Teen's dad says friend "left him for dead"

DéChé Morrison and his teenage friend ran in opposite directions when gunshots sounded in a South Seattle neighborhood Thursday night.

Morrison, 14, was hit in the abdomen; he hid behind a parked car and later died there in the street. His friend didn't report the shooting until 18 hours later, after he and his mother went to the scene and found the body, Morrison's father, Gordon Scott, said Monday.

"The friend that he left with, in my opinion, really left him for dead," he said. "That's kind of what has me at a boiling point right now, because I think there probably was something that could have been done."

The King County Medical Examiner's Office on Monday said Morrison died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

Scott said the death investigator and police told him that his son was likely shot once in the stomach before he ran down the residential street and hid behind a parked car sometime between 8:15 and 9 p.m. Thursday. He lay there until his body was found Friday afternoon.

Police officers who responded to a call of gunshots fired Thursday night didn't find Morrison's body hidden behind the parked car.

"It breaks my heart that he was out there by himself scared and without anybody to hold him," Scott said, adding that he believes his son would have sought help if he could.

Scott said Morrison and his friend left his house Thursday afternoon. Friday he heard that there had been a shooting and his son was involved; he spent the day calling police precincts and hospitals.

Police told him there had been no shootings and that if there had been any they would know, Scott said. Hospitals said there was nobody matching his son's name or description.

It wasn't until Friday afternoon that Scott found out what happened to his son. When he arrived at the 4200 block of South Rose Street, police were stringing yellow tape. His son's friend was still at the scene.

Police said Monday evening that there was nothing new to report about the investigation — they also declined to comment about whom Morrison was with during the shooting or who reported finding the body.

Scott said his son was "a good kid at heart," but was becoming increasingly troubled.

"Basically he was running the streets. The guy he was hanging with, I shouldn't have let him hang with," he said of the teen his son was with at the time of the shooting.

Morrison was in trouble with the law and had dropped out of Cleveland High School because of problems with other students, his father said.

Scott said he and Morrison's mother tried to keep him at home and have him learn computer skills but he ran away. "I couldn't physically keep him in the house," Scott said. "We were just trying to get him back on the right path."

About a week and a half ago, Scott said, the two "had a long conversation and I let him get out everything he wanted to get out."

"He said he was going to straighten up his act," Scott said.

He said he gave his son permission to go out Thursday, on the night of his death, and he feels he has to take some blame because of that.

"I can't really be mad at anybody but myself," he said. "I should have done a little bit more to protect him from the street. When I figured out what was going on he was already one foot in the wrong direction."

Brian Alexander: 206-464-2026 or balexander@seattletimes.com