On a warm summer day last July, Claire Hart and her 19-year-old daughter Charlotte went for an early morning swim at their local leisure centre in Spalding, Lincolnshire. It was a trip they made often, just a short drive from their home in the village of Moulton. Claire’s son Ryan had recently bought his mother a swimming pass as a present.
At 9am on 19 July, mother and daughter left the pool and made their way back across the car park to their blue Toyota Aygo. As they approached the car, a man crawled out from underneath it: Claire’s husband and Charlotte’s father, Lance Hart, whom the pair had left five days earlier. Now he held up a single-barrel shotgun and shot Claire three times. He then reloaded the gun and shot his daughter, before turning the gun on himself.
Ryan and Luke Hart – Claire and Lance’s sons, Charlotte’s older brothers – were both working outside the country at the time. But the same BBC breaking news alert popped up on both their phones: “Shooting in Spalding,” the notification read. They both tried to call Claire and Charlotte, but neither answered their phones. The two brothers started to worry: only days before, they had both helped their mother and sister move out, after a lifetime of emotional abuse and psychological control. But surely Lance wouldn’t do anything that would make the international news?
The police told the brothers not to read press coverage of the attack. Luke read nothing for months, but Ryan was able to avoid it for only a few days. He was shocked to find reports that were sympathetic towards his father. The Sun and Daily Telegraph quoted locals who described Lance as “a nice guy”, while the Daily Express reported that he was “a DIY nut”. The Daily Mail spoke to others who described Hart as “always caring”. In every report, there was speculation that the prospect of divorce “drove” Lance to murder, and little mention or description of Claire or Charlotte.
“I was shocked at the ease with which others, sitting behind their desks, could explain our tragedy away within an afternoon,” Ryan says now. “It was very difficult to read that they were sympathising with a man who caused Mum and Charlotte misery their entire lives. One writer even dared use the word ‘understandable’ to justify why they were murdered.” This second Daily Mail article, a column by psychiatrist Max Pemberton, argued that a man killing his children “is often a twisted act of love”. The article was later removed from the site.
“You’re reading it and thinking, ‘This is bollocks,’” Ryan says. “But you know people around the country are also reading it, and those ideas are being driven into their minds. It reinforces in the abuser’s mind that what they’re doing is OK.”
The fundraising has reached its goal. However, I encourage you all to keep donating and spreading awareness for Barbara Kentner and her family. Providing for the costs of travel expenses and financial security for her family will greatly help as she prepares to die.
Make no mistake about this: she has been murdered. There are no two ways about this. I have chosen not to mention the man in these posts because his name does not deserve to be held in the same space as Barbara’s; his name has already been published and is available in articles and in the notes.
His charges have not been rectified to reflect the true nature of the crime, which itself has not yet been identified as a hate crime by police. I do not know if it ever will be.
The Thunder Bay Police Service is known for its lackofaccountability to the indigenous community here in Thunder Bay. Sadly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, incidents of white people throwing objects and yelling racial slurs at walking indigenous people is not uncommon here in this city. It happens on a regular basis, and is the reality for many indigenous people living in urban settings.
The police do not take any of it, in any measure, seriously. Their inaction continues to prove this.
Barbara Kentner has passed on as of this morning, July 4, 2017.
Rest in peace, sister.
Remember her. Put your semaa out and feast dishes if you can, and continue to support the Kentner family as their gofundme is still open. She leaves behind a daughter who will need all of the support she can get.
I was sitting in the group room at my intensive outpatient program. I had just finished recounting an incident where I believed a security officer had been following me, but the person with me at the time had disagreed and said we weren’t being followed.
The head psychologist said “Your goal this week should be letting in alternative theories to your paranoia. It isn’t likely anyone is following you.” I said “What do you mean? How can I trust someone else’s perspective over my own, especially when that someone is white?” Another person spoke up, suggested increasing my anti-psychotics.
I looked around the room at the other patients and the professionals in group with me. I was the only Black person there.
I’m mentally ill, and sometimes I’m paranoid, and sometimes I’m delusional.
I’m Black, and I’m more likely to be followed around by security, or have negative interactions with the police. The racism in this world is real, and it can affect me.
I’m mentally ill, and sometimes I have persecutory delusions, and there wasn’t any drugs in my orange juice or bugs living in my arms even though I was convinced there were.
I’m Black, and I’m mentally ill. And that intersection has never been acknowledged online or in therapy. That intersection makes us more vulnerable to abuse, domestic violence, and police brutality.
Black schizo-spec people face challenges that others don’t. We are more likely to be be labeled as dangerous and violent and be disbelieved when we share about how racism has impacted our lives, among many other things. That makes it harder for me to trust others- not to mention that difficulty trusting others is a symptom.
Was I being followed that day? I wish I had an answer, but I don’t know. Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t. But that isn’t the point.
A simple search will tell you that schizophrenia is more readily diagnosed in Black patients than in white (source), and some say it is overdiagnosed.
But where are the positivity posts for Black people with stigmatizing disorders?
Where is the positivity for the Black schizo-spec people trying to figure out what level of fear and suspicion towards the police is reasonable and what is a symptom? Where is the positivity for Black schizo-spec people who have everything blamed on their diagnosis while their other mental health problems get ignored? Where’s the positivity for Black schizo-spec people who distrust the medical professionals they deal with, who have ugly symptoms, who are pigeonholed as dangerous?
