Seattle Interim Police Chief Andre Sayles has only been on the job for a week and says a measure of his success will be solving the Bite of Seattle shooting.
Seattle Interim Police Chief Andre Sayles has only been on the job for a week and says a measure of his success will be solving the Bite of Seattle shooting.
It is just one test for the former police chief in Beloit, Wisconsin, who is now thrust into a major murder investigation and stabilizing a big city department that has seen tremendous turmoil for the last decade plus.
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He sat down for his first interview as chief with KOMO News.
His predecessor, Shon Barnes, abruptly resigned last week after questions about the department’s response to Seattle Center, communication, and his travel schedule.
Three people were killed in the July 26 shooting outside the Armory during the Bite of Seattle, and four others were wounded, including a 2-year-old toddler.
Critics have been loud given the lack of immediate communication about a mass shooting and the fact that a killer is still at large. While a 15-year-old had been arrested, Sayles flatly admitted that “the killer is not in custody."
Sayles, who had spent just 14 months in Seattle after more than two decades policing in Wisconsin, also acknowledges the moment in time is difficult for the city.
We are in rocky times,” Sayles said.
The “rocky waters,” as he also described them, stem in part from the circumstances surrounding Barnes’ departure and the inevitable questions that followed about instability inside SPD.
Sayles said his goal is to calm that uncertainty with consistent leadership and keep the department moving forward.
But his first major test may have less to do with what happens inside police headquarters than with whether detectives can solve the case that has consumed the city for nearly two weeks.
Sayles said he met with the detectives leading the Seattle Center investigation and believes investigators are making progress toward piecing together what happened before, during, and after the shooting.
But despite earlier suggestions that arrests could be close, Sayles would not put a timetable on when they might come. His reason: accuracy over speed.
“I don’t want to create any injustices for anyone,” Sayles said. “We want to make sure that we’re combing through the evidence that we have, making sure it’s linked to the appropriate person.”
Investigators, he said, are working through a significant amount of video and other evidence.
“If you look throughout policing as a history, there’s a lot of people that were arrested that should not have been arrested,” Sayles said. “We want to make sure that we are arresting the correct person.”
Sayles said investigators believe other people were involved. He characterized any continuing threat as connected to specific individuals rather than a threat that members of the general public would be randomly targeted.
The investigation could also stretch beyond what happened at Seattle Center.
Sayles said detectives are examining whether the shooting may be connected to multiple other incidents.
Asked specifically about violence along North Aurora Avenue, he said there “may be a nexus,” but cautioned that investigators had not definitively established a connection to the Bite of Seattle shooting.
“We’re looking at everything, every piece of evidence that we have, every investigation,” he said.
By the end of the interview, Sayles went a step further when asked whether investigators could be looking for more than one shooter.
“Yes,” he said, while quickly adding that detectives are not committing to a specific number.
“The number may change; it may be one, it may be two,” Sayles said. “But we want to make sure we’re 100% accurate in what we’re doing and getting those individuals identified and then arrested.”
The Seattle Center shooting has also renewed a long-running debate over surveillance cameras in Seattle.
Sayles described cameras as an important investigative tool but not a substitute for traditional police work.
“We want to make sure we’re still doing the investigations and not just solely leaning on cameras,” he said.
That means collecting physical evidence, talking with witnesses, and relying on the public for information.
Sayles said investigators had received upwards of 100 tips in the Seattle Center case and urged people to continue coming forward.
Pressed on whether additional surveillance cameras at Seattle Center could have helped investigators, Sayles acknowledged they could have.
“More surveillance would have helped,” he said.
But on the larger policy question of whether Seattle should expand its use of CCTV cameras, Sayles signaled that he does not intend to get in front of Mayor Katie Wilson.
He said he expects SPD to work “in concert” with the mayor’s office and be aligned with the direction it sets.
That deference to the mayor comes as another part of the Seattle Center response remains under scrutiny, and how quickly the city communicated with the public after the shooting.
Sayles said he did not yet have a clear answer for who decided the timing of information released that night, including why an on-scene news conference came roughly five hours after the gunfire instead of an earlier public warning through systems such as Alert Seattle.
Instead, he said SPD and other city agencies are now working on what he called a “collective, comprehensive plan” for releasing information during major incidents.
Asked whether the Mayor’s office instructed police to hold off on a news conference, Sayles said he had not personally heard that.
Sayles said that based on the information he has received, SPD also didn't request a delay.
He declined to assign blame.
“At that time, it was a chaotic scene,” Sayles said. “I’m not here to place blame on anyone, but it’s a look at the protocols, the procedures that we have in place, and tighten those up.”
