CHOP Shooting Victim’s Family Slaps Seattle With A Federal Lawsuit Over ‘Botched Communications’

Donnitta Sinclair, the mother of 19-year-old Horace Lorenzo Anderson, a black man who was shot and killed in Seattle’s Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) last June, filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Seattle. According to Sinclair, there were “botched communications” between Seattle Police and Fire, which resulted in Anderson’s death.

In her lawsuit, Sinclair alleges “bad decisions, confusion, miscommunication and poor planning by city officials contributed to” her son’s death, The Seattle Times reported.

Anderson was shot while visiting the CHOP zone last year. CHOP-affiliated volunteers and medics attempted to render aid. According to Sinclair’s lawsuit, a Seattle Fire Department medic and ambulance were a little more than a block away from the scene. A previous report from The Seattle Times indicated that “At the time, demonstrators had largely blocked off law enforcement access to the CHOP area amid demands for racial justice and calls to defund the Seattle Police Department (SPD).”

According to KING-TV, “The lawsuit claims the CHOP ‘invited lawlessness and created foreseeable danger’ and that Seattle police and Seattle Fire first responders in the area that night “failed to assist because of botched communication.’”

The attorney representing Sinclair said the city of Seattle violated Anderson’s 14th amendment rights.

“This lawsuit has two main points,” attorney Mark Lindquist explained. “Number one, the city created a dangerous environment when it deserted the East Precinct in the CHOP area. City officials left citizens without the protection of fire or police or medical and other essential services. And then number two, after Lorenzo was shot, the city didn’t get medical assistance to him even though there was a Medic One truck just a block and a half away from where he was bleeding.”

This is the latest lawsuit in a string of lawsuits filed against the city.

As The Daily Wire previously reported, shortly after Anderson’s death, Sinclair filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Seattle. In that lawsuit, the mother stated a “dangerous environment” was created when city officials allowed CHOP to occupy six blocks of the area and shut out police and fire.

Anderson’s father, Horace Lorenzo Anderson, Sr., also filed a lawsuit against the city of Seattle and Washington State “alleging that their negligence and tolerance for CHOP led directly to his son’s death,” The Daily Wire reported at the time.

According to The Seattle Times, businesses in the CHOP zone have proposed a federal class-action lawsuit against the city. They “claim the city’s tolerance of the CHOP and decision to pull law enforcement from the area cost them millions and violated their rights to live and operate safely.”

All of the lawsuits point to Seattle officials’ “withdrawal of most police and fire services from a roughly six-square block area centered on the precinct and Cal Anderson Park across the street.”

City officials have charged Marcel Levon Long with first-degree murder in Anderson’s death, although he remains at large.

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