The day he buried his 19-year-old son, who was gunned down in Seattle’s illegal ‘CHOP’ zone, Horace Lorenzo Anderson Sr. received a phone call from President Trump, who had been shocked by his heartbreaking appearance late that night. previously on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity”.
Anderson’s son Horace Lorenzo Anderson Jr. was killed in the early hours of June 20, when gunshots were heard near the border of the six-block area that the city had abandoned for three chaotic weeks. In the emotional interview with Sean Hannity, Tearful Anderson said he had been unable to get answers from the city about his son’s death, revealing that he had not even been contacted by Mayor Jenny Durkan.
But, the mayor, a Democrat, contacted Anderson later on Wednesday, and then received a call from Trump.
“We just spoke to the President of the United States,” Anderson’s family and friends spokesman Andre Taylor, who participated in Wednesday’s interview, told Fox News. “How are you going to get past that?”
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Taylor said Trump told Anderson that he watched his interview with Hannity on Wednesday night and was touched by the grief-stricken father’s grace at the tragedy. In what Taylor said was a seven-minute call, Trump offered his condolences and support.
“He said he saw ‘Hannity’ last night and said to Horace, ‘Your son is looking at you and taking care of you,'” Taylor said. “She was incredibly kind, and gave Horace some extra help while she buried her son.”
In the interview, Anderson described his son as kind-hearted but easily influenced. She said she was comforted to learn that she often told the boy, from whom she took full custody at age 2, that she loved him. But when he described the pain of knowing through the vine that his son was dead, he broke down, while Taylor comforted him.
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“The only way I found out was that only two of his friends, just two friends who were up there, and they came and told me,” he said. “They weren’t even from Seattle. Now, notice, I haven’t heard anything: the police department never came.
To compound the father’s pain, there were reports that the first responders who arrived in the CHOP area to transport the victims of the shooting to the hospital encountered an angry crowd who denied them entry. The couple were brought to Harborview Medical Center by self-styled “CHOP physicians,” and Anderson’s son was pronounced dead on arrival.
“My son needed help, and I don’t feel like they helped my son,” Anderson said. “I feel like he wouldn’t do it, without this, he would be nobody. He just doesn’t matter, he’s just another boy. Just another boy, just swept under the rug, and that’s it and forgotten.”
Her son’s death left him heartbroken, Anderson told Hannity, visibly shaken.
“I get up in the morning … I look for my son in the morning,” he said. “It is no longer there. You know what I’m talking? It is as if I go there, I am kissing a photo. He is not there. “
Trump’s Thursday phone call helped Anderson get through a day that no parent should face. Knowing that so many people, including the commander-in-chief, shared his pain gave him some peace and strength, Taylor said.
“Horace’s head blew up,” he added.
The city’s infamous CHOP zone in the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood was cleared on Wednesday after the city’s leadership finally acted after two deadly shootings and weeks of scrutiny that a city would yield several blocks to protesters and not allow the input of the first to respond.
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Elected leaders argued that the protest was largely peaceful until reports of gun violence and videos of protesters appeared online threatening journalists and other visitors to the area.
Since the area was established, there have been four shootings, two of which were fatal: Horace Lorenzo Anderson Jr., 19, and a 16-year-old boy who died in a separate incident.
Many companies and people living within the occupied area also complained about the violence and threats from protesters. Several businesses, including an auto repair shop, tattoo parlor, and property management company, filed lawsuits against the city on Wednesday. The complaint alleged that city officials were complicit in allowing self-styled anarchists to occupy public streets that made them feel insecure.
As crews cleared the area this week, Seattle police retook a police station that officers had abandoned after clashes between police and protesters.
Many Republicans, including Trump, have distorted local leaders amid reports of chaos and lawlessness within CHOP. Earlier this month, Trump promised not to have a repeat of Seattle in Washington, DC, as the protests spread near the White House.
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In a June 18 tweet, he called CHOP “the latest example of liberal (Democratic) cities falling into illegality.”
“We are not talking about a small place, we are talking about Seattle,” Trump said during a June 20 rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as he criticized Democrats in Seattle and Washington state. He said he had an offer to Seattle officials that “anytime you want, we will go in” and fix the problems in Seattle “in an hour or less.”
