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The Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) Interim Chief Sue Rahr is expected to vacate her office Wednesday to make way for new department Chief Shon Barnes, internal communications within the department sent Monday stated. She will depart after replacing Adrian Diaz last May, serving about eight months in the position.

Ahead of her departure, Rahr spoke at length to ³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Newsradio about a series of topics, including why she took the job, what she feels she has accomplished while holding the position and what may be next for her.

This is the transcript, edited for clarity and length:

James Lynch, ³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Newsradio: You were comfortably in retirement. Nice comfortable pension. Your time was all your own. Why did you decide to take this job?

SPD’s Interim Chief Sue Rahr: Well, I’ll be honest with you. They offered me a lot of money. That got my attention. But, frankly, the thing that really got me was when Tim Burgess reached out to me, he said, ‘You know you’ve been writing articles and you’ve been speaking around the country about the fact that leadership is the biggest problem in law enforcement. So, maybe it’s time to, you know, put up or shut up.’

And that kind of stabbed me right in the heart. And I thought, you know what? I really need to live up to what I’m preaching. I decided to give it a shot, and I can say this is probably in the top-five best decisions I’ve ever made in my life.

Lynch: Wow, why do you say that?

Rahr: Because this has been – what has happened in the last eight months was not at all what I expected. I expected to come into SPD and face a lot of pushback. I figured it was going to be a real slog. Hard work. And that’s not what I found when I came inside.

What I found is a workforce that was feeling betrayed and desperate for leadership, I will say that. And they looked at me and said, ‘Just tell us, what do you want us to do? What does the public want? What are we supposed to do?’ And once I was in a position to be able to give really clear direction, I literally had to get out of the way because there are people here who have been waiting to get back into the business of public safety.

Several things happened that came together at the same time. I would like to take credit for this change, but that really isn’t the case. We have a city council that has shifted to support public safety.

And we have stepped away from the politics of either you arrest or you get people to services. We need to do both. And we’ve got a city council in place now that supports policing done smartly and done as part of an overall approach to public safety.

So once the officers in this department understood and believed that they had the support of the city leadership of the department leadership, they stepped up to the challenge in a way that I never expected.

And I think many people in the city have seen the transformation in the areas around Third and Pike (Street). That’s something that, you know, physically, visibly, psychologically feels like there’s a huge improvement there.

We still have a long way to go, don’t get me wrong. But I have seen this department step up in a way that is just pretty astounding.

So, that’s one of the reasons I am glad I came here. The other reason is I really love policing and I forgot how much I missed it. And having the opportunity, at this stage of my life, to be able to relive that feeling of being part of something bigger than yourself, I know that sounds like such a cliché, but dang, there is no substitute for that.

And you know, going to roll calls, going out on the street, watching what the officers are doing. It’s just so invigorating and the quality of the work that’s done here, it is astounding.

I was just talking to another person a little while ago about my eight months here. I have seen the most professional policing I’ve seen in my entire career.

Our officers are working in a city where we had 6,000 — over 6,000 shots — fired last year in eight months. In the eight months that I’ve been here, not one single Seattle police officer has had to fire their weapon because they’re using so many strategies to approach problems to ensure that there’s a peaceful resolution.

Now, I hesitate to say that out loud because I’m going to jinx it, but our officers have encountered some extraordinarily dangerous situations, dangerous people. And they have used the skills that they’ve learned. They are taking such smart, professional approaches to resolve dangerous situations. I just could not be more proud. I feel so lucky that I got to get a peek into this after being away from the profession for a while.

Sue Rahr looks back on her tenure as interim chief

Lynch: You talked about how you found the department as you prepare to leave; what changes did you see or how would you compare the status of the department now to the one you found?

Rahr: Well, I would say when I came in the door, the SPD was very professional. What I’ve been able to see is it was sort of like reinvigorating the officers to get back in the business of crime fighting. And even though they are encountering dangerous situations and dangerous people, they’re making a lot more arrests. But people aren’t getting hurt in the process of making those arrests. Occasionally that happens, but the level of professionalism that is employed and the amount of dangerous people that are being taken off the street is just really something extraordinary.

I think I came in at a very good time because the department has invested literally millions of dollars and thousands of hours of training, and it’s paid off because these officers are extremely professional. So, I think my timing was lucky. I’d like to take credit for it, but that really wouldn’t be the truth. I just happen to have good timing, I think.

Lynch: Gotcha. And have you seen a change in the public’s perception of the police department from eight months ago and today? Have you been able to make any inroads there?

Rahr: Yes. I’ll give you a couple of very specific examples. You know, walking around Third and Pike at the later part of the summer, I mean, let’s be honest, it was kind of a hellscape. And people who live in that community were really upset that they couldn’t go out and walk on the sidewalks. Fast forward three or four months after that and I would go down and walk around in the streets and people who live downtown are walking up to me going, ‘Thank you. Thank you so much. It’s so much better now.’ We still have a ways to go, but people are just very effusive in their appreciation.

We have not solved the problem by any stretch. There’s still a long way to go, but it has dramatically improved.

