Seattle Public Safety Director Holcomb Claims Cameras Never Prevent Crime, Research Disagrees Seattle Public Safety Director Alison Holcomb told Alki residents no camera has ever prevented a crime, but 40 years of research shows surveillance reduces crime. Seattle Public Safety Director Alison Holcomb told the Alki Community Council meeting last week that no camera has ever prevented a crime from happening, a statement that conflicts with four decades of criminological research on surveillance systems. The meeting, held in the Alki neighborhood of West Seattle, brought together residents concerned about robberies, gunfire, slow police response, lighting, and a Fourth of July that one attendee described as feeling like a war zone. Alki Residents Demand Better Safety MeasuresResidents came to the meeting with a list of requests. They asked for better lighting and cameras. They wanted a police outpost on space a local property owner reportedly offered near Don Armeni. They asked for a plan for next Fourth of July before emergency access and fireworks spin out together again.Someone asked a basic question: fireworks are illegal, so why are the rules not enforced? Holcomb responded that she understood residents wanted to send everybody to jail, but that she wanted to stop the crime from happening in the first place. That exchange set the tone for an argument residents said they never started.Southwest Precinct Commander Capt. Krista Bair told the meeting crime has definitely upticked in Alki, and department data backs part of that. Robberies are at seven so far this year, against three in all of 2025. August brought 27 reported offenses, the busiest August in Alki in three years. Shots-fired calls are running slightly lower, eight so far against 10 over the same stretch last year. Property crime is down.Research Shows Cameras Reduce CrimeHolcomb's claim that no camera has ever prevented a crime runs counter to a large body of research. A 2019 meta-analysis by criminologists at John Jay College, Northeastern University, and Cambridge University found cameras were associated with a modest but real drop in crime. The effect ran around 37 percent in parking areas and around 12 percent in residential ones. Systems that someone was actually watching worked better than systems nobody watched.Holcomb is a longtime criminal-defense attorney and a former policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington. The ACLU plays an important role in how surveillance systems work. It asks who is watching the cameras and how long footage is kept. It stands up for people accused of crimes, who have rights too. A healthy city needs that voice at the table.Bair gave residents straight answers at the meeting. Response times are too long and need to improve. Staffing is still tight. Officers are running directed patrols in Alki. She walked through how police collect shell casings and send them for forensic testing, so investigators can connect shootings and trace guns as they move from crime to crime. Eight shots-fired calls is also eight times somebody in a neighborhood heard gunfire and wondered where the bullets were going.Holcomb's Record Draws Scrutiny Across SeattleAlison Holcomb keeps turning up where Seattle's crime fights are. In May, after 95 shootings in two years around Aurora Avenue North, residents dragged steel planters into their own side streets to break up the loop pimps and johns were driving all night. Holcomb came out that morning, and to her credit, she stood there and took the heat. But when neighbors asked what the mayor could do right now, the city's ability to move officers to different shifts is dictated to a large degree by the police union contract.Then there was the night of the Bite of Seattle shooting. While thousands of people at Seattle Center waited to hear whether it was safe to come out of hiding, Holcomb was the one texting police commanders that the mayor was on her way and to please wait for her. The Seattle Police Department's after-action review found elected and senior officials distracted police from getting information to the public.Aurora. The Bite of Seattle. Alki. Three places, one pattern. People asking for help get an explanation, a delay, or a lecture. I asked the mayor's office whether Holcomb wanted to expand on the jail comment, and whether she stands by what she said about cameras. The office has not responded.Prevention and enforcement can share a building. Arresting somebody who is an immediate danger does not mean you gave up on prevention. Better lighting does not mean police quit investigating. Treatment and intervention do not require pretending the laws went away. The prosecutor, the patrol officer, the treatment provider, and the neighbor wondering whether an ambulance can get down Alki Avenue on the Fourth all bring their own ideas about what safety means. A public safety director's job is to hear the whole table.Listen to the people most affected by crime. They usually know exactly what would help. Start with what they are asking for, and leave the ideology at the door. And if City Hall will not listen, I will. If you live in Alki, along Aurora Avenue, or around Little Saigon and North Beacon Hill, your video, your photos, your dates. I want the whole region to see what is happening in the Seattle neighborhoods that keep getting talked past because what they are asking for does not fit somebody's ideology.