Watch: Seattle Top Cop Gives Absurd New Name to Criminal Gangs, Confirms He Was at Black Conference in Texas During Seattle Mass Shooting
It’s not especially difficult to call something what it is — unless, of course, you inhabit a woke parallel universe where doing that is akin to apostasy.
When three people died in a shooting in Seattle, they unfortunately were killed in a city where that parallel universe still holds strong.
The media, mind you, can call the shooting at the Bite of Seattle food festival last weekend what it was: According to KOMO-TV, “a suspected gang-related gunfight in the middle of the crowded event.”
However, if you’re Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes and you’re looking to deflect from the fact that your department doesn’t even have a unit devoted to gang crimes, you can’t call them gang crimes. Hence, our new absurd euphemism for them: “small groups.”
This came during a news conference in which Barnes defended being at a Black Law Enforcement Executives’ conference in Texas when the shooting took place. His absence from the city has been a sore spot, as the New York Post reported, due to Barnes’ frequent absences to visit Chicago, where his family still lives.
“I wish that I had a crystal ball and we could schedule gun violence, but we can’t,” Barnes said.
Yes, but, can we predict who does? Well, sort of — although we won’t call gang members “gang members,” because that’s problematic.
“In Seattle, the problem of gun violence is worsened by small groups,” Barnes told the media.
“And in our city, 0.01 percent of the population is connected to 52 percent of our shootings, most of which are young people. Which is why our department partners with community members, with our mayor’s office, without our prosecutors, our federal partners, some of whom are here today, to find the underlying causes of this.”
Which apparently are “small groups.” You know, like your church has.
And here he is explaining why he was in Dallas, since “two members from our community were being honored,” and he doesn’t have that goshdarned “crystal ball” that allows him to predict when violence is going to happen.
You, Mr. Barnes, are the police chief. You are supposed to be there when violence occurs.
This is like a pilot on a flight to London saying that you can’t blame him for being asleep in the cockpit when the turbulence occurred, because how are we supposed to predict when sleepiness is going to hit? Nap attack! Can’t help it.
But let’s deal with the “small group” euphemism, because that’s kind of important. Surprisingly, he’s not the only police chief of a major woke city who’s using this kind of euphemism to talk about gangs these days. Here’s the interim police chief of Asheville, North Carolina, calling the suspects in a recent shooting “a group of individuals who know each other” who were “committing acts of violence against each other.”
Here’s liberal Asheville Police Dept Interim Chief, Jacquelyn “Jackie” Stepp tying herself in knots to not call the shooting that left 2 dead & 7 critically injured this week gang related, but rather ‘groups’. Asheville continues to get what it votes for. @asheville pic.twitter.com/CFsAbnyXt3
— Evans Wroten (@Evans_Wroten) July 24, 2026
Stepp and others in Asheville law enforcement wouldn’t even answer media questions about whether these shootings were gang-related, simply sticking to the line about “two groups of individuals” who knew of one another.
And in Seattle, it’s a “small group.” Bigger the city, smaller the group, I guess.
Tying yourself in knots to avoid telling the truth about crime only divides us — which is the point, I suppose, when it comes from the left. This is especially true when it comes to gang-related violence, especially when it’s plastered over by a guy who was at an identitarian convention when it happened. Enough is enough.
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