SEATTLE — Three years ago, CHOP, a protest zone took over a portion of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. A new lawsuit claims lawlessness followed.
CHOP started on June 8, 2020, and the zone was not cleared until nearly a month later, on July 1. During that time, two teenagers were killed.
Antonio Mays Junior was 16 years old when he was shot and killed.
"My son lost his life here. I lost my son,” said Antonio Mays Senior of California.
It happened on June 29, 2020. His son was in CHOP, the Capitol Hill Organized Protest Zone. Nine days prior, 19-year-old Lorenzo Anderson Jr. was shot and killed in the same area.
"I waited two years patiently trying to give them a chance to do their job, run their investigation,” said Mays Sr. "I was feeling kind of confident that they were going to be able to get some information with all of the pictures and video that I saw."
Police released video from the night of the shooting. Nearly three years later, there are no arrests.
"They stopped taking my calls. They wouldn't call me back,” Mays Jr. said.
"Basically this is the last resort, the reason we took legal action is because there has been essentially from what we can see no police investigation into the murder of young Antonio Mays Junior,” said Attorney Evan Oshan.
Oshan filed a complaint against the state, King County and the city of Seattle.
"The city needs to step up and they need to start taking responsibility,” said Oshan.
That's what a Capitol Hill business wants, too. Molly Moon's, an ice cream shop, filed a complaint in federal court this week saying constitutional and other legal rights “were overrun by the City of Seattle's decision to abandon and close off an entire city neighborhood."
The allegations are that the area was left unchecked by police and unserved by fire and emergency health services.
That impacted Mays Jr., according to Oshan.
"After he was shot, the Seattle paramedics went the other way. They didn't try to help him,” said Oshan.
"I need my day in court with these people,” Mays Sr. said.
A spokesperson for the Seattle City Attorney said they cannot comment yet about the complaints filed this week.