Left: Marcel Levon Long (King County Prosecutor’s Office). Right: Lorenzo Anderson (Facebook).
Almost three years after the shooting death of a teenager inside Seattle’s Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone, a man has pleaded guilty to murder.
Marcel Long, 22, has pleaded guilty to the murder of Horace Lorenzo Anderson, who was 19 when he was killed the night of June 20, 2020, inside the area of Seattle known as the CHOP zone.
The eight-block area near was set up as a self-declared autonomous area of Seattle that covered several blocks of the city during racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
First responders were delayed in reaching Anderson after he was shot. Police blamed protesters, and lawyers for Anderson’s family have said that the delay may have resulted from miscommunication between the city’s police and fire departments. Lawyers have also alleged that Anderson’s gunshot wounds were not initially fatal, but police refused to give clearance for an EMT to go into the CHOP zone to treat him, and he died as a result.
Long entered a plea of guilty to second-degree murder on Thursday, the Seattle Times reported. He is set to be sentenced on June 30.
He was arrested in July 2021 after spending more than a year as a fugitive. He was initially charged with first-degree murder.
According to the Seattle Times, Anderson, who has been described by family members as having special needs, had graduated from an alternative youth education program the day before he was killed. He and Long reportedly had a history of animosity stemming from a video of a fight Anderson had lost to Long that had been posted on social media, the Seattle Times reported.
Surveillance video of their confrontation inside the CHOP zone reportedly shows them exchanging words before Long pulls out a gun. Anderson was apparently walking away when Long shot him.
Anderson’s parents have filed separate lawsuits over his death. Anderson’s father, Horace Anderson, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Seattle, along with then-Mayor Jenny Durkan and a city council member, alleging that they created a dangerous situation by allowing the CHOP to develop. He settled with the city for a reported $500,000 in June 2022.
A federal civil rights lawsuit brought by Anderson’s mother, Donnitta Sinclair, was dismissed in November 2021. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal en banc at the beginning of March.
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