Renton Man Killed on Metro Escalator in Seattle

A Renton man was reportedly strangled in an accident last weekend on a downtown Seattle escalator with several safety-code violations, according to the Seattle Times.

Maurecio Bell, 42, of Renton, was found unconscious and unresponsive about 5:30 a.m. Sunday, April 7 at the bottom of a King County Metro escalator at University Street Station near Third Avenue and University Street, according to the Seattle Police Department.

The King County Medical Examiner’s Office said that after Bell apparently fell down on the moving escalator, his clothing became entangled in the escalator’s mechanism, choking him to death.

Video of the incident confirms that’s what happened, according to police. They say the King County Metro footage shows Bell, who was later found with an opened bottle of brandy in his back pocket, staggering and then leaning against the escalator wall at 5:19 a.m

The Seattle Times says that the state Department of Labor & Industries is investigating. The death came the day before L&I released a report that cited 32 safety code violations for a December escalator accident in Bellevue that injured 7 people.