DEADLY DISCUSSION
Young mom, 24, shot dead ‘after telling Black Lives Matter protesters “all lives matter” during argument about movement’
- Lucy Sherriff
- 12 Jul 2020, 16:45
- Lucy Sherriff
- Invalid Date,
A YOUNG mom was shot dead in Indianapolis in front of her fiancé after an argument about the Black Lives Matter movement.
Jessica Doty Whitaker was walking with her partner Jose Ramirez and two friends at 3am on July 5 when they came across four men and a woman and an argument broke out.
The groups clashed over language and the Black Lives Matter movement, WTHR reported.
“I’ll never probably ever get that image out of my head of what happened,” Ramirez told the local news station.
According to Ramirez, the groups got into a racially charged argument, and one man pulled out a gun, and so Ramirez did too.
One article, published in far right news organization The Daily Wire, reported that Doty Whitaker had said “all lives matter” to the group, who allegedly were supporters of the BLM movement.
“The Daily Wire spoke to Mr. Doty [Doty Whitaker’s father] to confirm,” the article reads.
“‘Yes that is accurate,’ Doty said when asked if his daughter said ‘all lives matter’ during the argument about BLM.”
Following the argument, the groups managed to talk things over and both parties walked away.
But minutes later, shots rang out along Canal Court.
“I was actually holding her when it happened,” Ramirez said. “She just fell. I turned around, and I opened fire too. But that’s just a reaction. I didn’t see nobody. Hopefully I didn’t hit nobody.”
He told Fox News: “It was squashed and they went up the hill and left we thought, but they were sitting on St. Claire waiting for us to come under the bridge and that’s when she got shot.”
Doty Whitaker, a home health nurse, was taken to hospital was taken to hospital where she died.
“I’m never going to get to hold her again,” Arlena Doty, Whitaker’s mother, told WTHR.
“I just want the people who are responsible to be held accountable.”
Ramirez added: “She shouldn’t have lost her life. She’s got a three-year-old son she loved dearly.”
Explaining to Doty Whitaker’s son Greyson that he’ll never see his mom again has been the hardest part for the family, he said.
“It’s hard to tell him his mom is in heaven and if you want to talk to her you have to look up and say, ‘I love you mom,’” said Ramirez.
A GoFundMe page that has been set up to raise funds for Doty Whitaker’s funeral has already garnered almost $19,000 in donations.
“We are asking for you to donate whatever you can to help our family give her the most beautiful service she deserves,” the page reads.
“Also to help with the beautiful son she left behind. That was her pride and joy.”
On Facebook, Doty Whitaker’s father, Robert J Doty Sr, called for justice for his daughter and said he believes the killing “is considered a hate crime”.
A comment posted onto Doty Sr’s page by a woman calls for “more than justice”.
“Demand BLM be labeled a terrorist organization,” Elizabeth Lopez wrote on Doty Sr’s page.
“I agree totally,” Doty Sr responded.
The dad also posted a picture showing a recent tattoo of his daughter’s name across his shoulder, along with a quote that read: “Have you ever missed someone so much that even the thought of them made you cry.”
Police are still investigating and searching for suspects.