Parents call Anderson mentally troubled

Jenny Marder

Kenneth Sean Anderson’s philosophy was that if you can get involved

in sports, you’ll never have to turn to drugs.

It was something he believed in deeply, but at times they were

only words, and easier said than done.

Anderson’s family gathered Tuesday in a private family ceremony to

mourn the loss of their son and brother, who was shot and killed by a

Huntington Beach police officer on June 1 after allegedly threatening

to run over several police officers with his car.

“This has just been a real extreme shock to the whole family, and

everybody’s trying to make some [sense] out of it,” said his mother

Bonnie Parashak. “Our feeling really is that he is now where he

wanted to be, as far as he is in the hands of the Lord.”

Athlete, health nut and nature lover, Anderson was described by

family and friends as loving, hard-working and passionate, but also

short-tempered and moody, with a tendency toward depression.

He was a religious man, with a closeness to the pastor of his

Methodist church. He was a skilled athlete who found pleasure and

solace in all kinds of athletics -- basketball, softball, football,

surfing, snowboarding and skateboarding, she said.

Much of that changed when Anderson was 16 and involved in a

motorcycle accident that sent him into a coma, said Paul Parashak,

Kenneth’s stepfather.

“At that time, doctors said he wouldn’t make it through the

night,” he said. “When he came out of the coma, they said he wouldn’t

live to see 30.”

Anderson lived to be 38, but the accident triggered other problems

-- mental problems, headaches, distorted hearing, unorthodox behavior

and drug abuse.

It changed his personality, his stepfather said.

“A good part of the problem stemmed from the fact that Ken

couldn’t show empathy,” he said. “His emotional demeanor was out of

sorts. He would do things you wouldn’t expect. You’d ask him a

question, a serious one, and he would chuckle.”

Anderson got hooked on heavy-duty pain medication prescribed by

doctors after the accident, and after developing a tolerance for the

painkillers, shifted to other drugs, Paul Parashak said.

His substance abuse problem lasted for two years, after which he

pulled himself out of drugs and into treatment, turning to groups

such as Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous for help.

As the years went by, other young people grappling with similar

drug problems turned to Anderson for help and guidance. He was always

there for them, his parents said.

He would offer them a place to stay in one of the three spare

rooms of his Huntington Beach home and spend time with them, take

them to meetings and do whatever he could to help them stay clean,

Paul Parashak said.

Once clean, he went back to school, and although it took him nine

years, he finally earned a teaching degree for high school physical

education.

“Between graduating and the time he started student teaching, he

was so involved in trying to get kids to understand that if you can

get involved in sports, you’ll get so much gratification from that,

you’ll never turn to drugs,” his stepfather said.

To raise awareness, he trekked alone across the United States from

the Canadian border to the Mexican border walking, biking and

skateboarding. When the man who had agreed to drive the chase car

bailed at the last minute, Kenneth chose to chase himself. He’d bike

or skate for five or six miles, then double-back for his car, which

doubled his route from 1,500 to 3,000 miles. The journey took him two

and a half months to complete.

“He was trying to emphasize that this was his belief,” Paul

Parashak said. “He believed in it. If he completed it, it said he had

done what he said he was going to do. He never went back on his

word.”

But no matter how hard he tried, Anderson could never shake his

reputation as a troublemaker. With 10 or 12 incidents on his police

record, including attempted armed robbery and assault on a police

officer, his past finally caught up with him. Anderson was arrested

for assault with a deadly weapon and fired from his job after only a

few weeks at Fountain Valley High School.

“I can’t get mad at the principal for getting rid of Ken,” his

stepfather said. “His job is to upgrade his staff. Ken didn’t present

a professional image as far as this is the type of individual I’d

like my son or daughter to emulate.”

Losing the job devastated him and launched him back into drug use.

“I really think Ken was just hurting,” he said. “Even then, he

couldn’t cope.”

Later that spring, on June 21, 2002, Anderson was arrested for

trying to rob three liquor stores at knifepoint. A high-speed car

chase that ended in Irvine. He was held in jail for nine months.

He returned home after his release with no money, no car, hardly

any clothes and many of his belongings stolen, said his mother, who

returned to Huntington Beach from Oregon to help him.

“We begged him to move out. He had had such a hard time with the

police there,” she said. “But Huntington Beach was his hometown. He

surfed there and he loved it.”

He moved in temporarily with the pastor of his church, Don

Reynolds.

“We gave him a set of keys and he never took a thing,” said Lyla

Reynolds, the pastor’s wife. “He was very helpful.”

Anderson helped the family with dishes and brought them gifts of

paintings and plants. He also admitted to Lyla Reynolds that he was

on medication for seizures and that at times, he wore a hearing aid.

“He said ‘I’m not old, but I don’t think straight because of my

brain injury,’” she said.

Anderson had always been close with the pastor, who visited

frequently while he was in jail. The pastor spent whole days at the

courthouse with him and helped arrange for him to be checked into a

halfway house after he was released.

Nine days after his release from jail, he was shot and killed by

Police Officer Corwin Bales after allegedly threatening to run over a

team of police officers with his car.

The incident began when Anderson allegedly stole a cigarette

lighter from an Arco gas station on Beach Boulevard and used it to

light a glass pipe. An Arco cashier confronted Anderson, who

subsequently reacted by re-entering the store, swiping an entire box

of lighters and fleeing in his Toyota Corolla. The cashier was

reportedly so shaken up by the encounter that he quit that night.

A police chase ensued. Anderson was finally cornered in the

Huntington Beach High School parking lot. When Anderson began

accelerating toward an officer on foot and several cruisers in a

threatening manner, Bales shot him through the windshield. He was

pronounced dead at the scene.

His mother doesn’t know why he never checked himself into the

halfway house as he planned, but said she believes that now, he is

“where he always wanted to be.”

“He’s happy and there’s no pain for him, not in his head,

anymore,” she said.