We were having some really serious problems with violence around nightclub activity up at Capitol Hill. And I met with a group of business and property owners who were really upset about how out of control things had gotten. And we brought a team together — our patrol officers that worked that area, one of our patrol supervisors, a couple of specialty units — and we really focused on that nightclub area and changed the tenor. We got bombarded with emails and phone calls expressing thanks for the SPD — from Capitol Hill!

So, it’s really been a boost for officers to know that they really are appreciated in the community. Frankly, I think most people in the community have always appreciated them. There are just some voices that are louder than others. But in the time that I’ve been here, across the board, I’ve heard resounding support for officers. Also, I cannot understate the importance of the very vocal support and the action from the (Seattle) City Council, supporting officers, getting back in the business of public safety. So, you know, I have seen change since I’ve been here. That’s been very noticeable. And, again, not from my doing, I just had really good timing.

Lynch: How did that change come about with the (Seattle City) Council?

Rahr: Well, I think we have almost all new council members except for one. And I think the political environment has changed. I think people living in Seattle have become fed up with the crime on the street. Again, if you were walking down around Third and Pike this summer, it was not a pleasant place to be and it didn’t feel safe. Same at 12th and Jackson and there’s other areas in the city that were we still have a lot of work to do.

I think people living and working in Seattle are fed up. And I think there was a time when there was a belief that we just needed the police to step back and let social services handle the issues that were causing crime and disorder in the street and that hasn’t worked. We have to do both. We can’t have the philosophy of ‘It’s all one thing or the other.’ We need to work together; we need to coordinate what we’re doing. And I think it’s very important to have services readily available. But sometimes, you need the backstop of law enforcement to get people to herd them into those services.

Now, we still have a significant system problem with public safety here, and that is because we have so many people on the street who are suffering from untreated mental illness and addiction. They don’t have safe places to live. And many have devolved into very dangerous behavior.

So, we have a whole bunch of different problems that need more than just law enforcement and more than just services. What I hope we can get to is create a space in our jails where we can take the people who are too sick for jail and too dangerous for the hospital and we can put them in a place where they’re secure and get them the medical intervention they need so they are finally in a state of mind where they can make better decisions about accepting treatment. That isn’t happening when we just contact somebody in the street and say, ‘Hey, you have a choice between jail and treatment.’ They’re not going to choose treatment. So, we have to have a system in place that can deal with them.

We have a consistent problem where a person is on the street engaged in dangerous behavior and we take them into custody and they need to be taken off the street and put in a secure place so they don’t hurt themselves or other people. But they’re too sick to be admitted into jail. So, officers end up taking them and sitting with them at the Harborview emergency room for hours and hours.

It’s disruptive to the emergency room, it’s a terrible use of officer time and we don’t get a good outcome. I mean, we were investing all this officer time, all this medical time, but we don’t have a system that then is going to successfully connect them to the next steps of treatment that they need.

I’m hoping that after I leave SPD, I can work with a group of people to figure out a way to fix this huge broken spot in our system.

Sue Rahr is optimistic about future SPD staffing, Shon Barnes

Lynch: So, you’re not done yet?

Rahr: I’m not done yet. I need to move past SPD because we have a great chief coming in the door that’s going to be able to, you know, pick up on the momentum that’s already here.

But the thing I think I can give back to this department that will be most helpful, and that I can leave with the community that will be most helpful, is a system that is actually set up to address the underlying problems that are leading to the crime and disorder that we’re seeing out on the street.

It might not be 100% successful, but even if it’s 25 or 30% successful, we’re going to have safer streets. And we can’t continue to use police officers to be hospital guards for hours and hours on end. And that’s what’s happening every day and every night.

Lynch: Speaking of staffing, I guess the worst-kept secret is SPD is down a great number of officers and that plays into its ability to do certain things. Do you think staffing now — because we have heard some uplifting news about that – is headed in the right direction at SPD now?

Rahr: Absolutely, 100%. It is headed in the in the right direction. We’re on track to hire 150 people this year. I am really proud of the work that our team has done in SPD to streamline and make that process go faster.

The dose of reality that I have to inject, though, is from the day we hire somebody until they are fully trained and equipped to get behind the wheel of a patrol car is almost a year. So, we’re building toward a point where we’re going to finally see some staffing relief. By this summer, our staffing is going to start to feel better.

By the end of 2025, I think it’s going to be noticeable. And I think by the end of 2026, we’re finally going to have mathematically enough police officers to really strategically deal with some of these very difficult areas of crime.

Lynch: Gotcha. Did you support hiring (incoming Chief) Shon Barnes? Why or why not?

Rahr: I didn’t have a vote. It wasn’t a case of me supporting him or not. I was involved in the panel that interviewed him. I am very impressed with him. I think he’s going to be an excellent chief. He’s got a lot of experience. He’s got a good heart. I genuinely like him as a human being. He has a reputation for being a very ethical leader. I think he’s going to be the right person to fill this position right now.

Lynch: So, if the decision had been yours alone, you would have picked him?

Rahr: Absolutely.

