In the past two weeks, three horrific shootings around the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) Occupied Protest (CHOP) have claimed the lives of two black teenagers and wounded at least three others. Horace Lorenzo Anderson, the father of a 19-year-old victim who shared his name, called for the National Guard to put down the lawless occupation.
“I ain’t been sleeping. You see my eyes. I’ve been crying. I’m trying not to cry on TV,” Anderson said in a heartbreaking interview with KIRO 7. “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.'”
Anderson called for the National Guard to end the lawlessness.
“They should deploy them here to say, ‘Man, it’s time to go, it’s time to move on.’ And break this up,” he said.
Anderson’s 19-year-old son died in a shooting on Saturday, June 20. The shooting also injured a 33-year-old man. The next day, another shooting left a 17-year-old boy injured in the arm. Another shooting on Monday morning took the life of a 16-year-old boy and left a 14-year-old boy critically injured.
Raz Simone, who became infamous for acting like something of a warlord back when CHOP went by the name CHAZ, complained that “medics refused to help even after people in the CHOP begged” during the shooting that killed Anderson’s son.
Medics refused to help even after people in the CHOP begged. They let our bro bleed out for 30 minutes till he died. Fuck politics. Fuck your currupt system. pic.twitter.com/PMwxU9yEzd
— Raz Simone (@RazSimone) June 21, 2020
Yet a police camera reveals that cops attempted to reach the shooting victims but found themselves blocked by CHOP protesters. In shooting incidents, the Fire Department often attends to victims surrounded by a police escort. If CHOP/Antifastan residents don’t let police through, they block the fire department from safety attending to a victim.
As the cases of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor show, local police departments need reform. But far-left calls to defund the police or abolish them altogether would have devastating consequences. The recent shootings in CHOP only serve to illustrate how important police truly are.
In the most recent shooting, the 16-year-old boy and the 14-year-old boy drove up to CHOP in a Jeep Cherokee. Witnesses said the Jeep tried to drive through the zone. CHOP residents said the teenagers fired first.
“We need to defend ourselves,” Colby, a CHOP protester, told KIRO 7. “We need to retaliate. We need to exercise our Second Amendment right.”
“Multiple gunshots were going off,” Colby added. “We were panicking. Everyone was woken up early in the morning. We did take cover. We did take cover. And we defended ourselves.”
Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best emphasized the people victimized by the violence. “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,” she told KIRO 7.
Indeed, sixteen residents and businesses sued the City of Seattle, alleging that the city failed to protect their rights by not taking action to restore law and order in the CHOP area. The occupation followed looting, vandalism, and arson across America that destroyed black lives, black livelihoods, and black monuments. At least 20 Americans, most of them black, have died in the riots.
If Mayor Jenny Durkan will not listen to the residents whose rights have been trampled by CHOP’s lawlessness, perhaps she will listen to the bereaved father, Horace Lorenzo Anderson. It’s time to put this lawless occupation to an end.
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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