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Horace Lorenzo Anderson, Jr.
The King County Prosecutor has reached a conviction in one of the 2020 Capitol Hill Occupied Protest zone murders but the victim’s mother says this wasn’t the justice she was seeking.
“They want to drown what happened in the CHOP out,” Donnitta Marie Sinclair tells CHS.
Thursday, prosecutors reached a deal with attorneys for Marcel Long, the teen who gunned down 19-year-old Horace Lorenzo Anderson, Jr. on the edge of CHOP in June 2020, to plead guilty to a reduced charge of second degree murder.
“There is never a guarantee of what a jury will do, even in a case such as this one,” a statement from Prosecutor Leesa Manion’s office reads. “Today’s guilty plea and the upcoming sentencing ensures that Mr. Long will have clear accountability for this murder conviction.”
Long’s trial was set to begin later this month.
Prosecutors say Long, then 18, shot and killed Anderson at 10th and Pine in a June 2020 fracas after what witnesses said was a night of gambling and fireworks as crowds gathered and the CHOP zone took shape amid Black Lives Matter demonstrations, community meetings and film screenings, and art.
The murder and the militarized response by police who had abandoned patrols in the area and swept in as Anderson was being treated by camp medics on the Rancho Bravo patio sent a shock through the city. Tensions rose quickly around CHOP as increased security and firearms began to appear.
Heavy criticism of SPD also grew as video and reporting spread describing officers staging near the shooting scene and marching in as a large group with shields and riot gear after valuable minutes had elapsed. SPD had cleared out the nearby East Precinct headquarters and declined to respond to most non-life threatening 911 dispatches in the area around the CHOP camp and Cal Anderson.
A week later, 16-year-old Antonio Mays, Jr. was shot and killed and a 14-year-old boy riding with him suffered critical injuries on a night of driveby fears and uncertainty including the stolen jeep speeding across Cal Anderson and through the protest camp before a confrontation on 12th Ave that ended in bloodshed. Days after that, then-Mayor Jenny Durkan ordered Seattle Police to sweep the camp.
According to court documents, Long was identified in the days following the June 20th murder but was believed to have left the state and the whereabouts of the Renton resident remained unknown. He was was wanted on a $2 million warrant. Long was arrested a year later in Des Moines, Washington by a U.S. Marshals led task force.
In 2021, a federal judge dismissed a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Sinclair against the city and a subsequent appeal was also denied. Meanwhile, in 2022, the city settled a separate suit brought by Anderson’s father. In that suit, lawyers for Horace Anderson at Oshan and Associates named Durkan and District 3 City Councilmember Kshama Sawant as defendants along with the city for allowing the protest zone to form.
Sinclair says this week’s plea deal for Long is an “injustice” as she believes prosecutors and city officials wanted to avoid a public trial involving the weeks around the abandonment of the East Precinct and the formation of CHOP.
“Our system let us down,” Sinclair said.
Long is now scheduled to be sentenced on June 30th and faces around 14 to 15 years in prison, Sinclair said she has been told.
“But this young man can now start his rehabilitation,” she said.
The Antonio Mays, Jr. murder investigation, meanwhile, remains open. Seattle Police have publicly released no suspect information and there have been no arrests.
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