Seattle Police, Paramedics Left Teen 'To Die' In Lawless Autonomous Zone: Lawsuit

Seattle paramedics have been accused of negligence after allegedly leaving a 19-year-old teenager shot inside the city's lawless, autonomous zone "to die" despite being minutes away from the victim, court papers revealed.

Authorities were instantly called at around 2:19 a.m. after Lorenzo Anderson was shot several times on June 20, 2020, right outside of the city's Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) zone, the New York Post reported, citing three Notices of Claims filed Wednesday by a law firm representing Anderson's estate.

According to the documents filed in King County, Seattle City and Washington State, an ambulance and vehicles from the Seattle Fire Department were a block and a half away from the special-needs teen at around 2:29 a.m. but did not proceed further because they waited for police clearance to enter CHOP.

The zone, initially called the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), was formed following Black Lives Matter protests over the killing of George Floyd and was said to have been overrun by anarchists and self-policed by leaders with semi-automatic weapons, the claims stated.

The notices said police dispatch radio indicated officers were five minutes or less away from the dying Anderson at around 2:33 a.m. Authorities allegedly spent close to 20 minutes communicating with dispatchers on separate radio channels, communicating the wrong locations and miscommunicating the procedures for providing medical attention to Anderson.

"The Seattle EMT was less than a minute away from Lorenzo as he bled out, and the Seattle Police were less than five minutes away from him as he bled out. Essentially, Lorenzo was left to die," the papers claimed.

Volunteers reportedly performed CPR on Anderson, while bystanders on the phone with emergency dispatchers were given conflicting information about how to get Anderson into the ambulance once it arrived.

Police finally entered CHOP at around 2:39 a.m., but Anderson was pronounced dead six minutes later at Harbor View Medical Center after being brought over by civilians. An autopsy revealed the teenager received multiple gunshot wounds, but none appeared to have hit major organs.

The court papers attributed the death to failures by city leadership.

"Considering the more than adequate knowledge of the danger and violence associated with the CHOP area, Seattle leaders failed Lorenzo and the community," the lawsuit stated.

The notices specifically criticized Mayor Jenny Durkan's remarks about the zone, claiming her words "motivated and nurtured CHOP." She said in a June 12, 2020, interview with CNN that the occupation of the area could create a "summer of love," but the claim said it instead became a "summer of blood."

According to the claims, Durkan finally announced to retake CHOP only after the "preventable death" of Anderson.

The claim also accused Durkan, the Seattle Police Department, Seattle Emergency Medical Services, Seattle City Council and the state of Washington of being negligent and of breaching "the duty of reasonable care" owed to Anderson, whose death was claimed to be "preventable" and "predictable."

Marcel Levon Long, the man who allegedly shot Anderson, was charged with his murder, but police have yet to arrest him, the victim's lawyer Evan Oshan said.