After 10 months at Washington State's largest psychiatric hospital, Adam Aurand is discharged onto the streets of downtown Seattle — ejected into a world shaped by decades of deinstitutionalization and failure to build community-based mental health care. His mother rushes to save him before he gets pulled back into the "churn." A Seattle Times reporter tries to pinpoint where the discharge process failed — and the investigation leads her to new conclusions about the limitations of psychiatric care in the U.S.

After 10 months at Washington State's largest psychiatric hospital, Adam Aurand is discharged onto the streets of downtown Seattle &mdash; ejected into a world shaped by decades of deinstitutionalization and failure to build community-based mental health care. His mother rushes to save him before he gets pulled back into the "churn." A Seattle Times reporter tries to pinpoint where the discharge process failed &mdash; and the investigation leads her to new conclusions about the limitations of psychiatric care in the U.S.

New Season "We Keep Us Safe" starting September 21, 2026.

In the summer of 2020, sixteen-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. traveled a thousand miles to join the racial justice movement of his generation. He arrived in Seattle during the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, known as CHOP. Less than a week later, he was shot and killed there. The case remains unsolved. In this eight-part series, first published on NPR’s Embedded, KUOW’s Will James and The Seattle Times’ Sydney Brownstone track down key figures and eyewitnesses from the night of the shooting and surface crucial evidence that has never been made public.

We Keep Us Safe is a joint production of KUOW, The Seattle Times, and NPR’s Embedded.

Focus is KUOW’s home for immersive audio documentaries. Each season zooms in on a single story that challenges commonly held narratives about life in the Pacific Northwest and reveals something bigger about American society. Series include Adults in the Room and the Peabody-nominated Lost Patients.

New Season "We Keep Us Safe" starting September 21, 2026.
In the summer of 2020, sixteen-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. traveled a thousand miles to join the racial justice movement of his generation. He arrived in Seattle during the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, known as CHOP. Less than a week later, he was shot and killed there. The case remains unsolved.&nbsp;In this eight-part series, first published on NPR&rsquo;s&nbsp;Embedded, KUOW&rsquo;s Will James and The Seattle Times&rsquo; Sydney Brownstone track down key figures and eyewitnesses from the night of the shooting and surface crucial evidence that has never been made public.
We Keep Us Safe&nbsp;is a joint production of KUOW, The Seattle Times, and NPR&rsquo;s Embedded.
Focus is KUOW&rsquo;s home for immersive audio documentaries. Each season zooms in on a single story that challenges commonly held narratives about life in the Pacific Northwest and reveals something bigger about American society. Series include Adults in the Room and the Peabody-nominated Lost Patients.