Is Seattle safe in 2026? Chief Barnes’s 37 homicides are not a watch on your door
The search is “is Seattle safe 2026,” “Seattle crime rate,” and “Seattle burglary.” The honest answer uses Seattle Police citywide figures, not a neighborhood rumor and not a heat map we do not have. Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes, in a February 2026 year-in-review reported by the Seattle Times, said overall crime in Seattle fell 18 percent in 2025 compared with 2024. Homicides were 37 versus 58 — down 36 percent. Burglaries were 7,341 versus 8,912 — down 18 percent. Stolen vehicles were down 24 percent. The homicide clearance rate was 86 percent. A better homicide year is good news. It is not a person watching your slider while you sit in a Ballard High pickup line.
Home Security Systems Seattle does not scare-sell those figures. We cite Chief Barnes and the Seattle Times and then sell the product: professionally installed sensors, optional cameras, ADT 24/7, cellular backup when Seattle City Light is dark. Call (425) 600-9043 with the ZIP. SafeStreets is the ADT Authorized Provider that installs. ADT monitors 24/7. This site is not ADT corporate. We do not invent neighborhood crime rates. We do not print a Ballard number, a Queen Anne number, or a Capitol Hill number we do not have. Citywide is citywide. Occupancy is still occupancy. Empty weekday houses still sit. The official Seattle Security Pros lockup on seattlehomesecuritysystems.com is ADT Authorized Provider plus SafeStreets.
What Chief Barnes actually said in February 2026
Treat the numbers as 2025 citywide SPD, reported in February 2026 by the Seattle Times, not as a marketing brochure. Overall crime down 18 percent versus 2024. Thirty-seven homicides in 2025 versus 58 in 2024, a 36 percent decline. Burglaries 7,341 versus 8,912, down 18 percent. Stolen vehicles down 24 percent. Homicide clearance 86 percent, with 32 of 37 cases cleared. Nonfatal shootings where someone was hit were down 36 percent. Aggravated assaults were down 8 percent. Property stolen from vehicles was down 7 percent. Officers recovered 1,523 firearms in 2025. We will not invent a porch-theft count. We will not invent a neighborhood-by-neighborhood rate. Citywide figures mix Downtown, Ballard, Capitol Hill, West Seattle, and the rest of the city. A quieter year is not 24/7 monitoring.
Homicide totals are not how we quote a Ballard stoop. Porch packages, leftover keypads, and school-day empties are. If you own a house, a tried door, a garage, and a box on the stoop are the categories that match a door sensor, a garage contact, and an optional doorbell. We will not pretend 37 homicides means every ZIP is interchangeable. We also will not pretend a 36 percent drop is a reason to panic-buy twelve cameras — or a reason to skip the contact.
This article is dated in 2026 so those 2025 figures can sit here honestly. We do not backdate them into a 2025 evergreen post and pretend the year had not closed. When SPD publishes a later year, that is a different sentence. Until then, the Seattle Times plus Chief Shon Barnes’s February 2026 year-in-review is the citation we will stand behind.
How to read a better year without buying fear — or a skip
Citywide figures mix Downtown, Ballard, Fremont, Queen Anne, Capitol Hill, West Seattle, and Rainier Valley. A neighbor on a porch is not an ADT operator. A year-over-year drop is not a lock. An 86 percent homicide clearance rate is a police sentence. It is not a sensor on your Fremont side door. Aggravated assaults being down 8 percent is a public-safety sentence. It is not the product we sell. We sell a keypad as a door plan. Keep the product in its lane or you will hate it for the wrong reason.
Vehicle theft still exists even when the chief says stolen vehicles are down 24 percent. A garage walk-through contact is the boring add. A camera on Complete+ is the clip of a driveway. Neither replaces the other. Ask for the opening you actually have. Porch theft is not in the homicide total. Burglaries are closer to this product than homicide is. Empty houses are closer still. Order monitoring for the hours you are gone. That is the whole use of this page.
We will not tell you Seattle is dangerous so you will buy a grid. We will not tell you Seattle is so improved the leftover keypad can wait. Both of those sentences are sales tricks. The honest sentence is occupancy. Break-ins and home security is the site’s crime page. This journal is the 2026 SPD numbers without the scare.
What homeowners actually call the 425 line about
Not homicide maps. A box that walked off Market Street. A leftover builder keypad in Bellevue. A Queen Anne two-story empty toward a downtown badge. A West Seattle ranch empty toward a Seattle Public Schools pickup. A Seattle City Light outage that killed a Wi-Fi camera. Those calls did not wait for a crime map to turn red. They waited for the house to sit empty.
