(Image: Seattle Artist League)

Her name has echoed through the streets of the city since the Black mother of four was shot to death by two Seattle Police officers in the summer of 2017.

Lawyers representing the family of Charleena Lyles have announced a $3.5 million settlement in their wrongful-death lawsuit against the City of Seattle.

“Those children need to know that their mother should not have died,” an attorney representing the family said during a press conference Tuesday. “She did nothing that should have led to her death. She should have received compassion. She should have received resources. She should have received assistance.”

The police killing of Lyles sparked deep debate over SPD’s use of deadly force against people of color and handling of people suffering mental crisis. Her name became a rallying cry for Black Lives Matter marches and during the CHOP occupied protest on Capitol Hill as thousands called for justice in the case.

Jason Anderson and Steven McNew, the white SPD officers who shot the pregnant 30-year-old Lyles while responding to a burglary call at her Magnusson apartment in June, 2017, were ultimately found to have acted within department policy. A King County Superior Court judge also dismissed a lawsuit brought by her family but a state Court of Appeals ruling reversed the decision allowing the wrongful death suit to continue.

Anger over the case carried onto the streets of Capitol Hill in August, 2020 when a crowd busted into a Pike/Pine boutique owned by McNew’s wife and set fire to merchandise in the middle of 11th Ave.

The Seattle Times, meanwhile, reports that it is unlikely that Anderson and McNew will face prosecution because Lyles’ death occurred “before lawmakers and voters passed Initiative 940 in 2018, which ultimately removed a decades-old standard that required prosecutors to prove that officers acted with malice and a lack of good faith, making it all but impossible to prove negligence in fatal, officer-involved shootings.”

The city is also facing a federal civil rights and wrongful death lawsuit brought on behalf of protesters including Capitol Hill activist Summer Taylor who was hit and killed during a protest on I-5, this federal suit brought on behalf of property owners and businesses over the city’s handling of CHOP, and the latest federal civil rights lawsuit brought on behalf of the family of Lorenzo Anderson, the 19-year-old shot and killed in June, 2020 at 10th and Pine on the edge of the CHOP protest area.

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