🚨 “Chimping out.” That’s what Patrick Scott Barnes heard while quietly eating and reading at his regular restaurant in Sanford, Florida.
The Black man was minding his own business in a booth when a group of white men at a nearby table kept staring. One of them used the racist slur loud enough for him to hear. When Patrick confronted them, one immediately started apologizing because he realized he was being recorded. Another threatened to get Patrick fired from his job.
Then the guy in the hat jumped up and threatened to knock Patrick’s glasses off his face.
That’s when the recording started.
Later that same day, a restaurant representative who wasn’t even working tracked Patrick down at his job. She had seen the footage, knew him as a regular, and confirmed he didn’t start anything. She apologized and told him he was welcome back anytime. Patrick accepted.
Racists often only find manners when the camera is rolling and some still try to punish you for simply existing in public.
How many times does this exact scene play out with no camera around? And what does real accountability look like when the only thing that stops it is someone hitting record?
A 70-year-old man was charged with attempted murder after he tried to drown a 21-year-old man on crutches at a residents-only lake in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, over a dispute about access to the lake.
According to a Hopkinton police report, Dana shouted at a group of young men that it was "time to go," referring to the group riding a jet ski on the lake
The group and Dana shout back and forth, with Dana eventually walking up to the group to confront them, according to officials
"Are you going to beat up a cripple?" one of Duffy's friends reportedly asked Dana.
"I don't care, I'll take a cripple." Dana responded, according to the report.
Speaking with NewsCenter 5, the victim, Matthew Duffy, said he feared for his life.
"I was so scared for my life because I can't fight back, I broke practically everything and this guy's on top of me under the water, I can't see what's going on, I can't fight back," Duffy said
Steven Dana was charged with an attempt to murder, two counts of strangulation/suffocation, and assault and battery on a disabled person.
🚨 Woman stabs man in the neck while he slept — he died in his father’s arms.
Kristin Sculley, 22, of Massapequa, was charged with second-degree murder after attacking 28-year-old Bobby Carragher in the basement of his parents’ Beaumont Avenue home.
Police say the two acquaintances had spent the evening watching TV together. At some point Sculley became angry, pulled out a pocketknife, and stabbed Carragher in the neck while he was sleeping striking an artery.
He managed to climb the stairs screaming for help. His parents rushed to him in the kitchen and tried to stop the bleeding, but he became unresponsive and died in his father’s arms.
Sculley was found hiding in the lower level of the house with the knife. She pleaded not guilty at arraignment and was remanded to jail.
No family should ever have to watch their son bleed out like that after being attacked in his sleep by someone they welcomed into their home.
What drives someone to this level of sudden, lethal violence against a friend or acquaintance?