The father of a teen fatally shot in Seattle’s Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone in 2020 has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city for encouraging “lawlessness to reign,” new court papers show.
Antonio Mays Jr., 16, and a 14-year-old boy were shot by makeshift security in the lawless autonomous zone on June 29, 2020, as they tried to flee in a white Jeep.
The CHOP zone was “abandoned without a working plan to provide essential services,” leading to a botched effort by paramedics to reach Mays — and a late police response that allowed for crime-scene tampering, the suit from Antonio Mays Sr. charges.
The suit names the city, county, state and others.
While the alleged assailant was caught on video, there’s still been no arrest in the case, said the dad’s lawyer, Evan Oshan.
“Despite knowledge of the violence, chaos, danger, and potential danger, Seattle leaders failed Antonio and encouraged lawlessness to reign,” the suit charges.
After the teens were shot early that morning, CHOP zone good Samaritans arranged to take Mays Jr. out of the area and to paramedics who could rush him to the hospital, according to a suit filed Thursday in a Washington court.
But when they arrived at the pre-arranged meeting spot, “the paramedics did a U-turn and sped away in the other direction,” the filing claims.
One of the good Samaritans claimed “it took us probably 15 minutes just chasing one paramedic around” on a “high-speed chase” before they finally made contact, the suit says. They finally reached paramedics in a parking lot, but Mays had already died, the filing says, citing the good Samaritan.
The younger boy, survived the shooting attack.
The was no “resuscitation done by the paramedics, nothing, they just bagged him up,” the filing said, quoting the good Samaritan.
Mays “had suffered a painful and gruesome death. He died in agony from his wounds,” the suit claims.
The ambulance crew allegedly thought the good Samaritans were “a threat,” a spokesperson with the Fire Department said the day after the teen’s death.
‘Instead of fulfilling their duty to Antonio, the paramedics refused to provide medical assistance, despite knowing it was urgently needed,” the lawsuit charges.
The Seattle Police Department didn’t arrive at the shooting scene until about five hours later, after it had already been tampered with, “making the collection of evidence difficult,” the suit claims.
Mays had come to Seattle from his home in California for what he thought would be peaceful protests over the police-involved death of black man George Floyd in Minneapolis, the suit says.
Mays “was lured” into the area by then-Mayor Jenny Durkan’s “positive statements about the area,” the suit claims. “Sadly, Antonio soon realized that there was nothing peaceful about CHOP.”
The city should have known how dangerous the area had become; 19-year-old Lorenzo Anderson was shot nine days prior and died of his wound because an ambulance allegedly took so long to arrive.
Both teens’ deaths led to the shutdown of the autonomous zone on July 1, 2020.
“On this third anniversary of the Chop Zone we declare that we will obtain justice for Antonio Mays, Junior who unnecessarily lost his life due to politicized wrongdoing by Seattle City officials that allowed anarchy to run amok,” Oshan said in a statement.
Mays Sr. said he was forced to take legal action because he got no answers from officials about his son’s death.
“All of the city officials that contributed to my son’s death need to be held accountable,” Mays Sr. said. “This lawsuit and complaint is not about money, it’s about getting justice for my son.”
Seattle police and the city attorney declined to comment on the pending litigation. The other defendants didn’t immediately return requests for comment.