Sayles acknowledged that the city needs to improve the speed and clarity of its response the next time a major incident occurs.
“There are some things that we’re going to tighten up to make sure when this happens again, or if this happens again, that we are putting the information out in a timely manner,” he said.
Sayles came to Seattle after spending more than 20 years with the Beloit Police Department in Wisconsin, including serving as its chief.
Leaving was not an easy decision.
“My reasons for leaving Beloit were very tough,” he said.
Sayles said it took him roughly three and a half to four months to accept the opportunity in Seattle. Ultimately, he saw it as a chance to challenge himself.
“Coming to Seattle was a challenge for me, and I don’t run away from challenges,” he said.
The city says Sayles joined SPD in 2025 as deputy chief of administration and investigations after more than two decades in law enforcement. Mayor Wilson appointed him interim chief on July 30 as the city begins another search for a permanent leader.
Sayles said he has not asked the mayor to consider him for the permanent job, nor, he said, has she encouraged him to apply.
“We’ll see if I even apply for it,” he said.
He repeatedly described himself as “selfless.”
“I am a 'we' person, not a 'me' person,” Sayles said. “It’s about us collectively as a police department.”
That philosophy is also shaping how he plans to handle the interim job.
“There won’t be too many changes,” Sayles said. “I think that would be unfair to the person that may come in as a full-time chief.”
Instead, he said his priorities will be continuing recruitment, supporting investigations, including cold cases, and improving conditions for patrol officers.
Sayles described himself as a “big work-life balance person” and said getting more officers into vacant positions could give patrol officers relief from long hours while putting additional resources on the street to respond to 911 calls.
Recruiting has bedeviled Seattle for years, and leadership turnover adds another potential obstacle.
Sayles’ pitch to prospective officers is to look beyond whoever occupies the chief’s office.
“The chief is one person,” he said. “Look at the 1,000-plus individuals that are here.”
Sayles also said he had recently received a recruiting update indicating SPD had drawn roughly 3,300 applications, a figure he cited as evidence that people still want to join the department.
SPD has hired 99 officers this year, according to department-supplied figures. However, the SPD deployable count was 939 officers in June of 2026, down from 1,273 in June of 2020.
Sayles also enters the role under a microscope created partly by the controversy surrounding his predecessor’s travel.
Sayles said his primary home is now in the Issaquah area. He has a Washington ID and is registered to vote in the state, while maintaining what he described as a second home in Illinois.
His wife and three sons remain an important part of his life, he said, and he intends to continue seeing them.
“I will go back,” Sayles said. “I do deserve that to my family.”
But he said his wife travels to Washington more frequently than he returns to Illinois.
Asked whether a police chief should live in the city the chief serves, Sayles said presence matters more than an address.
He noted that he did not live within Beloit while serving there either, yet said residents knew he would be available when needed.
I want the (Seattle) to understand that even though I don’t live directly in the city of Seattle, I’m a short 20 minutes away, and I’ll be here,” Sayles said. “I’ll be there for them. I’ll be at the community events.”
For all of the immediate questions confronting Sayles—whether it be the shooting investigation, staffing, cameras, communications, and leadership stability—he returned repeatedly to a word that may provide the clearest picture of how he wants to be viewed: authentic.
Asked at the beginning of the interview to describe himself, he talked about allowing people to be themselves and finding value in everyone in the department and the community.
And, somewhat unexpectedly for a chief who took command during what he calls “rocky times,” he said he wants to bring some fun back to the department.
For Sayles, “fun” is not complicated.
“It might be stopping in a hallway to ask an officer about their family," Sayles said. "Talking about what someone did over the weekend. Asking whether they took time to care for themselves."
Sayles said he tries to walk three miles a day outside of work, using the time to clear his head and think about what went well and what he could do better.
And sometimes, he said, leadership can be as simple as listening to a bad joke.
“Somebody can come up to me and tell me a dad joke,” says Sayles. “Tell me a dad joke.”
The point, Sayles said, is to create moments when officers and staff can exhale and to make clear that the person now occupying the chief’s office sees the people behind the uniform.
“I see them more than the badge number that they have on their chest.”
For Sayles, that may be the easier part of the assignment.
The harder test is already underway. That includes stabilizing a department after another leadership change, fixing gaps exposed by one of the city’s highest-profile shootings and finding the people investigators believe are still responsible.
Sayles says he does not intend to rush it.
In a job he inherited amid uncertainty, his first promise is essentially to get it right.
