In the whiplash of learning her 29-year-old son had been fatally shot last Sunday morning in Southeast Portland and then finding out the next day that his suspected killer had been shot and killed by police, Lorri Freeman said she’s left with painful questions that may never be answered.
Portland police found her son, Zachery Freeman, dead from a gunshot wound about 10:30 a.m. Sunday inside Fantasyland, an adult entertainment store on Southeast Foster Road.
About 37 hours later, two Portland police officers and a Clackamas County sheriff’s deputy fatally shot his suspected killer, 20-year-old Jack Watson of Portland, after Watson fired at them from his car near Clackamas Town Center, prosecutors said.
Lorri Freeman, 56, of Beaverton said she has been desperate for more information, but has yet to learn what led up to her youngest child’s killing. All she knows is that her son died after entering the arcade at Fantasyland – information she said she heard on TV news, not from police.
Freeman was a regular customer at the store and was shot after an argument with another patron, according to news reports by KOIN and KPTV. Police have not said what led to the shooting.
She said she decided against reading her son’s autopsy report, but was told by the funeral home that he had been shot in the back.
Lorri Freeman said she and her family went to Fantasyland to ask what happened, but employees there said they didn’t know anything, she said.
The store, which sells vaping products, glass pipes, sex toys and adult movies and publications, has an arcade and theater behind closed double-doors, accessible only by swiping a credit card or paying cash.
An employee at the store Thursday afternoon declined to speak with a reporter for The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Signs outside the arcade and theater outlined its prices – $15 for 12 hours – and its rules, including prohibitions against prostitution and drug use.
Signs taped near the doorways and throughout the store said “No bags allowed! No exceptions. Effective as of: 4/25/2023″ – two days after Freeman was killed inside Fantasyland.
“We just know it sounded like he was leaving and trying to get away and the guy shot him,” said Zachery Freeman’s aunt, Margie Wilson, 65, of Tigard. “We’ll never know why or what led up to it.”
An arcade and theater is located inside Fantasyland, an adult entertainment store on Southeast Foster Road in Portland.Catalina Gaitan
After Zachery Freeman’s shooting, investigators had developed a description of the suspect and his car, according to the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office. The information was distributed to patrol officers throughout Portland who were on the lookout.
Portland police officers spotted Watson’s car Monday night near Southeast 82nd Avenue and Holgate Boulevard. Watson fled south down 82nd Avenue into Clackamas County. He was stopped as he tried to make a U-turn north up 82nd Avenue.
About 11 p.m. in the 11000 block of Southeast 82nd Avenue, Watson pulled out a handgun and fired at police from his car, the district attorney’s office said in a statement.
The police officers and sheriff’s deputy fired back, killing him. The two officers and sheriff’s deputy have been placed on leave, which is standard in deadly force cases.
On Thursday, the district attorney’s office identified David Sloboda as the sheriff’s deputy who fired. He has worked in law enforcement for 2.5 years.
The two police officers who fired will be identified May 9 in accordance with the Portland Police Bureau’s updated policy of releasing names of officers who use deadly force within 15 days, absent a “credible security threat,” the district attorney’s office said.
Lorri Freeman said she and her family had mixed emotions after learning her son’s suspected killer had been fatally shot by police.
“We are devastated that he was shot, because we feel for his family having to go through this same pain,” she said. “But we also feel like, thank God, we don’t have to go through a court case – we didn’t know if we could handle that either.”
Zachery Freeman grew up in St. Louis and, as the youngest of six children, was known as “the baby.” The family moved to Lincoln City when he was 15 and he got a job bagging groceries at the local Safeway when he turned 17, his mother said.
He always wanted to keep up with his older siblings, earning straight As in school and doing anything he could to stay at the top of his class, she said.
About two years after he graduated from high school, the family moved to Portland to be closer to one of his brothers. Zachery Freeman worked his way up to managing different Safeways in the Portland metro area.
Lorri Freeman said her youngest son hoped to one day become a high school guidance counselor and be the mentor that he had yearned for as a teen, while he was coping with the death of one of his older brothers and coming out as gay.
His brother died at age 10 after being struck by an ATV, Wilson said.
Zachery Freeman was active in Portland’s LGBTQ comunity and would never miss a Pride parade or a rally, family members said.
“He was a very sweet person and had the kind of personality that he believed everyone should be their true self – whatever they wanted to be,” Lorri Freeman said. “He wanted to be able to help people get through problems, or whatever issues they had where they felt they couldn’t just talk to family.”
Zachery Freeman loved playing video games and being outdoors, taking any opportunity to swim, hike, camp or go floating on a river with his family. He played Pokemon with his siblings’ children and was “like a big kid,” his mother said.
Wilson set up a GoFundMe to help pay for her nephew’s final expenses.
In the days since her son’s death, Lorri Freeman said she has been inundated with messages from people who loved him.
“I couldn’t believe how many people have reached out to me and I’m constantly answering messages from people I didn’t even know he knew,” she said. “He touched so many people’s lives that it’s just amazing to me – I don’t think he even realized how many people really cared.”
-- Catalina Gaitán, cgaitan@oregonian.com, @catalingaitan_
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