Seattle City councilmember Rob Saka wants the city to add public surveillance cameras to the Seattle Center campus immediately.
Seattle City Councilmember Rob Saka wants the city to add public surveillance cameras to the Seattle Center campus immediately.
A lack of cameras at the campus - which hosts Climate Pledge Arena and the Seattle Space Needle - was cited as an issue during a review of the police response to the Bite of Seattle shooting that was presented to the council this week.
I think the big next step is installing necessary and appropriate security cameras at Seattle Center," Saka told KOMO News on Wednesday. “We currently have no CCTV cameras of our own at Seattle Center, so we’re really in this untenable position, pathetic position to be frank.
Investigators are still looking for suspects who ran off into the crowd after gang members shot at each other during the Bite of Seattle festival in July. The shooting killed three people and wounded four others.
The shooting happened in a crowded area near the international fountain. There are no cameras in the immediate area where the shooting happened, or along the corridors that lead to it.
Police have obtained bystander videos, as well as surveillance videos from private businesses that operate on the Seattle Center campus. Saka says investigators should not have to "beg" private companies to share videos to look for clues when something happens in the public areas of the campus.
It makes no sense; we need to have our own infrastructure," he said. "It’s not some surveillance state and big brother thing – CCTV is the most basic, rudimentary technology available; we’re talking WW II era technology that in this global tech hub, the city of Seattle, we can’t seem to get unstuck of ourselves with our various fears.
Cameras have been a sensitive issue for Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson since coming to office last year. In 2025, the city opened a "Real Time Crime Center", which receives feeds from cameras at all city-owned facilities and a network of surveillance cameras in public areas. The initial phase of the program placed public cameras along Aurora Avenue North, as well as at most intersections in the downtown core and Belltown neighborhood.
Police have praised the cameras as an effective tool to provide video for investigation, including multiple homicide cases in the last month. Critics of the system have said the system is vulnerable to misuse, including by immigration officials.
Wilson cited concerns about ICE accessing the system as a reason for deactivating new cameras in the Pioneer Square neighborhood, though she presented no evidence that ICE has ever accessed, or attempted to access, the SPD Real Time Crime Center feeds.
Saka, who voted for the original rollout of the cameras when it passed council several years ago, said the city has solid policies to prevent the misuse of the cameras.
"We baked in best-in-class, best in the nation, privacy and security controls to prevent inadvertent disclosure to the feds," he said.
Earlier this week, family members of Bite of Seattle shooting victim Ashley Whitehead said they want to see cameras added to Seattle Center.
“Why weren’t there cameras," said Michelle Whitehead, the cousin of Ashley Whitehead. “We want to see accountability, we want to see extensive security measures in place, we want the city to be a safe place, we should feel safe no matter where we go.”
