If Wilson can’t lead through the Bite shooting crisis, Ferguson needs to

Nearly three weeks have passed since gunfire erupted at the Bite of Seattle, killing three people and wounding four others.

Seattle has replaced its police chief. The City Council has held hearings. The mayor has ordered an independent review.

Yet the most important question remains unanswered:

Is someone who killed a person at the Bite of Seattle still on the loose?

Councilmember Rob Saka put that question to Interim Police Chief Andre Sayles this week.

Sayles could not give a clear yes-or-no answer. He said investigators were still reviewing video, social media and other evidence and hoped to determine whether there is “an actual killer on the loose right now.”

Saka then asked for a description of the person police had said fled the scene.

“There was a potential identification of a blue shirt. That’s as far as I’ll go with that,” Sayles responded.

Three weeks. A blue shirt.

Police arrested a 15-year-old at the scene, but investigators have said they do not believe his gunfire killed the three people who died. Police have also said another person fled.

It is understandable that detectives cannot reveal everything they know during an active murder investigation.

It is much harder to understand how, nearly three weeks later, city leaders still cannot clearly tell residents whether someone believed to have killed another person remains free.

And that is not the only unanswered question.

From the night of the shooting, Future 42 has raised concerns about the nearly five-hour period during which Seattle residents received little meaningful public information.

Mayor Katie Wilson initially announced that two suspects were in custody, then corrected the statement to say only one had been arrested. Police did not provide their first full briefing until around 11 p.m.

One of the initial explanations reporters received was that officials were waiting for “dignitaries” to arrive.

Wilson’s office emphatically denied that. Then-Police Chief Shon Barnes also disputed that anyone was told to hold the briefing for elected officials.

Now, newly released records complicate that account.

KOMO obtained a July 28 email written by Seattle Police Detective and public information officer Brian Pritchard, who was handling media communications at the scene.

Pritchard told supervisors that waiting for dignitaries had been discussed during “several team briefings” at Seattle Center and that he accurately relayed that explanation to reporters. He wrote that the later claim that the briefing had not been delayed for dignitaries was “not accurate.”

That email was written just two days after the shooting.

It does not establish that Wilson personally ordered the delay. It also does not prove that Gov. Bob Ferguson or Rep. Pramila Jayapal asked anyone to wait.

But it raises obvious questions about why the city’s account differs so sharply from what a police public information officer says he was being told at the scene.

Ferguson’s office had moved quickly after the shooting to release text messages showing his communications with Wilson and her administration. Those messages indicated Ferguson offered to arrive by 9 p.m. but was told Seattle Center remained an active crime scene.

A Center Square reporter who obtained the records said it was the fastest response to a public records request he could remember and interpreted the unusually quick release as Ferguson’s office trying to dispel allegations that the governor caused the delay.

Pritchard’s email does not prove Ferguson was responsible for the delay.

But it does put the governor in the middle of yet another contradiction surrounding the city’s response that night.

Wilson’s administration says officials were not waiting for dignitaries. Pritchard says that is exactly what police personnel were being told. Ferguson’s office quickly released records intended to show he was not responsible for holding things up.

Nearly three weeks later, Seattle residents are still left trying to reconcile those competing accounts themselves.

That is the larger problem.

There has been no sense that anyone is firmly in charge of getting to the bottom of what happened, explaining it clearly and restoring confidence after a mass shooting that left three people dead.

Wilson has asked Seattle’s Office of Inspector General to conduct an independent review of the city’s communications, but KOMO reports that review may not be completed until mid-December.

Seattle cannot wait four months for leadership.

The frustration with Wilson has already grown serious enough that a north Seattle couple has filed recall charges against the mayor, citing the Bite of Seattle response among broader complaints about public safety. The filing is only the beginning of a legal process, and its allegations have not been established as fact.

But the recall effort is another indication of just how badly confidence in Wilson’s leadership has deteriorated.

Future 42 previously asked whether Katie Wilson was capable of leading Seattle after the city’s disastrous initial response to the shooting.

Nothing that has happened since has eased those concerns.

Seattle still cannot clearly say whether another shooter is at large. The mayor’s office remains caught in conflicting accounts about what happened the night of the shooting. And the public is being told that a fuller explanation may be months away.

Wilson is the mayor. The responsibility to lead starts with her.

But if Seattle City Hall continues to stumble from one contradiction to the next, Ferguson cannot simply stand on the sidelines, particularly now that questions have been raised about his own role and communications that night.

He is the governor of Washington. This was a deadly mass shooting in the state’s largest city. He should be demanding clarity, helping establish the facts and showing the kind of steady leadership Seattle is plainly not getting from its mayor.

Three weeks after the shooting, residents should not still be wondering whether a killer is free or which version of events from their government they are supposed to believe.

Seattle deserves better from its leader.

And if the mayor cannot provide it, the governor needs to step up.