appointed CHOP medics. Investigators said that none of the potential witnesses have been cooperative. Horace Lorenzo Anderson is the father of the 19-year-old gunned down on June 20. He doesn’t understand why his son was brutally killed: “To this day, I really don’t know nothing. I’m still here sitting. I haven’t heard nothing from nobody. Somebody needs to come to my house and knock on my door and tell me something. I don’t know nothing. All I know is my son got killed up there.” Anderson said: “I haven’t been able to sleep. I wake up in the middle of the night. I go look for him. He ain’t there.” Then bullets started flying and bodies began dropping. And with those lives lost, I lost my appetite for ridiculing CHOP. For all the happy talk about CHOP’s peaceful demonstrations and egalitarian aims, this trial run of life without the police was a lawless, brutish nightmare. In fact, the Capitol Hill neighborhood where CHOP was stationed experienced a mind- boggling 525% increase in reported crimes from this time last year – crimes that included robberies, assaults, and rape. Mayor Jenny Durkan finally gave up on the “summer of love,” and ordered the Seattle Police Department to re-enter the “cop-free” zone, dismantle CHOP, disperse its occupants, and take back the vacated precinct building.
the paper touted all the “free” stuff within CHOP: “Free snacks at the No-Cop Co-Op. Free gas masks from some guy’s sedan. Free speech at the speaker’s circle, where anyone could say their piece. A free documentary movie – Ava DuVernay’s ‘13th’ – showing after dark.” Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan’s handling of this three-week absurdity was impressively incompetent. Armed radicals commandeered a slice of her city by force, with residents and business owners fearing for their own safety. Yet Durkan suggested that CHOP was akin to a “block party” and could ultimately be known as the “summer of love.” Then bullets started flying and bodies began dropping. And with those lives lost, I lost my appetite for ridiculing CHOP. Instead, I became angry. Seattle’s political class tolerated and even encouraged this JV-level insurrection. The murders were avoidable if city officials had done their basic job: maintain civil order. CHOP should never have been allowed to gain traction. Not even a month into this “block party,” at least four people were shot near or inside the perimeter – two fatally. The slain individuals were both black males. Neither of them will live to see their 21st birthday. The details surrounding the shootings are murky because responding police officers weren’t allowed on the scene and emergency personnel were prevented from entering the zone to attend to the victims. The “woke” militia wouldn’t allow it. The victims instead were transported to a local ER by self-
American Consequences
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