Man Strangled by Enraged Vehicle Owner Had Just Secured Housing, Enrolled in CoLEAD Program
SPD said the victim "fell unconscious" during "an altercation," and the vehicle owner was not arrested.
Content warning: Brief description of violent death.
On July 4, the Seattle Police Department released an unusually vague report about an investigation into a death that occurred 10 days earlier in the parking garage of a high-end apartment building on the edge of Green Lake.
According to the post on SPD's Blotter blog, officers responded to a car prowl report on June 24 involving a man "potentially armed with a knife." Police arrived at the garage, "found this male unconscious," and rendered aid until medics responded and took him to Harborview.
Upon further investigation, the report continues, officers "determined the owner of the vehicle interrupted the car prowl and confronted the male, and they got into a physical altercation. During the altercation, the man fell unconscious, and the vehicle owner separated from him."
The report does not provide any details behind the odd phrase "he fell unconscious," although it notes that man's death is being investigated as a homicide. (According to the King County Prosecutor's Office, no charges have been filed.)
Nor does it explain why officers didn't arrest the vehicle owner for killing the man, whose name was Cameron Lewis Heriford.
It does, however, include a photo showing the tools the man had with him, carefully arrayed on a table in the style police use for displaying evidence associated with a crime, such as guns and cash; they include a credit card, screwdrivers, a crowbar, and a small hatchet. The purpose of the photo is unclear, since the person they belonged to is not accused of any crime and, of course, can no longer be arrested or charged with anything.
Local TV stations ran with the photos and the police department's narrative, in some cases strongly implying that the man who killed Heriford did so in self-defense.
SPD wouldn't provide any additional details about the arrest. But a King County Medical Examiner report reveals that Heriford, contrary to SPD's banal description, didn't just "fall unconscious" during an "altercation." He was choked to death, by the still-unnamed owner of the vehicle he was allegedly breaking into.
Instead of immediately calling 911 or confronting Heriford nonviolently, as people who had previously reported him to police had done, the apparently enraged vehicle owner strangled him so severely that his breathing stopped, oxygen stopped flowing to his brain, and he later died.
Why didn't SPD include this information in their report? Why did they let the man who acknowledged killing Heriford—causing him to "fall unconscious"—walk away? And why did they display Heriford's thieves' tools, if not to suggest they were relevant to his death—in a case that, had Heriford been arrested and prosecuted, would lead to a fine and jail, at most?
A spokesperson for SPD declined to answer our questions, telling PubliCola, "The information I posted on the Blotter is all that we are allowed to release at this time."
Heriford, who was 35 when he died, was relatively well known to Seattle police, who sometimes encountered him when doing "crime prevention efforts" at the encampment under I-5 in Northeast Seattle where he lived, according to one police report. Between October 2022, when court documents show SPD officers first arrested him for an attempted break-in, and his death this year, Heriford was was charged in at least five theft or attempted theft cases, most of those in the garages of apartment buildings like the one where he died. The items Heriford was accused of included suitcases, paddleboards, motorcycles, and cars.
He pled guilty to a domestic violence assault charge in 2009 and was charged with violating a no-contact order in that case several times between 2010 and 2012, but court records indicate he was never arrested for or charged with another violent crime.
Heriford, who lived in Shoreline and Seattle before he became homeless, had recently started on a trajectory that could have made him significantly less likely to commit property crimes. In February, through a King County Regional Homelessness Authority initiative for resolving encampments on state-owned property, he entered CoLEAD, an intensive shelter and case management program designed for people with significant behavioral health needs and those who are involved in the criminal justice system. (The program is run by Purpose Dignity Action, which also operates the diversion program LEAD). In May, Heriford hit a CoLEAD milestone when he moved into permanent housing.
The next step for Heriford was supposed to be "aftercare"—intensive case management that continues after a person secures a place to live. According to PDA Co-Executive Director for programs, Tara Moss, “Housing is only one need for most of the people who enter CoLEAD; for most, intensive case management may be needed for a long time to address complex challenges in building a life with lawful income, addressing substance use disorder, and undoing the impact of debt, incarceration and trauma in early life. Housing is the beginning, not the end, of the changes needed for most of our participants.”
Unfortunately, Heriford never got the opportunity to make those changes. He died on June 28, four days after the attack.
Unfortunate, but maybe Heriford ought not to have been breaking into cars. If the homeowner encounters him, he is likely to be violent and an altercation occur. If Heriford wasn't trying to deescalate and disengage when homeowner confronted him I think he bears most of the blame. Would need video to judge more accurately.
Cameron was one of my best friends. He was a drug-addict and a thief, but he was also one of the funniest people I've ever met. He was no saint, but he did not deserve to die like this. I know for a fact that he would've left peacefully if confronted in a non-violent manner.