Man shot inside Seattle’s CHOP claims racists attacked him in ‘hate crime’
A man critically injured in one of the shootings inside Seattle’s chaotic, cop-free CHAZ claims it was a hate crime committed by racist infiltrators who dropped the N-word.
DeJuan Young told KIRO 7 that he was fleeing the sound of gunshots from where a teenager was shot dead early Saturday when he was accosted by at least four men who dropped a racial slur when they shot him.
“I’m not sure if they’re Proud Boys or KKK,” Young told the station of the attack in the so-called “Capital Hill Autonomous Zone.”
“But the verbiage that they said was, ‘Hold this n—r’ — and shot me.”
Speaking from a hospital bed, Young told the station that the force knocked him onto the hood of a car.
“And they stood over top of me and continued to fire,” he said. “I tried to protect myself and got shot in the arm,” he claimed of the assailants, who apparently managed to disappear afterward.
“I’m positive this was a hate crime,” he told King 5 news in a separate interview.
Volunteers in the zone — also known as “CHOP,” or Capitol Hill Organized Protest — rushed him to the hospital because emergency services struggled to access the controversial area.
Young says he is angry at the lack of help from cops — even though he concedes keeping them away was central to the protest.
“I understand everybody’s going to say, ‘Oh, it was the CHAZ zone and y’all asked for the police not to be there, so don’t act like y’all need them now,” he said.
Young told King 5 it has not changed his resolve to push for the police to be defunded.
Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best accused protesters of thwarting the efforts of police and other first responders to help the shooting victims, including Lorenzo Anderson, 19, who died.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said Monday that officials will now move to wind down the CHAZ because of the bloodshed.