Man charged in fatal CHOP shooting pleads guilty to murder

A 22-year-old man has pleaded guilty to killing another man nearly three years ago inside the Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone in a fatal shooting that trained intense scrutiny on first responders’ refusal to respond to the crime scene.

Marcel Long entered a guilty plea to second-degree murder Thursday in the death of 19-year-old Horace Lorenzo Anderson, who was killed the night of June 20, 2020, inside the eight-block CHOP area claimed by protesters furious over the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Anderson’s death sparked outrage in the community and among protesters because police and fire department medics refused to respond to the shooting scene as Anderson bled to death, according to a lawsuit filed by his father. He was taken to Harborview Medical Center in the back of a pickup and pronounced dead more than a half-hour after the first calls to 911.

It took police more than a year to arrest Long, who’s now scheduled to be sentenced June 30.

Anderson, who went by his middle name, graduated from an alternative youth-education program on June 19, 2020, and ran into Long inside the CHOP zone the next day, according to police. The men had a history of animosity dating back more than a year, stemming from video of a fight Anderson had lost to Long that had been posted on social media, according to court documents.

Surveillance video of their CHOP confrontation shows them exchanging words and Long producing a handgun. The video shows Anderson walking away and Long, who had been restrained momentarily by others, raising the gun and shooting Anderson several times.

Anderson’s father, Horace Anderson, sued the city, then-Mayor Jenny Durkan and Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant in November 2021, alleging they encouraged lawbreaking during the protests and “undermined the safety of others” for political theater.

The lawsuit alleged police were unable or unwilling to enter the CHOP zone to search for a suspect or conduct an investigation for hours after the shooting.

Even so, detectives interviewed a number of witnesses and were able to reconstruct the crime scene and identify a suspect. Police also received several tips identifying Long as the shooter, according to the criminal charges.

The city settled Horace Anderson’s lawsuit for $500,000 last year.