FOLLOWUP: That ‘wasn’t anger for the sake of anger,’ explains ‘bullet hole in car seat’ dad

(WSB photo, Wednesday night)

As we reported last night, City Councilmember Rob Saka‘s community-safety meeting for three West Seattle neighborhoods ended with several frustrated attendees shouting that they hadn’t been allowed to speak.

Among them, Phil Brandt, the High Point resident whose car had been hit buy gunfire in High Point last month – leaving his 3-year-old’s car seat with a bullet hole.

Today, he contacted WSB wanting to tell his side of the story, to offer context. “That wasn’t anger for the sake. of anger,” he said. “It’s important for the community to understand the three weeks that preceded last night.”

He laid out this timeline:

-April 17, in gunfire near Walt Hundley Playfield, two rounds hit his vehicle, one going through his son’s car seat. We received this photo from a reader that night:

Brandt said that was one of eight West Seattle gunfire incidents in 34 days. Two were in High Point, he said, one in an area with a longterm streetlight outage. He said he was out of town at the time and not aware of the bullet hole for a few daus but once he was, he emailed a photo of the car seat to Councilmember Saka, and other emails to SPD and the councilmember’s staff. He said they got back to him and urged him to speak at the April 22 City Council meeting, which he did (with the car seat), expressing frustration there too (see it here, two minutes into the meeting).

After that meeting, he said, “multiple staffers from multiple councilmembers” asked what they could do. Talking to other High Point community members, he said, they had three demands, starting by asking that all 33 streetlight outages in High Point within a week. He said that led to staff for four councilmembers – Saka, Alexis Mercedes Rinck, Sara Nelson, Dan Strauss – contacting City Light, and fast repair action resulting.

Second, he said, was a High Point town hall with Saka and SPD, and third was a High Point neighborhood walkthrough with Saka, his staff, and local police. Saka’s staff started working on the town hall, Brandt said, and community members emphasized that they did NOT want a presentation. “They agreed to open Q&A,” he said. But, he said, he did not hear from Saka himself until a phone call on May 2. “I don’t know why it took 11 days to contact me directly.”

The meeting announcement sent to Saka’s newsletter email list said the meeting would be “about listening” among other things – here’s a screengrab:

But, Brandt told. us, “last night I had a feeling we weren’t going to get what we asked for. I’m happy that (many) city officials showed up, but it’s not what we asked for and agreed to. When I got there at 6 pm, it was the first time I had heard there would not be live questions.”

Overall, he said he found the hour-and-a-half meeting frustrating except for Police Chief Shon Barnes and Chief Public Safety Officer Natalie Walton-Anderson. Regarding the announcement promising “listening,” he said, “I don’t know where the ‘listening’ was.” Not with Saka, he alleged, “I lost track of how many times he (started sentences) with ‘I’… this was not a campaign stop, this was a community hurting.” Instead of guns, Saka focused on sidewalks, Brandt noted, saying that might have been relevant if there was data to show that a lack of sidewalks factored into crime.

Brandt has lived in High Point since last summer, after returning to Seattle from a few years away, noting that he has two sets of family members who also live in High Point. He says the organizations that manage the area have been “very helpful,” so his beef’s not with them.

He’s waiting to hear what Saka plans to do … but hadn’t heard from him or his staff by day’s end. (We’ll be asking them “what’s next?” tomorrow.)

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