By David Gutman
The Seattle Times
SEATTLE — The City of Seattle has appealed the $30.5 million verdict it was ordered to pay in the 2020 shooting death of Antonio Mays Jr . at the Capitol Hill Organized Protest, arguing that it’s not liable because he was very likely to die from the shooting regardless of the emergency medical care he received from the city.
Mays Jr ., 16, was shot and killed in the protest zone known as CHOP in the chaotic early morning hours of June 29, 2020. Witnesses claimed in the immediate aftermath that he was killed by armed protester vigilantes known as “CHOP security,” but in the six years since his death, no one has been charged. Seattle police say the homicide case remains open and active.
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In its appeal, the city also argues that jurors were incorrectly told to determine the total amount of damages, rather than just the amount assigned to the city. Jurors should have been told, the city argues, that they could segregate the amount of damages caused by the actual shooter from the city’s.
The result of this sequence of errors was an extraordinary outlier verdict of more than $30 million dollars against the city,” the appeal states. “The record shows the city did not receive a fair trial.”
Antonio Mays Sr . sued the city in 2023, claiming the city was liable for his son’s death because first responders refused to enter the protest zone and an ambulance drove away from a private vehicle carrying Mays Jr . that was attempting to flag down paramedics for help.
A King County jury, after a monthlong civil trial and nearly three weeks of deliberation, ruled in January that the city was negligent in its response to the shooting and that that negligence caused Mays Jr .'s death. It awarded more than $30.5 million to Mays Sr . and to Mays Jr .'s estate.
In March, the city announced it would appeal and asked for a new trial, which was declined by the trial judge. Mays Sr .'s attorneys have asked the Court of Appeals for two months to file their response to the city.
“The jury has spoken,” Evan Oshan, Mays Sr .'s attorney, said in a statement Monday. He added that the jury’s verdict was upheld by the trial judge. “The record will speak for itself.”
In its appeal, filed late Friday after the deadline was extended multiple times, the city called CHOP, which was created after Seattle police abandoned their East Precinct in Capitol Hill following a week of protests, “essentially a lawless section of Seattle " that “emergency medics were unable to enter safely.”
One day after Mays Jr . was killed, then-Mayor Jenny Durkan issued an executive order declaring the protest an unlawful assembly. The following morning, police reentered the zone, cleared encampments and arrested more than 40 people for failure to disperse or on suspicion of obstruction.
Mays Jr . had traveled to Seattle to join the racial justice protests after leaving a note for his father explaining he had left their home in Southern California to join in the civil rights movement. He did not tell his father where he was going, only that he wanted to make him proud.
Mays Jr . was riding in a stolen white Jeep Cherokee with two friends when he was shot by a person or people who, witnesses said, seemed to think they were protecting CHOP from attackers.
For years, the official narrative of the shooting was that there were only two teens in the vehicle: Mays Jr . and one friend. The existence of the third teen in the vehicle — who called the shooting “an execution” but has never spoken with police — was revealed in “We Keep Us Safe,” an 18-month investigation by The Seattle Times , KUOW and NPR’s Embedded podcast.
Volunteer protest medics attempted to treat Mays Jr .'s wounds. Because first responders wouldn’t come to the protest zone, volunteers put Mays Jr . in a private vehicle and attempted to rendezvous with paramedics.
But there was confusion on the 911 call. And the vehicle carrying Mays Jr . — a silver Nissan Pathfinder — had a person hanging onto the roof as it drove. The same vehicle, earlier in the night, had also fired shots at the white Jeep Mays Jr . had been riding in.
Instead of stopping to meet the Pathfinder, paramedics drove away from it.
Despite that, the city argues, Mays Jr . was treated by paramedics just 15 minutes after he was shot, and just three or four minutes after care could have conceivably begun absent any delays.
The city, in its appeal, argues that even according to the testimony of Mays Jr .'s own medical experts, he had only a 5% to 10% chance of surviving his wounds, absent any negligence from the city.
City attorneys argue that the trial judge, Sean O’Donnell, erred in allowing the case to go forward and in his instructions to the jury. The jury should have been told, the city argues, that for the city to be found negligent, Mays Jr . had to have a greater than 50% chance of surviving his injuries. O’Donnell is currently leading in a closely contested race for a spot on the state Supreme Court.
“Mays was required to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the city’s negligent delay in providing medical services caused Mays’ death — not merely that it reduced his chance of survival,” the city writes. “No expert testified it was more probable than not that Mays would have survived with earlier treatment.
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