Horace Lorenzo Anderson, the father of a 19-year-old black teen who was the first to die in the CHAZ occupied territory.
There have been multiple shootings inside the CHAZ/CHOP territory. Anderson is now telling the city that it’s time to bring in the National Guard to clear out the viper’s nest.
Anderson is still feeling the pain of losing his son to premature death and that’s something a father will never get over. I know that from my own personal experience. I lost my only son at age 25 of kidney failure. But I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like for Mr. Anderson losing his child to needless violence.
Anderson, Sr. said:
“I ain’t been sleeping. You see my eyes. I’ve been crying. I’m trying not to cry on TV.”
“This doesn’t look like a protest to me no more. That just looks like they just took over and said we can take over whenever we want to.”
“They should deploy them here to say ‘Man, it’s time to go. ‘It’s time to move on. And break this up.’”
Police chief Carmen Best agrees with Anderson that something must be done:
“I’m not going to let the detractors and the naysayers and the agitators be the ones that are the voice here. There are people who live here. There are multiple people who are being injured and hurt. And we need to do something about it. It is absolutely irresponsible for this discontent to continue.”
A federal lawsuit, filed against the city of Seattle last week by long-term Capitol Hill residents and small business owners alleges that the city has deliberately allowed CHOP — and its inherent lawlessness — to flourish.
For their part, protesters say they have no plans to leave, even though CHOP’s leadership has called for a transition to “virtual activism.” On Friday, the city’s public works department tried to remove signs marking CHOP’s borders but were turned away by angry demonstrators who even staged a “die-in” to block construction equipment from moving concrete barriers.
