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Mother of slain man sues Seattle over handling of CHOP

Published 6:19 am Friday, April 30, 2021

FILE - In this June 30, 2020, file photo, a sign on the street reads "Welcome to CHOP" as protesters stand near barricades, at the CHOP (Capitol Hill Occupied Protest) zone in Seattle. The area, which was also known as CHAZ, was occupied for several weeks during the summer by protesters after Seattle Police pulled back from their East Precinct building following violent clashes with demonstrators. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
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FILE - In this June 30, 2020, file photo, a sign on the street reads "Welcome to CHOP" as protesters stand near barricades, at the CHOP (Capitol Hill Occupied Protest) zone in Seattle. The area, which was also known as CHAZ, was occupied for several weeks during the summer by protesters after Seattle Police pulled back from their East Precinct building following violent clashes with demonstrators. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
In this June 30, 2020 photo, a sign on the street reads “Welcome to CHOP” as protesters stand near barricades, at the CHOP (Capitol Hill Occupied Protest) zone in Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

Associated Press

SEATTLE — The mother of a 19-year-old Seattle man fatally shot during last summer’s Capitol Hill Organized Protest, or CHOP, has filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the city.

The lawsuit claims officials were negligent in allowing Seattle police to abandon the department’s East Precinct and surrounding area, a decision that invited “lawlessness and … a foreseeable danger” that led to his death, the Seattle Times reported.

Donnitta Sinclair, whose son Horace Lorenzo Anderson was shot and killed across the street from Cal Anderson Park on June 20, alleges in her lawsuit that bad decisions, confusion, miscommunication and poor planning by city officials contributed to his death.

Anderson, who went by his middle name, had graduated from an alternative youth-education program the previous day, and was visiting the CHOP zone when he ran into a rival identified as 18-year-old Marcel Long, according to police.

According to surveillance video and witnesses, the two exchanged words and Anderson was walking away when Long, who had been restrained momentarily by others, pulled a handgun and shot him several times, police said.

Long was charged with premeditated first-degree murder, but is believed to have fled the state and remains at large. A spokesman for the Seattle Police Department said Thursday the case remains active.

Sinclair’s lawsuit alleges that Long knew the CHOP was a “no-cop zone.”

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