We Keep Us Safe: Who Killed Antonio Mays Jr.?

Isolde Raftery (0:00)

Hey, it's Azolda Raftery from KUOW. From the team that brought you Adults in the Room and Lost Patients, we've got a new, deeply reported series for you. And I think you're gonna want to hear it. This story starts with an unsolved mystery. Someone was killed, and it happened during what's arguably the most polarizing event in Seattle's modern history. I'm talking about CHOP.

If you were anywhere near Seattle during the summer of 2020 or just paying attention to the news, you probably remember CHOP. For a few weeks, it made this city a national spectacle. Basically, protests over George Floyd's murder were erupting all across America. But here in Seattle, that movement took a shocking turn. Seattle police abandoned their precinct in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, and hundreds of protesters set up a camp in the blocks around it. A lot of people called this camp the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, CHOP.

Early one morning at CHOP, about three weeks in, bullets started flying. When the shooting was over, a black 16-year-old lay dying, and a story emerged, a story that seemed like it could contradict the entire point of the protest, that people trying to protect CHOP had shot him.

Years passed with no arrests, no real answers, just hazy accounts that left lots of open questions. My colleague, Will James, at KUOW, and Sydney Brownstone of The Seattle Times, covered the protest that summer, and for years, this killing haunted them. So they decided they'd try to solve the mystery of who did it and why. And along the way, sort out what happened to CHOP, how something that started out with this burst of idealism, a utopian vision, could end in a hail of gunfire.

This investigation is the deepest anyone's gone into this moment in Seattle history, beneath the conspiracy theories, the layers of fear and silence. And what it uncovers about that fatal night will stun you. This series is called We Keep Us Safe. NPR's Embedded premiered it this summer, and now we've got it for you here on KUOW Focus. Before we start, this episode includes explicit language and the sound of gun violence. Here's Sydney and Will.

Sydney Brownstone (2:48)

I remember the shooting happened on a Monday morning, a few blocks from where I used to live, in a neighborhood called Capitol Hill. An editor called and asked if I could go down and report from the scene.

So I get dressed, and I run out of my apartment. Everything looks normal at first. People are walking their dogs. They're grabbing their fancy coffee drinks. I'm walking by Rainbow Crosswalks and a Leather Daddy Bar. This is Seattle. But then I cross over onto 12th Avenue, and it's like stepping into a different universe.

I end up walking into CHOP. CHOP was an Occupy-style protest that included a field of tents. There were crowds, art installations, and makeshift barricades. All of it took up about eight square blocks of my neighborhood. It had been there for three weeks. But this morning, the morning of June 29th, 2020, this isn't just a protest. It's a crime scene.

Crowds of protesters are screaming in the middle of the street.

Isolde Raftery (4:08)

You know you're up, you and your partner.

Sydney Brownstone (4:11)

One of them seems particularly frazzled and is carrying around a baseball bat. There are members of the Black clergy there praying over a blood-smeared car.

Antonio Mays Sr. (4:24)

Then it matters enough is enough, enough killing is enough.

SPEAKER_4 (4:27)

We have to stop this.

Sydney Brownstone (4:36)

Here's what I learned.

Two Black teens had been shot hours earlier. One of them was dead. His name was Antonio Mays Jr. My goal was to try to find witnesses who could tell me what had happened.

SPEAKER_5 (4:56)

They started down by the park, and everybody started running and were ducking down, whatnot.

Sydney Brownstone (5:01)

People staying at CHOP tell me that they saw a white jeep driving around erratically. Antonio Mays Jr. was in that jeep.

SPEAKER_6 (5:11)

The car was driving around all crazy, like it was going to hit someone.

Sydney Brownstone (5:14)

Witnesses say they heard shots coming from the jeep, and then people inside CHOP shot back.

Will James (5:21)

There was at least 30 shots that went off.

Sydney Brownstone (5:25)

Protesters thought that whoever was in that white jeep was firing at them, that CHOP was under attack.

SPEAKER_8 (5:32)

We are out here as peaceful protesters, but we do have to defend ourselves when there are threats against our lives.

SPEAKER_6 (5:40)

I mean, when you come in shooting, I don't think it's that much of a surprise when you get shot back.