‘They stood by and did nothing’: Attorney for family of teen killed at Gas Works Park says lawsuit forced city to act

Mattheis Johnson, 15, was killed in an accident after an outdoor pop-up concert at Gas Works Park last year. Johnson’s family filed a lawsuit against the City of Seattle to fix the park, but has since dismissed it after the city eventually took action.

Karen Koehler, the Johnson family’s attorney, explained to “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio that the city finally acted because no one had ever sued it like this before.

“They said it was this lawsuit, number one. But number two, because no one had ever sued them before like this,” she said. “This lawsuit is called a nuisance lawsuit. So it’s normally seen by cities, which go after, remember, like on Aurora Avenue, there would be prostitution or drug havens, and they would come in to protect the neighborhoods and shut those down using nuisance lawsuits. So we took it in reverse, and we sued the city for nuisance, because they knew that they declared that this was a danger to the public, but yet they stood by and did nothing.”

Ballard teen among several killed, many more injured at Gas Works Park over the years

Johnson, a Ballard High School student, fell 50 feet from a platform at Gas Works Park. He was taken to Harborview Medical Center, where he succumbed to his injuries. Koehler said Johnson’s death was the third death in several years, among countless injuries.

“We still don’t even know how many we’ve counted, close to 30 serious injuries. I’m not talking about a little bit, I’m talking about severe brain injury, some of which did lead to death in other people that we heard about, and thousands of youth and kids climbing this thing,” she said.

When asked if she was surprised by the number of people pushing back against removing the structures at the park, Koehler responded, “No, because they didn’t have a child that was just killed.”

She said there is a difference between wanting to preserve beautiful architecture versus structures that have been decaying.

“The whole thing is going to just collapse, but for now, it’s not going to collapse anymore with a person on top of it,” Koehler said.

She added that sometimes legal action is necessary to force the city to comply.

“The lesson here is sometimes you have to go to court to force your government to do things,” Koehler said. “Normally, you can only ask them to give you money, because that’s how the civil law is. But there are times when you can do things, if you find a lawyer that’ll do it for you for free, to make them behave.”

The city has since begun removing the ladders, catwalks, and platforms from the structures. Next, the city will clean up the toxic waste site, which continues to pollute the park, according to a news release from Koehler.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.