Should the Trump administration deploy the National Guard to Seattle, police Chief Shon Barnes knows what he'll say to his officers.
I will ask them, 'Does anyone know who Willie Grimes is?'"
Grimes, 20, in 1969 was a sophomore at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro — Barnes' alma mater — who, as a bystander, was shot and killed during violent clashes between police, National Guard troops and students demonstrating against segregation. His killing was never solved, although police were widely blamed for his death.
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was sharply critical of the National Guard's role, calling their armed response "reckless and disproportionate."
"My message will be simple," Barnes said in an interview Friday. "That our responsibility is to protect the constitutional rights of our community. And that includes the right to protest."
Barnes said Seattle officers will not aid the National Guard or Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in efforts to support the administration's aggressive anti-immigrant policies. What they will do, he said, is ensure Seattle residents are protected from the belligerent tactics that some masked ICE agents have employed in other cities — sometimes with the protection of guardsmen — including assaults on lawful protesters and the media.
Barnes' comments came days after Mayor Bruce Harrell signed a pair of executive orders promising to "protect Seattle communities from unlawful federal troop deployment and unjust immigration enforcement actions."
"We will prevent the unlawful encroachment on the roles and jurisdictions of Seattle Police Department by the federal government," Harrell said at a news conference Wednesday, surrounded by other city leaders and officials from immigrant rights agencies. "Simply put, our Police Department will know exactly what they should do and should not do, and in no way will they enable this abuse of power from the federal government."
The mayor acknowledged that President Donald Trump hasn't moved to deploy troops to Seattle yet, although he has mentioned the Emerald City — which the president has suggested is run by "radical left lunatics" — in the same context as neighboring Portland, which Trump has described as "war ravaged."
Trump has ordered the deployment of 200 federalized Oregon National Guard troops to Portland to quell disturbances and protect and support ICE efforts. As of Friday, a temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge, under appeal by the administration, has stalled those efforts.
"We don't know when or if Trump will send a social media post that is targeting Seattle next," Harrell said. "We cannot be underprepared by any stretch of the imagination at this critical moment, when Trump is escalating his attacks on cities and carrying out what we believe is a cruel deportation agenda, and he's doing it with masked, un-uniformed officers."
The mayor said the city's countermeasures will include a "Seattle Resilience Task Force" in constant communication with Gov. Bob Ferguson, Attorney General Nick Brown, City Attorney Ann Davison and various impacted communities.
Harrell also said he will ask the City Council to pass an ordinance to ban the use of face masks by law enforcement within city limits — a law ICE officials suggest they won't follow. Barnes and other top city officials acknowledge such a law would be difficult to enforce.
"Masked agents operating without clear identification diminish transparency (and) erode accountability, and they sow fear in our communities," Harrell said. "They are waging a campaign based on fear and also creating a dangerous possibility for other bad actors."
Councilmember Bob Kettle, a former Navy intelligence officer, supports an ordinance, but mostly as a gesture to underscore the professionalism of Seattle law enforcement when compared to the "junior varsity" tactics ICE has been using in other cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, where federal agents cover their faces and refuse to identify themselves, he said.
"In reality, our ability to effect this is limited," Kettle said. "But (an ordinance) shows that we will hold the Seattle Police Department to a high standard."
Kettle said the mission of SPD "is to create a safe space" for the city's residents to live, work and express their opinions, regardless of Trump's claims that the city is crime-ridden, lawless and a haven for "antifa" agitators, an umbrella description often used for far-left activists who use similar, sometimes aggressive, protest tactics and generally oppose white supremacy and authoritarianism. There is often no centralized structure or group leader.
"I've been in a war zone," said Kettle, who while in the Navy was stationed in Baghdad in the early years of the second Gulf War in Iraq. "He is gaslighting us on this topic."
Barnes said SPD would enforce an ordinance if passed, but suggested the penalties be civil rather than criminal, to diminish the possibility of confrontation between federal law enforcement agents and police officers.
"There is an issue of jurisdiction," Barnes explained, noting that immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, "and there is little our department could do to compel compliance."
Barnes said his research has turned up no policy that requires federal law enforcement officers to identify themselves.
If a mask ordinance is put into place, Barnes said he would likely be limited to reaching out to the Department of Homeland Security, telling them the law in Seattle and asking them about "their willingness to comply."
If they don't comply, he said the city's options would be to fine DHS and ICE or seek redress in some other way. SPD officers would not be arresting ICE agents for mask violations, he conceded.
"Nobody should be above the law," Barnes said. "Not me, and not law enforcement from any agency. This is all about bringing back some civility to what we're doing."
The Department of Homeland Security made it clear it has no intention of complying with a Seattle ordinance barring ICE agents from covering their faces.
"Stop with the smears and fearmongering," wrote DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin in response to a Seattle Times inquiry into whether the agency would abide by an anti-mask ordinance. "It is directly contributing to our officers facing a 1000% increase in assaults against them."
"Ask yourself why our ICE officers wear masks," she said. "They are facing an unprecedented surge in assaults and doxing," the practice of publicizing agents' personal information on social media.
"They are being stalked and targeted by not just violent rioters, but the dangerous criminals who they work to get off the streets," McLaughlin wrote.
Barnes was skeptical when informed of McLaughlin's statement.
"My experience has been that when someone states that something has increased by 1,000%, what it really means is that it never happened," he said.
Increased incidents, the chief said, usually come about due to increased frequency of enforcement actions. The more frequent and aggressive the action, the greater the risk, he said.
Barnes has plans in the works should a deployment be ordered.
SPD officers will respond to protests, set up safe zones where protesters and media can observe and ensure the safety of Seattle residents. Barnes said he has been talking to police officials in other cities where the Guard has been deployed — Los Angeles and the District of Columbia — and has been told that so far guardsmen have been assigned to protect federal agents and federal properties.
Barnes questioned whether the Trump administration recognizes that the Northwest detention center, where detained immigrants are being held, is located in Tacoma, not Seattle.
The chief said he has also been in close touch with Brig. Gen. Gent Walsh, the commander of the Washington National Guard, who has promised Barnes "will be his first call" if Trump federalizes his troops.
"He told me he will provide me with all information on deployment as he gets it," the chief said. "I will know first, so we can prepare."
Barnes, a former history teacher who served as a police officer and commander in Greensboro, the site of the riots that cost Willie Grimes his life in 1969, said the pockmarks of bullets fired by police, guardsmen and students during those protests still can be seen on the college campus buildings.
"I pray for peace and civility in the coming days," the chief said. "But we can't allow that to happen again."
Barnes has been outspoken about his views on the Trump administration: Earlier this year, he told a Seattle City Council Public Safety Committee meeting that "At some point, I will probably go to jail and be in prison, because we have an administration that has threatened to jail politicians.”
On Friday, he made it clear that won't change if federal troops come to town.
The country stands at "a historic point," he said, adding that "Seattle can expect its police chief will not be quiet.
© 2025 The Seattle Times. Visit www.seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
