Interim Seattle Police Chief Andre Sayles has defended the department’s new term for gunmen after widespread online ridicule.
Sayles, who took the helm of the embattled department, introduced “trigger-pullers” as formal SPD vocabulary during a Monday press conference addressing a deadly weekend surge of violence. Three people were killed and three more wounded in shootings across the city, prompting questions about what concrete steps police would take.
“We’re working with business owners, increasing patrols, bike patrols, working with our community response group and our gun violence reduction group as well,” Sayles said when a reporter pressed for specifics on “proactive” measures.
He continued that officers are “looking at ways where we can identify individuals known — we call them trigger-pullers — in our community, identifying them, making sure we’re putting cases on those individuals, and working with the King County Prosecutors Office to bring these individuals to justice because the families that lost loved ones throughout this year and in years past deserve justice.”
The neologism landed flat on social media, where critics treated it as bureaucratic euphemism rather than tough-on-crime rhetoric. “Are they doing anything about the shootings themselves or just making sure they don’t overstep boundaries with criminals?” one X user asked. Another fired back: “You still got shot either way, the word choice didn’t stop it.”
The mockery spiraled into satirical suggestions for parallel rebrands. “Additionally, they will now refer to cannibals as ‘alternative-protein enthusiasts,’ looters as ‘unlicensed wealth redistributors,’ arsonists as ‘freelance urban-renewal specialists,’ and murderers as ‘life-expectancy adjusters,'” one poster wrote.
The controversy arrives as Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, a democratic socialist elected last November, faces her own scrutiny over progressive positioning. Wilson appeared at a barista union rally as mayor-elect in November and declared, “I am not buying Starbucks, and you should not either,” according to KUOW. She later said those remarks were “not productive” and “caused more harm than good.”
In April, Wilson drew fresh criticism at Seattle University when she dismissed concerns that Washington state’s new 9.9% income tax would drive millionaires out, waving and saying “like, bye” to the prospect — a comment that earned cheers from the campus audience but fueled accusations of economic flippancy from conservatives.
SPD offered no comment when asked how “trigger-puller” entered departmental parlance or who originated it.
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