A Navy veteran who plays music near Seattle’s waterfront says he’s just thankful to be alive after being shot in broad daylight during a confrontation that prosecutors are calling both senseless and deliberate.

Harold Powell Sr.’s family believes the attack was a hate crime. Powell is Black, and his attacker is white.

“More shocked I think than anything else. I just got hit really hard right here in the chest where he hit me real close,” said Harold Powell, describing the moment he was shot on July 31 outside the Starbucks at Pier 55.

The 68-year-old, who uses a wheelchair, was hospitalized with a gunshot wound to the chest but was released days later.

“I seen the slug. I can see the heat of the slug coming at me and then just, ‘boom!’ Knocked me back,” he recounted to local station KI

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