We have died because we are Black and schizo-spec. Remember those of us who have been murdered.
And? Don’t forget to include us in your activism while we are living.
(ok to rb)
Hey, I know Khaleel Thompson irl, and he is NOT dead. He was shot in multiple times in the brain and abdomen, is in critical condition, and had to have one of his kidneys removed, but is thankfully alive.
The murder case has yet to go to a Dallas County grand jury. Oliver has since been indicted on two aggravated assault charges in an apparent road rage confrontation two weeks before the shooting. In that case, a woman said Oliver pulled out his gun after she rear-ended him in a traffic accident while he was off duty.
He told Dallas officers that he had his gun at the “low ready” position and had identified himself as an officer because he thought the other driver may have been reaching for a weapon or trying to flee. Dallas police determined that no offense had occurred.
Arredondo filed a complaint against Oliver.
So, just a couple of weeks later, he shoots into a car full of children and kills one of them. Totally unforseeable, right? 😩
The Muslim community is mourning the passing of Nabra, a 17 year old young woman from Sterling, VA. Nabra was beaten to death with a baseball bat and left in a pond after going missing while walking to a mosque with her friends. Hate crime against Muslim Americans is at its highest point with more than 67% increase since 2016. Nabra is another example of the escalating violence towards Muslims Americans. Activists gathered at Union Square to hold a vigil for Nabra and her family and to stand against violence against Muslim Americans.
Almost everybody must have already watched the video police has released of Philando Castile’s legal lynching. Cop , who murdered him was acquitted despite the fact that the video clearly shows us Philando telling the officer he has a gun in his car and that he’s a legal gun owner. This is ridiculous how our justice system fails black people and how one particular group of people chooses to remain silent once a black person gets killed for legally carrying a gun.
Nabra Hassanen didn’t have the chance to spend Father’s Day with the man who raised her. Hassanen’s remains were found in a pond in Sterling, Virginia, the Washington Post reported. She was 17.
Hassanen and her teenage friends — all wearing abayas, or traditional long dresses — were walking back after their pre-fast Ramadan meal at an IHOP early Sunday morning when they were accosted by a man in a red car.
The man, armed with with a metal baseball bat, then got out of the car. The girls all ran back to the All Dulles Area Muslim Society mosque in Sterling where they were making their nightly Ramadan prayers.
But Hassanen fell behind. She was beaten to death with the bat.
The Fairfax Police Department identified the man as Darwin Martinez Torres, and he was charged with murder.
The police said they had come across no indication that Hassanen’s death was motivated by her race or religion.
Recently, there have been a string of reported assaults and harassments in which Muslim teenage girls have been targeted. Read more (6/19/17)
Through a Buzzfeed blurb, I read the headline “A Muslim Teen Was Kidnapped And Murdered Outside A Virginia Mosque.”
The first paragraph of that story follows: “A man has been charged with murder after police found the body believed to be that of 17-year-old Nabra Hassanen, who went missing after leaving a mosque this weekend. Police said they currently had no information to indicate that this was a hate crime.”
This man drove up to a group of Muslim teenage girls with brown skin wearing hijab, swung a baseball bat around, and STOLE one of them. But there’s “no information to indicate this was a hate crime.” Are you kidding me, Virginia?
Horrifying instances of hate like this happen everyday. And I can’t understand why it isn’t on every news channel, in our faces, ‘round the clock. I can’t understand why for every Black Lives Matter shirt, there are twenty bumper stickers that say BLUE LIVES MATTER or TRUMP/PENCE. It just doesn’t make sense in my brain. Shame on us.
No matter how ignorant you are, no matter how much better you think you are than someone you look at and deem Other, it’s impossible for me to grasp how members of the human race can do easily gloss over this shit instead of standing up and saying this is not okay.
53-year-old Deborah Pearl, a mother of three, was shot by 29-year-old Matthew Ryan Desha after his jeep hit her own vehicle.
Black women went out of the car to assess the situation and saw a white man with 5.56-millimeter high-powered assault rifle. She put her hands in the air in attempt to save her life from the armed stranger, but it didn’t matter. Witnesses told that they heard at least 12 shots.
The media tries to shield Desha saying that he’s marine and suffered from PTSD. But, hey guys, check this out! He’s not more than a criminal and hater!
I do not accept excuses for the hate crimes.
#StayWoke
So, like, when we gonna regulate gun laws again? Why is a marine with PTSD allowed to just casually own a semi automatic weapon in the first place? This is bullshit.
I have ptsd and own .
This was premeditated murder .
He has a history of hate violence and has been arrested for illegal ownership before . Of course because he’s white he gets the slap on the wrist .
He knew exactly what he was doing they are just pulling the white victim shit they usually do .
I’m sure they already cleared his social media page up and all .
He was check hunting . Don’t be fooled by old media tactics . Everyone who owns a weapon knows it takes time to think about what the hell youre going to do when you draw your weapon before you do it .
You gotta pick it up , exit your car and flip your shit off safety .
Ars have 3 clicks on the lever depending on build .
Safe , fire and semi .
You have to stick the buttstock in your arm pit , focus on target and aim .
He had time to think about what he was doing .
This was premeditated murder .
If you take a basic concealed carry course they tell you when you do shit like this it’s murder and you’re going to jail .
Her death after he rammed his truck in her car was intended.
12 shots was never an accident or a form of warning .
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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