Mother of Tyshawn Lee faces backlash after reportedly buying new car
Karla Lee, the mother of Tyshawn Lee, the 9-year-old boy who was lured into an alley and executed, faced public backlash against her on Saturday after she purchased a new car.
Karla Lee, the mother of Tyshawn Lee, the 9-year-old boy who was lured into an alley and executed, faced public backlash against her on Saturday after she purchased a new car.
A GoFundMe page had been set up in Lee’s name entitled “Help me lay my baby to rest,” and $17,000 had already been raised by friends, family and strangers alike when an unverified Facebook post suggested that Lee, 26, bought a new car with the money and that someone else was paying for the funeral.
In videos uploaded to Lee’s Instagram this weekend, she said that she bought the car because she was “one hundred percent” afraid for her own life and wanted to feel safe rather than walking around outside with what she felt was a big target on her back, reports DNA Info.
“I work right in the area around where the conflict between these two gangs, I work right over there, so what ya’ll want me to be walking and then they see me and they kill me too?” she asked Saturday in the now-deleted post.
Some of Lee’s video posts have been uploaded to YouTube. Warning: Explicit language.
However, many people have become upset at Lee’s use of the funds, calling her a “shame” and “disgrace.” Lee defended herself during an interview with ABC, saying that she saved up her own money for the car and that she had not set up the crowdsourcing page herself.
Tyshawn’s dad, Pierre Stokes, stirred up more controversy when he started another GoFundMe page for the funeral expenses.
With whatever was "leftover" with the mother's money, he's asking for an additional $2.5k and to buy tshirts. pic.twitter.com/qEvdZQBVIs
— 👑 QUEEN KY 💋 (@EchoesOfKyraaa) November 8, 2015
“I understand the mother of my son did wrong by that money but what the news is not telling, that they are only paying for half the cost of everything,” he wrote. “They are blaming us so they don’t have to pay the full cost of everything. She is in the wrong for doing what she did with the money for our son, just give me a chance to lay my son to rest the right way.”
Stokes, whose gang ties may have led to his son’s death, also offered t-shirts memorializing his son on the page that has since been deleted. The original GoFundMe page was reportedly closed Sunday, raising over $17,000 to help with funeral costs.
