Donnitta Sinclair, the mother of 19-year-old Lorenzo Anderson — who was shot dead in Seattle’s now-dismantled Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) zone — has hit the Democrat-controlled city with a wrongful death claim, according to local reports.
The Seattle Times reports:
[The lawsuit alleges] city officials created a dangerous environment by allowing protesters to occupy six city blocks and that police and fire officials failed to protect or medically assist her son.
The city has 60 days to respond to the claim before a federal lawsuit can be filed, according to attorneys representing Donnitta Sinclair Martin, the mother of Lorenzo Anderson. Anderson was shot multiple times early on June 20 at 10th Avenue and East Pine Street, near a boundary of the CHOP zone […]
Anderson and a 33-year-old man, who was critically injured, were shot that Saturday and were transported in private vehicles to Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center by volunteer medics. 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).
Anderson, who had just graduated the day before from Seattle’s Interagency Academy, was pronounced dead at Harborview. A suspect has not been arrested.
Sinclair is seeking financial damages and wants laws put in place to prevent the same circumstances that lead to her son’s death.
“Most definitely, he was abandoned … I feel like my son was not properly served. I feel like nobody cared,” Martin told the newspaper. “Lorenzo was fighting all his life and now I have to fight for him. I want justice to be served.”
“I am hoping the city takes responsibility,” she added.
On July 1st, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan (D) issued an executive order for police to clear out the CHOP and called for protesters to vacate the zone.
At least 100 police officers equipped with body armor, batons, helmets and weapons entered the area known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest, or CHOP, as protesters left the area.
Police said that anyone seeking to leave the area without being arrested could exit through the south end of the zone.
Protesters had barricaded several blocks near Capitol Hill and occupied the area previously known as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or CHAZ, for weeks after police abandoned their nearby East Precinct amid global protests against police brutality and racial injustice sparked by the police-involved killing of George Floyd in Minnesota.
The UPI contributed to this report.
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