Seattle police chief says ‘trigger pullers’ — internet immediately asks what happened to ‘shooters’

BS BULLETIN:

Seattle Interim Police Chief Andre Sayles said officers are focusing on known “trigger pullers” after a violent weekend left three people dead and three wounded.
The phrase quickly went viral, with critics accusing Seattle of inventing another euphemism for “shooters.”

Seattle just endured three separate shootings that left three people dead and three others wounded.

Naturally, the internet became fascinated with two words used afterward:

“Trigger pullers.”

Interim Seattle Police Chief Andre Sayles used the phrase while discussing the department’s response to the violent weekend in Belltown and plans to focus resources on people known to be involved in gun violence.

The shootings occurred within roughly 24 hours and are believed by investigators to be unrelated. One incident left a 17-year-old dead and a 21-year-old seriously injured; police say an altercation preceded the gunfire and no suspect had been arrested as of Monday.

During the subsequent press conference, Sayles discussed concentrating police attention on known “trigger pullers.”

That was enough.

Seattle journalist Ari Hoffman posted the clip with the question:

“So in Seattle we aren’t calling them ‘shooters’ anymore? Now they are ‘trigger pullers’?”

The clip quickly spread across X, where critics mocked the terminology as another example of unnecessarily softening straightforward language.

Twitchy ran with the same premise, joking that Seattle had apparently added “shooters” to a growing list of words that must be replaced with something longer and less direct.

There is, however, an important reality check. “Trigger puller” isn’t a new Seattle invention.

The phrase has long been used in policing and criminal-justice circles to distinguish the person who actually fires a weapon from accomplices, gang leaders or others involved in a crime.

And Seattle’s own Police Department certainly hasn’t stopped using the word “shooting.”

Its official blotter this week repeatedly described the incidents as “shootings,” referred to victims suffering “gunshot wounds” and said homicide detectives were investigating what led up to the gunfire.

So the evidence does not show Seattle issued some Orwellian directive banning the word “shooter.”

But that hasn’t stopped the phrase from becoming irresistible internet fodder — particularly in a city already famous for political battles over crime, policing and terminology.

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson and Sayles are under pressure over public safety following the weekend bloodshed as well as criticism of the city’s response to July’s mass shooting at the Bite of Seattle. The city recently promised faster public communication after officials acknowledged significant delays following that attack.

Which means Seattle has much larger questions to answer than whether the person firing a gun is a “shooter” or a “trigger puller.”

But as political language goes, the internet knows a target when it sees one.