‘Go back to the ghetto!’ Grieving Black father harassed at slain son’s vigil
The father of a 23-year-old man who was killed at a Bay Area Halloween party had to also face humiliation from racist hecklers at a vigil for the victims
The father of a Black California man who among five were was shot and killed at a Halloween house party is now being harassed with with racially charged messages as he grieves.
“I’m ripped apart,” Raymon Hill Sr., told local station KGO-TV. His son Raymon Jr., 23, was amongst those killed while attending a rap event, which was billed as an “Airbnb Mansion Party.”
READ MORE: Airbnb Halloween mansion party horror leaves 5 dead, and several others injured
Tonya Loftin, the slain young man’s aunt, says while she and other grieving families were holding vigil Sunday night in Orinda, Calif., for those killed at the event, people in the predominantly white neighborhood were driving by yelling the n-word at them along with other obscene language.
“That’s what they told us — go back to the ghetto,” she said. “It’s not where you live, it’s a respect thing and we didn’t get that from them.”
READ MORE: Store clerk sentenced to 22 years for killing teen over $2 drink
Making Hill’s loss even more devastating is the fact that he has now lost three of his sons to gun violence and blames police for this most recent loss.
“The police didn’t do their job that night. The ambulance didn’t do their job that night,” the father said, referring to how despite multiple noise complaints, officials didn’t respond to the scene until an hour and a half after the fact, which was just two minutes before shots were fired.
“Lives could have been saved,” continued Hill, who has now taken to wearing photos of his son on a lanyard around his neck.
“It seems like to me they were being lazy,” Loftin added. “Because the whole force wasn’t in Lafayette.”
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, police are looking into whether the Airbnb party shooting was in retaliation for a quadruple killing in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley in 2015. A victim in the Halloween violence, Tiyon Farley, 22, was the younger brother of Lee Farley Jr., who is charged with murder in the deaths of four men on January 9 of that year.
Both San Francisco police and Contra Costa County authorities have been investigating to see if there is a connection, the Chronicle reports.