Sue Rahr discusses training implemented within the SPD

Lynch: Gotcha. Well, you talked a little bit about training. Is there any new training that you implemented for leadership or for the rank and file during your eight months?

Rahr: Well, the training for the rank and file is well underway, but I have been successful in getting an immersive leadership development program implemented at SPD.

I think that will be the thing that I am most proud of leaving with this department. And the critical thing about this leadership development program is it was designed to train and equip leaders to build trust. And that’s what we need in the SPD because that’s going to help us build trust in the community.

I was involved in the development of this program back when I was at the academy, and we had a grant from Microsoft to bring in experts from across the country to build this training program. We now have it deeply immersed in the SPD.

We’re on our second cohort of leaders in this program. It’s designed to build bridges between the ranks across the bureaus, and I think that is going to be the final step that is really going to put Seattle Police on the map as one of the best departments in the country.

Lynch: Is that the Trust Centered Leadership?

Rahr: That’s correct, absolutely.

Lynch: Gotcha. Do you have any financial interest in that?

Rahr: I do not, and I know that people have been concerned about that because I’ve been deeply involved in the development of the program, but my involvement in it was when I was being paid by the academy. Part of my job was to build it.

I did participate in trying to create a nonprofit so that we could raise money for agencies that couldn’t afford leadership training to use that money for the training, but I have no financial stake in it at all. I just don’t have one. I’ve never been paid. There’s not an avenue for me to make money from that training.

Would Sue Rahr be interested in being Tacoma’s police chief?

Lynch: Someone mentioned to me earlier that your name had kind of been tossed around about doing the same thing (in Tacoma) that you did here (in Seattle). If they asked, would you have any interest at all?

Moving on: Tacoma Police Department Chief Avery Moore resigns

Rahr: I really wouldn’t. I don’t know Tacoma the way I know Seattle, and it’s a long way to go. And I’ve missed almost a year of spending time watching my grandkids growing up. So, I’m not willing to give up that time again.

Lynch: Well, I was just about to ask you about what lies ahead of you and, you know, I really appreciate you for your commitment to law enforcement in the King County community because you could have still been sitting on the couch with your feet up, now you came back in because you were interested in doing good. It’s one of the things that I’ve always admired about you since we first met all those years ago.

Rahr: Oh my goodness. Well, I appreciate that. And I have to tell you, I’ve gotten way more out of this than I’ve given. This has been, again, one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I deeply cherish the time I’ve had here. I’ve learned so much and I’ve made some great friends.

Lynch: Can you talk to me a little bit more about that sacrifice you made spending time away from your kids and your grandkids?

Rahr: My grandkids. My heart was grieving for the Seattle Police Department after what happened in 2020. I mean, I think we can be honest: There was some significant leadership failure and it just hurt to see what this department was going through.

And as I said before, I had been going around the country pontificating about how law enforcement leaders are the ones responsible for the state of our profession. So I felt like, you better put your money where your mouth is or you’re going to have no credibility preaching this stuff about leadership, you know? ‘Step up.’ And I did step up and I’ve learned some really good lessons and I look forward to sharing those lessons.

I’ll still be making presentations around the country and writing articles about leadership, but they’re going to be a lot more well-informed than they were before because of this experience.

Sue Rahr addresses racism and sexism within the SPD and in society overall

Lynch: Gotcha, gotcha. I think that may be it. One last question. Do you think that there is systemic racism in the SPD right now?

Rahr: I think there’s systemic racism everywhere in our society and the police department is nested inside of our society.

I can tell you my own personal experience with sexism. I don’t know what it’s like to be a person of color in policing, but I do know what it’s like to be a woman in a male-dominated profession, and I will tell you I have faced more sexism outside of the King County Sheriff’s Office, and outside of SPD, than in the general community.

Now, that’s not an excuse to ignore it. Racism and sexism are both really important, difficult issues that have to be grappled with. And we are doing the best we can to try and improve that system. But I don’t want people to think that the police department is uniquely worse than the rest of society. We’re taking steps to try and find those systemic things that sometimes become invisible because you get used to them — decision-making processes, assumptions that people make based on your gender or your race. We’re really, really trying to identify opportunities to make sure that those things don’t influence decisions and I think we’ve made progress and we still have a long way to go.

Lynch: OK. I sure do appreciate it, and there is a similar perspective being a person of color and being a woman, I get that. I’m just glad that you were able to survive it all and get to the point where you are, where you’ve just been able to help so many people and protect so many people and I just really appreciate you. You are one of my favorite people.

Rahr: Well, thank you so much. That’s very kind. And like I said, I feel like I’m the one who’s lucky, and I appreciate you taking the time to do an in-depth interview.

Contributing: Steve Coogan, MyNorthwest; Frank Sumrall, MyNorthwest

Editors’ note: ³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Newsradio’s James Lynch conducted this interview and asked a question about the (potential) departure of Tacoma Police Chief Avery Moore from his position before he announced his resignation on Tuesday, Jan. 28. Outdated portions of Lynch’s statement and question about Moore’s exit were removed from this transcript.

James Lynch is a reporter at ³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Newsradio. You can read more of James’ stories here. Follow James on , or email him here.