Seattle CHOP evidence revealed by city in wrongful death trial

Attorneys defending the City of Seattle from a wrongful-death lawsuit worked to build a case Monday that the second teenager killed at 2020’s Capitol Hill Organized Protest stole a Jeep and may have fired gunshots from it minutes before he was killed.

Antonio Mays Jr., 16, and survivor Robert West, 14, were shot inside a white Jeep Cherokee that, minutes earlier, witnesses saw driving erratically around the playfield of Cal Anderson Park, near where dozens of people were staying in tents, around 3 a.m. on June 29, 2020.

Witnesses said Mays and West were shot by people serving as CHOP’s volunteer security force who saw the Jeep as a threat. Volunteer medics attempted to treat the boys’ gunshot wounds near the crashed Jeep outside the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct on 12th Avenue before they were transported out of CHOP by private vehicles. Mays died after the vehicle he was in tried and failed to flag down an ambulance. City paramedics tried to resuscitate him in a nearby parking lot outside CHOP. He was then transported by ambulance, but he was declared dead when he got to a hospital.

A Capitol Hill resident said in a 2020 recorded interview with police that two people who he believed were teenagers robbed him of the Jeep earlier that night, after hitting him in the leg with a pickax and threatening him with a knife attached to a set of brass knuckles.

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The Jeep theft and the events that followed are at the center of a trial that started last week over the city’s possible culpability in Mays’ death. The boy’s father is seeking unspecified damages, arguing that mistakes in the city’s emergency response may have cost Mays his life. One of the city’s main defenses is that it is not liable for his death if he was killed while committing a felony. The city is arguing Mays stole the Jeep and was shooting from it.

Much of Monday’s testimony dealt with the question of whether the city’s allegations against Mays could be proved. The city’s defense, known as the “felony bar” defense under state law, has come under scrutiny in recent years, as critics have argued that it allows municipalities to escape liability for police killings. In 2021, advocates for reforming the law won a significant change to the statute: a requirement that the felony used to invoke the defense be proven “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

During the testimony, city attorney Alexandra Nica cross-examined Seattle police detective Alan Cruise, the primary investigator working the Mays homicide, who revealed evidence recovered at the scene of the crashed and bullet-riddled Jeep outside the police department’s East Precinct.

Cruise pulled out a black jacket from an evidence box that he said was collected from the area where the two boys were treated by volunteer medics. A knife attached to a set of brass knuckles was found inside one of the pockets of the jacket, Cruise said.

Jury members looked on as Cruise, wearing a surgical mask and rubber gloves, slowly removed the jacket from a sealed box and a gray wrapper. The jacket appeared covered in dust; Cruise said that dried blood turns to powder over time. He said the jacket was found on the ground outside the Jeep, near puddles of blood and medical debris, and the sleeve was cut in a way consistent with medics trying to treat someone. It was found by investigators who arrived at the scene hours after the shooting.

Cruise also unveiled a driver’s license, credit card and other items belonging to the car theft victim, all of which he said were found in the Jeep.

The city did not say the jacket that held the brass knuckle knife belonged to Mays, but the attorney’s implication was clear: that it was worn by one of the two teens, and that the wearer stole the Jeep.

Evan Oshan, Mays’ father’s attorney, pointed out that the robbery victim reported that at least one of the robbers had what sounded like an Ethiopian accent, which neither Mays nor West had, and that the victim described his attackers as racially ambiguous while Mays and West are Black. Cruise also testified that West had never been charged with the Jeep theft because West’s brain injury limited their investigation and because investigators could not establish probable cause, a lower standard of evidence than “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Oshan also highlighted that police left the crime scene unsecured for hours, and people were captured on video appearing to pick up evidence immediately after the shooting.

As part of the city’s argument that the boys were shooting from the Jeep, the city’s attorneys played a video from a neighbor’s webcam showing the Jeep driving around the Cal Anderson playfield while two or three gunshot-like pops can be heard. Cruise said police haven’t determined whether those sounds, which he said “could be” gunshots, came from the Jeep or were directed at it.

A video analyst hired by the city, who reviewed the same video played in court, along with others, did not identify those sounds as gunshots in his report. Neither teen was tested for gunshot residue, according to Cruise’s testimony on Monday, which was a continuation of testimony the detective started Thursday.

Seattle police have maintained for years that they cannot share information from their investigation without jeopardizing their “open and active” case, a contention that has blocked reporters’ public records requests concerning the investigation in the more than five years since Mays’ death. This month’s wrongful death trial may be the only time elements of the investigation are made public if the case remains unsolved.

Mays had come to Seattle from his Southern California home just a week before he was killed, drawn by the protests that engulfed the nation after a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd. Mays’ death — the second fatal shooting in the zone within a 10-day period — prompted then-Mayor Jenny Durkan to call for an end to CHOP, and city employees dismantled the encampment days later.

After Cruise finished testifying, journalist Omari Salisbury of Converge Media took the stand to answer questions about a 2020 video he recorded of Mays giving a speech at CHOP three days before he was killed. While jurors viewed a clip from the video, it was muted and they were not told it was Mays speaking.

Then, a Seattle Fire Department lieutenant who performed chest compressions on Mays talked through the care emergency responders provided. His testimony continues Tuesday.

Seattle Times reporter David Gutman contributed to this report.