News Station Is Investigating Public Transit Safety in Seattle — Updated 05/06/25

Photo courtesy of Sound Transit

SEATTLE –– A news organization in Seattle is investigating public transit safety in its city.

Last week, we published a story about New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s announcements about her plans to address concerns about the safety of passengers and operators aboard the New York Subway. The story included commentary from the Editor, and you can read the story here. However, we will not be adding any editorial comments to this story.

This week, we learned that KIRO 7 news in Seattle is investigating the degree of safety that exists on the area’s King County Metro and Sound Transit light rail. Both systems have experienced physical assaults on both employees and passengers.

In December, a King County Metro bus driver, Shawn Yim, was murdered, and the agency has experienced several shootings, some of them fatal, over the past several years.

In addition, Sound Transit has fairly recent homicides. One was a 26-year-old man shot and killed on a light rail train in February 2024 and in May of the same year, a 37-year-old man was fatally stabbed at a light rail station.

Mr. Charles Mosley is a King County Metro Transit Security Officer. He patrols the streets and rides Metro to try to prevent any situations from getting out of hand. He said “You need to learn how to read body language. The toughest part is . . .communication in general. It can be the hardest part of the job . . . You get used to rowdy people. You learn how to talk down rowdy people.”

In addition to reading body language, Mr. Mosley said he develops relationships with drivers and along with passengers. He said “If you engage with . . . normal conversations, you know, just say ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ . . . It calms them down a lot more than people normally think. Compared to me just standing there staring at them all day. It creates a hostile environment.”

Katie Wilson is the co-founder of the Transit Riders Union, and has been involved in union leadership for 14 years. She is also a mayoral candidate. KIRO 7 reporter Linzi Sheldon asked Wilson if she felt safe on transit. Wilson said “I certainly have encountered situations that felt, you know, a little bit unsafe and uncomfortable to me. And often that’s someone who’s clearly having a mental health crisis.”

KIRO 7 studied a number of videos and saw many instances of individuals having a mental health crisis on the train. One example was a man repeatedly hollering at a bus driver, telling him he prevent him [the driver] from exiting the bus.

While KIRO 7 requested assault statistics, they learned that driver assaults have actually gone down since 2023. However, the statistics also show that in 2023, there were 34 assaults on drivers, 2024 saw 15, and there have been 3 to this point in 2025.

The news organization also reported that passengers suffered from 31 assaults in 2024, with 7 having occurred to this point in 2025.

Sound Transit statistics were also obtained by KIRO 7, showing that there were 44 assaults on drivers in 2023, 163 in 2024, and 3 so far in 2025. Assaults on passengers, though, were “249 in 2023, 222 in 2024, and 38 so far in 2025 in January and February.”

John Gallagher, a Sound Transit spokesperson, said “You don’t want to see that, and you don’t want to experience that, and you shouldn’t experience that.”

KIRO 7 is continuing its investigation into what efforts are being made on both systems to improve safety and we’ll have that information to you as soon as it’s available.

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UPDATE ON 05/06/25

KIRO 7, a news agency in Seattle, updated it’s reporting on improvements King Metro Transit and Sound Transit light rail are trying to make to improve passenger comfort and safety aboard rail transit vehicles.

Two years ago, as riders were coming back from the pandemic, Sound Transit spokesperson John Gallagher said the agency spent $250 million, and had 550 security officers at the end of last year, which is twice the number Metro has. In addition, 68 King County Sheriff’s deputies are assigned to Sound Transit service.

Metro has a similar number of deputies, 67. They have budgeted to get 89, and are trying to recruit those officers now.

King County Metro Director of Communications and Marketing Sean Hawks said that his agency is in the process of installing stronger, longer barricades.

KIRO 7 reporter Sheldon asked Hawks how long it will take to get the barricades installed. He said “It’s going to take a couple of years. That’s why we’re moving as fast as we can to start, in partnership with our union, ATU. And we’re also trying to figure out how we can [make the timeline] even shorter.” Hawks said the barricade installation is the top priority for Metro.

Hawks said “The challenge in many cases is working with suppliers. How do we get as many shields as we need and doors such that we can install them?”

Reporter Sheldon asked Hawks, “And so when you talk about trying to do that faster, what are some examples of solutions for that? He responded “Working to try to figure out our other vendors that we can work with, that have a product that we have high confidence in. “Can we work in an existing vendor to provide more partitions to us on a quicker time frame? Can we increase our installation speed again? So we have total confidence in the product and the protection delivered that we can get those on buses sooner.

As a follow up to the mental health and safety issues that Wilson brought up in yesterday’s report, both Metro and Sound Transit have on-staff behavioral health specialists. Sound Transit has two teams, and Metro is going to expand its behavioral health specialist program from the Burien Transit Center to the Aurora Village Transit Center. The program will be expanded at other locations sometime this year.

KIRO 7 reported “Bus driver Jeremy Une just wants a sense of safety on the road.” He said “If we can start on enough things, get them started, that will carry us forward. But people will forget about Shawn [the Metro bus driver who was murdered in December]. People will forget the dangers we face.”

The President of ATU 587, Greg Woodfill, told KIRO 7, “Our frontline transit workers have worked through COVID, Fentanyl use, and increasing violence. Order and accountability must be restored on and around public transit for the safety of all. Our Union won’t rest until we see real improvements.”