first appearance or for a charging decision” — meaning there is no documented prior release or bail decision behind this specific suspect to point to. King County Prosecuting Attorney Leesa Manion (D), whose office is handling the case, is not tied to any documented failure here.
Katie Wilson (D) took office January 1, 2026, Seattle’s first self-described “democratic socialist” mayor and the former co-founder and executive director of the Transit Riders Union. In a June 2020 op-ed, she wrote there is “a strong argument for simply disbanding police departments and starting over.” Through 2024, she co-authored letters — including a “Solidarity Budget” — demanding cuts of 50% or more to the Seattle Police Department’s budget.
Mayor: Katie Wilson (D) — took office January 1, 2026; self-described “democratic socialist”; co-founder, Seattle Transit Riders Union.
Police Chief: Shon Barnes — appointed, non-partisan post.
Public Safety Committee Chair: Councilmember Bob Kettle (D), District 7.
Councilmember: Maritza Rivera (D), District 4.
King County Prosecuting Attorney: Leesa Manion (D).
As mayor, Wilson opposed activating a set of newly installed Stadium District CCTV cameras the council had approved before she took office, arguing “turning on more cameras won’t magically make our neighborhoods safer, but it will certainly make our neighborhoods more vulnerable,” and that expanded surveillance could “put refugees at risk.” She allowed the cameras on only for the FIFA World Cup Seattle hosted this summer, then had them switched off on July 7, 2026 — the day after the tournament ended — pending a data-security and privacy audit.
Nineteen days later, those were the cameras covering the ground where the Bite of Seattle shooting happened. Investigators leaned on witness cellphone video instead. Then the story got tangled at Monday morning’s press briefing. Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis had told reporters Sunday night that no CCTV cameras existed at Seattle Center at all; hours later he revised that, saying cameras did exist but had captured no footage of the shooting. On Monday, Police Chief Shon Barnes told reporters, “I do not know if we have video of it; I have not had a briefing on that just yet” — before Wilson took the podium herself and said, “I’ve been told that Seattle Center does have cameras and we are in the process of pulling that footage to see if there’s anything relevant in there.”
“I do not know if we have video of it; I have not had a briefing on that just yet.”
Chief Shon Barnes · Seattle Police Department · Monday morning briefing, July 27, 2026
Barnes wasn’t in Seattle when the shooting happened — he was at a conference in Dallas — and was combative when a reporter asked why, saying he has “obligations as a leader” and that reports he travels “every weekend” are “grossly misstated.”
The friction isn’t confined to reporters. The day after the shooting, Public Safety Committee Chair Bob Kettle (D) and Councilmember Maritza Rivera (D) both issued public statements. Rivera had spent weeks trying to get Wilson’s office to partner on a national gun-violence-reduction strategy credited with cutting shootings up to 60% in cities like Boston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia; in her statement, she said plainly that the mayor “has been non-committal” and asked, “We have the chance to collaborate with an organization that delivers proven results nationwide. Why aren’t we acting?” Kettle said he “strongly urge[s] the Wilson administration to partner in this effort.”
That friction is specifically with the mayor’s office, not a citywide failure. The council that once pledged to cut SPD’s budget in half reversed course years before Wilson took office — Councilmember Andrew Lewis (D), one of the original co-sponsors, said flatly that “50% was a mistake” — and has since passed a record 14 pieces of public-safety legislation, including the Real-Time Crime Center camera expansion Wilson has been slow to embrace.
Three people are dead and four more, including a toddler, are recovering after a targeted gang gunfight tore through the last night of the Bite of Seattle festival. A 15-year-old faces gun and assault charges — held without bail, presumed innocent, with no documented history tying his release to any prior leniency. A third gunman is still out there, also presumed innocent until charged. What is documented is Mayor Katie Wilson’s own timeline: cameras built to watch that ground, switched off on her order nineteen days before the shooting, and a police chief who, two mornings later, still didn’t know whether there was footage to check.
