SEATTLE — A Seattle man will spend more than three decades in prison for the 2023 road rage murder of community activist Elijah Lewis.
Patrick Cooney, 37, was found guilty at trial of one count of murder in the second degree and one count of assault in the first degree.
Cooney was riding a scooter in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood on April 1, 2023 when he got into a road rage dispute with Lewis,23, who was driving a car with his 9-year-old nephew in the passenger seat.
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Cooney claimed the shooting was an act of self-defense after Lewis had threatened to run him over.
Lewis was picking up his nephew at an apartment near the intersection of Broadway and Pine Street to go celebrate the boy’s birthday. Cooney said Lewis pulled into traffic without looking and almost hit him.
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The first shot fired by Cooney went through a passenger door, and several other shots went through the back of Lewis’ car as he drove away. An autopsy revealed that Lewis died from a gunshot wound to the back.
The 9-year-old boy was injured in the shooting, but survived.
On Friday afternoon, Judge Sean O’Donnell imposed a sentence of 483 months, or 35 years.
“He murdered Elijah because I think he wanted to,” O’Donnell said. “It is not lost on me when the police collected the evidence in this case, which I’ve seen in the video, that there was a battle rifle, a battle shotgun, and rounds – it is not lost on me in these videos that he could not judge right and wrong because of PTSD.”
Cooney had a history of road rage incidents while on scooters and on his bike. His attorneys argued in court that he had PTSD from a 2019 bike crash involving a car in Chicago.
Judge O’Donnell was not convinced that prior PTSD impaired Cooney’s judgement when he shot Lewis.
“He is pulling a gun in situations he largely provokes against African American members of the community in a car, unprovoked,” he continued. “That cuts against the notion this was a moment of heat or uncontrolled decision making.”
During O’Donnell’s remarks, Cooney became visibly upset and demanded to be removed from the courtroom. Deputies kept him in his seat as he lashed out at the judge, including a remark about O’Donnell not deserving the robe he wears.
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Cooney lashed out again when leaving the courtroom and called the judge ‘your grace’ as he was escorted out.
Cooney declined to make a statement before sentencing and he did not testify in his defense at trial.
In court, Lewis’ sister, Quincy Dunham, told Cooney that he “unleashed a wave of grief that will never heal.”
“I hope that as you sit in prison, your mind withers, your soul becomes weak and my brother’s face haunts you as time passes by,” Dunham said. “It is unfair that justice is limited to sequestering you to a cell where you will be taken care of.”
