Mother of teen killed in CHOP speaks after suspect’s arrest

SEATTLE — The mother of a teenager shot and killed at Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone a year ago is speaking out a day after the fugitive wanted in his murder was caught.

Marcel Long was arrested Monday afternoon after a brief foot chase in Des Moines.

Lorenzo Anderson’s mother said she had hoped and prayed for this day, and her prayers were answered yesterday.

So she came to Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Seattle, where her son is buried, to tell him the good news too.

Donnitta Sinclair Martin walked over to the bouquet of balloons she brought to the grave of her 19-year-old son.

“Here they are,” she said, laughing.  “They’re doing their own thing.”

Here, she said, to deliver the news.

“Yeah, I couldn’t wait to tell him,” she said, smiling. “I’m like, ‘Son, I’m proud of you.  I’m super proud of you.’ That’s why I came here.  I told him, ‘We did this together.’”

What they did, together, is ensure that the 19-year-old man he had been feuding with, the fugitive who investigators said shot and killed him, is finally behind bars.

“I just couldn’t even believe it,” she said, her voice breaking.  “Honestly, I just was wondering would I ever, was I ever going to feel that.  Was I ever, you know, because it felt like he was never going to get caught.  Yeah, I kind of lost a little hope, after a year, to be honest.”

It has been 13 long months since her son was killed in the CHOP zone that sprang up after Seattle police abandoned the East Precinct at the height of last year’s racial unrest.

Early that Saturday morning, Seattle fire medics refused to enter CHOP to tend to Anderson because Seattle police could not secure the scene.  Instead, a bystander took Anderson to Harborview Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. Long fled the scene and was finally captured Monday afternoon in Des Moines.

“I was not going to let Mr. Long get away with it, no,” said Sinclair Martin.  “But then that’s just the beginning, to be honest.”

Sinclair Martin said now her goal is to make sure the city of Seattle answers for the role she believes it played in her son’s death.

“The city will be held accountable,” she said.  “Because Mr. Long is the one that pulled the trigger.  But the city is the one that set the environment and allowed the environment to happen.”

She said she was told Long will finally be arraigned next Wednesday morning.

She plans to be there for her son’s sake.

Their fight for justice continues.

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