Family chased by attackers at homeless camp fatally hit man with car, WA cops say
A man died after a couple trying to escape a group attacking them at a homeless encampment hit him with their car, Washington officials said.
On July 27, the couple were driving to various homeless camps with their 2-week old baby in the back seat, searching for stolen property, including a pair of shoes and a Bluetooth speaker, that was taken from their car the night before, according to King County Superior Court documents.
They found the stolen items in a Seattle homeless camp near South Lake Union and tried to retrieve them when a group of people confronted them, officials said.
Footage from a nearby surveillance camera showed the woman retrieving the stolen items got into a fight with another woman on the passenger side while the man who was driving was struck in the back with a 5-foot-long wooden pole held by one of the attackers, who was identified as Mario Miller, according to documents.
The fight between the women broke up and the victim got into the rear seat on the passenger side, officials said. The man tried to get into the driver seat and take off, but another member of the group prevented the driver’s door from closing.
As Miller continued to try to hit the victim in the driver seat, another man, identified as John Rosser IV, ran up to the car with a machete and started hitting the windshield on the driver’s side, according to documents.
Several more people started hitting the car with various items, including rocks and a two-by-four, causing significant damage to the front and rear windshield, as well as the side windows, officials said.
As the man tried to drive away, he hit the victim, who was taken to Harborview Medical Center with life-threatening injuries and later died, Casey McNerthney, a spokesperson for the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, told McClatchy News in an email.
It is unknown whether the couple was injured.
Miller and Rosser were each charged with one count of second-degree assault, according to documents.
Police did not refer the hit-and-run investigation to the prosecutor’s office for charges, McNerthney said.
This story was originally published August 6, 2021 at 2:20 PM with the headline "Family chased by attackers at homeless camp fatally hit man with car, WA cops say."