Portland city blames Quanice Hayes and mother for his police shooting death

Source: picture alliance / Getty

Portland Lawyers Argue Quanice Hayes And Mother Responsible For Death

Quanice Hayes was 17-years-old when he was shot dead by Portland police. Officer Andrew Hearst shot Quanice in the head, ribs, and torso with an AR-15 assault rifle while the boy was on his knees 15-feet away on Feb. 9, 2017.

The Hayes family subsequently filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city and according to NBC Right Now report, the city’s lawyers have a downright despicable defense for why Quanice Hayes deserved to die.

Hayes was a suspect in an attempted armed robbery and carjacking from earlier that morning. When he was approached by police that evening, he complied with their orders to drop to his knees, put his arms up, and crawl toward the officers with their guns trained on him. Police argue that at some point he moved his hand toward his waist and that’s when the fatal shots were fired.

Attorneys for the city say that Quanice is partly to blame for his death because…

They identified 12 actions Quanice Hayes took that they claim led to his own demise, including carrying a replica-looking handgun, robbing another man, ingesting cocaine the night before his encounter with police and failing to follow officers’ commands by running away from police.

“A reasonable person would have known that the criminal, reckless and negligent conduct described above …would increase the foreseeable risk of harm to himself or herself, and Mr. Hayes indeed suffered the type of harm that was reasonably foreseeable,’’ senior city attorney William Manlove wrote.

Additionally, they argue that if Quanice’s mother was any good at parenting then this never would have happened…

Further, the city blames Quanice Hayes’ mother, Venus Hayes, contending she failed to supervise her son or ensure other family members were properly monitoring him.

We can’t even begin to imagine how livid Venus Hayes must have been hearing that in court. We’d go right to jail.

Nothing will bring Quanice back, but we hope the Hayes family gets every red cent they can out of the city of Portland.