House versus condo, ZIP, cameras yes or no, leftover keypad. That is the 425 intake. We do not need a heat map. We need openings. A Downtown 98101 condo with one door is not a Ballard walk-out. A Capitol Hill house with six windows you open is not a Redmond ranch with a garage. Architecture is not the quote. Occupancy is. Same-day or next-day is common in this WA-Seattle territory when the calendar is open. We confirm the window on the call.
Promotional packages start at $53.99/mo* for ADT Secure+, then Smart+ $63.99*, Complete+ $74.99*. $99 install on many plans. Ask about the free alarm-system promo ($850 value) on qualifying monitoring*. Typically 36 months. Early termination fees apply. Credit approval applies. Offers are for homeowners. Crime being down does not change those numbers. Crime being down also does not make a leftover keypad live. The four numbers live on monitoring packages. What ADT costs in Seattle is the money. That is still ADT home security in Seattle in a quieter year.
City of Seattle is not Bellevue, Shoreline, or Renton
Downtown, Ballard, Fremont, Queen Anne, Capitol Hill, Wallingford, Green Lake, Magnolia, and West Seattle collect the citywide SPD count when they sit inside the city limit. Weekday empties toward offices, Seattle Public Schools bells, and trail errands. That is a door problem plus, sometimes, a stoop problem. A lobby camera is the association’s. Your door is still your door. Porch packages is the Ballard and Fremont stoop article. Queen Anne and Capitol Hill are occupancy pages. We install in all of them when they sit in this window. We do not tell you one is “safe so skip it” or one is “unsafe so buy twelve cameras.” We tell you the house sits. Order the openings.
Independent cities — Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Shoreline, Renton, Sammamish, Issaquah, Kent, Edmonds, Everett — are not in SPD’s citywide count the way a City of Seattle street is. Do not treat Chief Barnes’s 2025 figures as a Redmond grade. Confirm the desk from the ZIP. A quieter city still has school-day empties, leftover keypads, and porch boxes. A city ZIP with a better year still has sliders. Communities we serve is the map. Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Shoreline, and Renton still empty on a Tuesday.
Break-ins and empty hours match this product. Homicide totals do not.
A professionally installed system cannot promise your address is not in next year’s count. It can promise that an armed door opening becomes a call from ADT instead of a surprise when you get home from Ballard High pickup. People skip monitoring in a “down year” and then order after the one incident on their street. That is a human pattern, not a Seattle-only pattern. The cheaper time to order is the week you move in, leftover keypad still on the wall, $99 install* still on the table, not the week after someone tried the slider.
Intown houses in Ballard, Fremont, Queen Anne, and Wallingford sit with a side door nobody can see from the street. Count that door. A doorbell on the front does not see it. Empty at 1 p.m. is still empty if the view is pretty. Occupancy, not a view. Bellevue and Redmond new-builds sit empty toward Bellevue School District and Lake Washington School District bells with a leftover keypad the builder called an alarm. It is not. Photograph the leftover.
Cellular backup is the other “down year” sentence. A better crime year does not stop a windstorm from taking Seattle City Light lines. A Wi-Fi camera still dies with the router. Ask it on the quote even if you called because of a news story. This metro is Seattle City Light in the city and often Shoreline, Puget Sound Energy on most of the Eastside, and Snohomish PUD in Edmonds and Everett. Seattle City Light and cellular backup is the outage article.
Permits and false alarms are not a crime score
City of Seattle does not make you file a subscriber permit. The company is licensed under SMC 6.10 and 10.08. If Seattle Police arrive on a false burglar alarm, the billed amount is $115. A false panic is $230. Cancel before arrival is $30. A waiver is available once in 84 months with the workshop. A professionally installed system with a walkthrough is how you stay off that bill. A scared DIY kit with no delay is how you train SPD on noise. Seattle versus Shoreline versus Renton desks is the comparison if you are not in the city.
False alarms do not make Seattle less safe. They make responders less interested in your address. That is the opposite of what you wanted when you searched “is Seattle safe.” Pay for the install. Learn the cancel process. Add the spouse to the app. Bellevue registers at $25 ($12 senior) through CryWolf 855-694-8280, with $100 / $200 false alarms and a first that may waive with a class. Unincorporated King County: second false in six months $75, third and later $100, four in six months can mean no-response. Shoreline and Renton: confirm from the ZIP. We do not invent those residential permit dollars.
What we will not do with SPD’s 2025 numbers
We will not draw a heat map. We will not rank neighborhoods as good and bad for SEO. We will not tell you a named Seattle street is unsafe. We will not tell you Queen Anne is so safe the leftover keypad can wait. We will not use Chief Shon Barnes’s quotes as a closer. We will not hide $53.99*, $99 install*, the $850 equipment promo on qualifying monitoring*, or 36 months behind a crime statistic. We will not take a form. We will not take a tenant on the homeowner promotion. We will not invent a Ballard rate, a West Seattle rate, or a Bellevue rate.
