A man whose son was shot and killed in Seattle’s now-disbanded CHOP zone broke down in tears as he described the pain he has gone through as a result of the 19-year-old’s death.
“I can’t talk to him. I can’t just tell him I love him, you know? One thing about me, though, I raised all my kids — one household. All of my kids. I have the privilege to … raise all my kids. … The rest of my kids, they still stay with me,” Horace Lorenzo Anderson Sr. told Sean Hannity on Wednesday night. “I got a chance to raise them. God gave my son to me at 2 years old, and I’ve been raising him since 2 years old the best I can. … You know, kids, they do what they do. My thing is life was … all I can do is teach you how to live. I couldn’t teach them how to die because I ain’t never died before. So I don’t know how to teach my kids how to die. … I know how to teach them how to live.”
Anderson’s son, Horace Lorenzo Anderson Jr., was killed nearly two weeks ago in the Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone, a six-block area of Seattle that protesters took control of on June 8.
The King County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed Monday that Lorenzo Jr. died from multiple gunshot wounds.
The Seattle Times reported that ambulances could not make it inside the perimeter of the zone, which was barricaded off from police, firefighters, and other emergency personnel. Lorenzo Jr. was brought to the hospital by volunteer medics.
On Wednesday, Seattle police cleared the area following an executive order from Mayor Jenny Durkan, with officers reportedly making dozens of arrests.
Lorenzo Sr. said he is still struggling to cope with the death of his son.
“I can’t tell you, you know, ‘He’s dead. He can hear you.’ And we say this, and we believe in things because that’s what we are supposed to believe in — God, and we believe in everything. But I’ve never been dead. So I’m hoping that he hears me. Even before he passed away, one thing I would always tell everybody, I would tell my kids every day, ‘I love you,” Lorenzo Sr. said. “Everybody loved him. And that was my son. I can’t tell him no more, but if he can hear me right now: I love you, son. With all my heart. I talked to him in the morning. … ‘Man, I wish you would’ve stayed home that night.'”
