Surviving teen shot at Seattle CHOP refiles lawsuit

Robert West, who was 14 years old when he was shot in Seattle’s Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone in 2020, sued the city of Seattle on Thursday, seeking unspecified damages to compensate for what he says are “catastrophic and permanently disfiguring injuries.”

West’s lawsuit, filed in King County Superior Court, comes one week after a jury awarded more than $30 million to the family of Antonio Mays Jr., who was riding with West in a stolen white Jeep when they were shot in the early morning hours of June 29, 2020, on the edge of the protest zone.

RELATED: Seattle CHOP verdict: City must pay $30.5 million to family of slain teen

Mays Jr. died in the shooting. West survived but lost his right eye, needed a titanium plate to reconstruct his skull and has cognitive impairment, memory deficits, seizures and other health issues, according to the lawsuit.

West originally sued the city in 2023, the same year Mays’ father filed his own lawsuit. The same attorney, Evan Oshan, handled both cases. As the two lawsuits moved forward simultaneously, they sometimes contradicted each other. West’s suit claimed he was not driving the white Jeep, implicating Mays as the driver, while the Mays lawsuit claimed Mays was not driving, implicating West.

Oshan withdrew West’s original lawsuit last year as the Mays suit approached trial, saying West’s medical conditions interfered with his ability to participate in the case. He now says West has sufficiently recovered.

“He’s pretty injured, but he wants to go forward,” Oshan said. “We’re looking for accountability and justice. There’s been really no acknowledgment that the city has done anything wrong at this point. Even with the verdict that came down with Antonio Mays, there’s been no acceptance of responsibility.”

West’s original lawsuit was withdrawn just as the city furnished new records in the Mays case that raised questions about West’s version of events. West said under oath that he did not steal the Jeep, and he has never been charged in the theft. But records filed in court by the city attorney’s office showed West told staff at a neurological rehabilitation facility in 2023 that he stole the vehicle with a friend who was shot and died in his arms.

Attorneys for the city attempted to mount a defense in the Mays case that would have exempted the city from liability if they could prove Mays was committing a felony, like stealing the Jeep, when he died. But King County Superior Court Judge Sean O’Donnell ruled that attorneys could not present that defense in their closing arguments. A juror interviewed after the verdict said the city attorneys’ attempts to use this argument worked against them.

The city has until the end of the month to appeal the verdict in the Mays lawsuit but hasn’t yet said whether it plans to. A spokesperson for City Attorney Erika Evans did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The new lawsuit blames the city for creating CHOP, after Seattle police abandoned their East Precinct on Capitol Hill following a period of intense protest after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The lawsuit says the city portrayed CHOP as a safe place, which had the effect of encouraging West to show up. It blames the city for delayed emergency response within the CHOP zone after West was shot, which it says caused his injuries to worsen.

It also blames the city for failing to solve the shooting, calling the Seattle Police Department’s investigation “negligent.”

Police didn’t secure the shooting scene for several hours, allowing evidence to be disturbed and lost, the lawsuit says. It also says police have never interviewed West or attempted to interview him.

Witnesses in the immediate aftermath of the shooting claimed armed protesters known as “CHOP security” killed Mays, who was 16 when he died. But no arrests have been made nor charges filed in the 5 1/2 years since his killing.

The lawsuit also blames “armed individuals operating as self-appointed ‘CHOP security'” for shooting the two teenagers.

The lawsuit by Mays’ father initially also sought to hold the city responsible for the creation of CHOP, but O’Donnell threw out that argument, allowing the trial to move forward solely on the question of whether the city’s emergency response was negligent.

David Gutman: 206-464-2926 or dgutman@seattletimes.com: David Gutman covers local politics and King County government at The Seattle Times, reporting on how leaders and institutions impact the lives of everyday people.

Sydney Brownstone: 206-464-3225 or sbrownstone@seattletimes.com: Sydney Brownstone is an investigative reporter at The Seattle Times.

Will James: wjames@kuow.org: Will James is a reporter and producer for KUOW Public Radio.