We will not pretend 37 homicides is a personality trait of the city that lasts forever. The chief’s challenge is not our headline. Our headline is still occupancy. Empty house. Door. ADT. Burglaries being down 18 percent is still 7,341 burglaries. That is not a reason we sell you a camera pole, and it is not a reason to skip the contact. Firearm recoveries and clearance rates are SPD work. They are not your hallway.
School days, not night-time legends
Most of the unsupervised hours in this metro are 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on a school calendar. Seattle Public Schools. Bellevue School District. Lake Washington School District. Issaquah. Shoreline. Highline. Renton. Kent. Federal Way. Edmonds. Everett. Those hours match a tried door better than a Saturday night story. School-day empties is the calendar article. Arm the system for those hours even if you only searched this page because a homicide total made the news. We will not lecture ratings. Schools for homeowners is the district map, not a scoreboard.
University of Washington calendars empty nearby streets on a different rhythm. Mariners and Kraken nights empty Downtown and also empty Ballard houses if you have tickets. Bellevue and Redmond empty toward 405 jobs plus district bells. One system. Several calendars. Arm whenever the hallway is empty. Weekday empty houses is the occupancy article for those hours.
What an 18 percent overall drop still leaves on a Tuesday
It leaves a Market Street stoop with a box on it. It leaves a 98052 leftover keypad that never had your name on a contract. It leaves a Bellevue house that still needs CryWolf registration. It leaves a Queen Anne board that may limit a street camera while the slider still needs a contact. It leaves Seattle City Light taking the Wi-Fi on a storm Tuesday. None of those sentences are in the homicide total. All of them are the 425 call.
Stolen vehicles down 24 percent is still a garage door you should count. Burglaries down 18 percent is still 7,341 events. Overall crime down 18 percent versus 2024 is not a reason to skip $53.99/mo*. It is also not a reason to panic. Occupancy. Openings. ADT. That is the product that still matches a Tuesday at 1 p.m. when the chief’s year was better than 2024.
How to order is the process. Call for the quote is the only intake. House versus condo. ZIP. Cameras yes or no. Leftover keypad. We confirm the window on the call.
Packages stay the same in a quieter year
Secure+ $53.99*. Smart+ $63.99*. Complete+ $74.99*. $99 install on many plans. $850 free-system promo on qualifying monitoring*. 36-month agreement. Homeowners only. Early termination fees apply. Credit approval applies. A better homicide year does not discount those numbers and does not inflate them. Ask about the promo on the 425 line. Do not wait for a local incident to make the leftover plastic look expensive.
Complete+ is the video-ready promotional plan if you want the clip of a stoop or a driveway. Secure+ is still a monitored house if you only want openings. Smart+ is the weekday plan if you disarm from 405 or from 15th. Pick the layer that matches the empty hours you actually have. The official Seattle Security Pros lockup is on the site. The four prices are on monitoring packages.
HOA plats and “safe neighborhood” listings
A Sammamish or Issaquah listing that says “safe neighborhood” is a real-estate sentence. It is not a sensor. Queen Anne and Capitol Hill boards can limit a street camera and still leave the house empty toward a downtown badge. Indoor sensors plus ADT 24/7 is still a complete system when the packet hates a floodlight. HOA camera rules is the covenant article. Do not skip monitoring because a listing agent used the word safe. Do not invent an HOA fine dollar.
We do not rank Queen Anne against Sammamish. We do not rank Ballard against Bellevue. We quote openings. A prettier street still sits empty on a school Tuesday. A gated plat still has a garage man-door. Order the openings.
Order monitoring for the hours you are gone
Call (425) 600-9043. Hear the monthly price, the install, the agreement, and the Seattle false-alarm reminder if you are in the city — no subscriber permit, company licensed, $115 if SPD arrives on a false burglar, $230 panic, $30 if you cancel before arrival. SafeStreets installs. ADT monitors 24/7. Chief Barnes’s 18 percent overall drop, 37 homicides versus 58, 7,341 burglaries versus 8,912, stolen vehicles down 24 percent, and 86 percent homicide clearance are 2025 citywide SPD. They are not a sensor. They are not a reason to skip the door. They are not a reason to fear-buy a pole.
Seattle homeowners can trust a SafeStreets security system monitored by ADT. Home Security Systems Seattle is the dealer line. seattlehomesecuritysystems.com is the site. We cite the chief. Then we sell occupancy. Empty house. Tried door. Porch box. Leftover keypad. School-day hours. Seattle City Light outages. That is the product. The 425 call is the order. ADT home security in Seattle is a watched door on a Tuesday, not a verdict on the city.