‘Yeah, I'm throwing rocks at you': Racist incident targets father, daughter fishing at Mass. lake
With school out for Memorial Day, 10-year-old Azaylia Brown and her father, Sheron Brown, were spending an ideal near-summer day together.
The pair grabbed a large pepperoni pizza from Athens Pizza, her favorite spot in their hometown of Leominster, then drove 10 minutes to Lake Shirley in Lunenburg to float, fish and eat the slices on the water in Sheron Brown's boat.
But the afternoon abruptly devolved into what Sheron Brown said was his daughter's first experience of racism: a man throwing rocks at the family from shore as he screamed racial slurs at them, which Sheron Brown captured on video as he dialed 911.
The man — identified from court filings as David McPartlan, 66, of Ayer — will be summoned on two charges of assault with a dangerous weapon and two charges of assault to intimidate, according to the Lunenburg Police Department.
Attempts to contact McPartlan by MassLive were unsuccessful.
Sheron Brown, 53, said he isn't sure how the apparent racially charged encounter will affect his young daughter emotionally in the weeks and years to come.
'I don't want my daughter to have a bad light of white males, or lake residents. I want her to treat people all the same,' Brown said.
'My daughter witnessed it, where someone calls her father that word ... I'm forced to explain things to her when I may not be ready. I'm forced to explain something to her, under duress, after I choke back how I feel, what I may want to do,' he said, his voice growing thick with emotion.
'I'm not prepared. How do you prepare for that situation?' Brown said.
The incident on Lake Shirley in Lunenburg on Memorial Day happened just before 5 p.m., according to Lunenburg Police. Homes of a few hundred residents dot the 27 miles of heavily developed shoreline on the 354-acre lake, Brown said. There's a dedicated boat ramp and recreational beach area called Shady Point Beach and Campground.
Brown is a competitive fisherman who also works in IT for a Connecticut biopharmaceutical company, and had been out on the water that day with his 10-year-old daughter in the custom fishing boat he's owned for 13 years.
Brown said he's been a season pass-holder at Lake Shirley for half a decade, often coming to fish and spend time with his children. He said as a competitive fisherman who is a 6-foot, 4-inch, 270-pound Black man, he has become a 'well-known fixture' in the lake community, and has gifted fishing gear to local kids. He also grew up in the nearby town of Shirley.
Brown said Lake Shirley residents are mostly white, while many visitors are people of color. However, Monday was the first time he had heard of or experienced any racial problems there.
He added that residents have had issues before with fishermen leaving their hooks behind, but he makes a point to never leave his professional, expensive gear.
The late afternoon of Memorial Day, Sheron and Azaylia Brown headed to a spot on the lake that Brown knew well, an area with plenty of fish and no plants or structures to tangle his daughter's line.
When they arrived, three other fishermen who Brown said were all white men were already in the area, very close to the dock by a house on shore.
Brown said he waited until those fishermen left, then moved his boat to a spot between 60 and 75 feet from shore. It was much farther out than where the others had been and away from the dock for Azaylia, he said.
The two hadn't even cast a line before a man — later identified as McPartlan — came outside of a home and began to yell at the father and daughter.
The man asked why Brown was fishing in that spot, and said 'that I shouldn't be fishing there,' Brown said. McPartlan said that 'I have somewhere else to go fish, and I shouldn't be here,' he recalled.
Brown replied, 'I'm here with my daughter. It's Memorial Day. Why are you targeting me?'
He explained they would stay far away from the man's property for the hour and a half they planned to be there, unlike the other fishermen who had just been there for bass under the dock.
That's when McPartlan began to escalate the confrontation, Brown said, and started swearing at him.
When Brown tried to ask the man to calm down in front of his daughter, McPartlan said he 'didn't want them there,' told them to 'go somewhere else,' and said, ''You guys think you own the lake,'' Brown recalled.
Brown said McPartlan grew angrier, even as he tried to explain that the lake resident had ignored the other boats nearby. The man on shore continued to swear at him.
Brown said he was going to start recording the conversation — and that's when McPartlan threw a large rock that splashed feet away from the boat, Brown said.
In his video of the incident, Brown said, incredulously, 'Did you just throw a rock at me?'
McPartlan yelled back, 'Yeah, I threw rocks at you, [racial slur].'
He repeated the slur again, and Brown said he was calling the police. The video ended before McPartlan picked up a large stick, Brown said.
As her father was verbally degraded for his skin color in front of her, 10-year-old Azaylia Brown sat quietly on the boat, listening.
When the man on the shore grew quiet for a moment, the little girl looked at her father and asked what they had done wrong.
Sheron Brown told her, 'We didn't do anything wrong. This guy is being mean.'
But Brown, who has yet to explain segregation, diversity and racism to his 10-year-old and what she might encounter as a Black person in life, knows the incident is much deeper than that.
'Usually our first experience as a Black person — my first experience as a Black man — was when someone called me the N-word in school, out of the blue,' Brown said.
'That's usually your first experience with racism, when someone calls you an (expletive)‚" Brown said.
'But that's usually it, it doesn't escalate into anything else ... you deal with it, you understand it, and then you become an adult and try to avoid those situations,' he said.
'In this case, I don't know what kind of impact this is going to have on my daughter,' he continued. He said Azaylia talked about the experience with her friends at school, some of whom have already seen the video, and talked about the video with her older brother.
'They're aged 10. It just ... it upsets me, I'm not prepared. How do I prepare for that?' he said, crying.
Monday's altercation on the lake finally ended after about 15 or 20 minutes, when Lunenburg police officers responding to Brown's call contacted Brown and said they had a hard time finding them on the water. Brown idled his boat away from McPartlan's area toward the boat ramp to meet the officers, and he said McPartlan waved at them in the background.
In the days after the incident, Brown said he doesn't believe one person represents an entire community, nor that Lake Shirley has an outright racism issue.
'I don't hold lake residents, white people, white males, anyone that fits within that category, accountable for one person's actions. His actions are solo — he did this on his own,' he said.
However, 'racism does exist,' Brown said.
'I don't encounter it to this degree. I never encountered it fishing-wise, but it's still here ... even in Massachusetts, it still exists,' he said.
Brown also wants to raise awareness about sharing the water with fishermen and how often fishermen are harassed. He emphasized that fishing is 'a great way to develop a bond with your kids' in nature.
He added, 'You should carry yourself around — the utmost, highest level — around kids, because you're trying to set a precedent for them.'
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San Francisco Chronicle
43 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
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Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
‘Oh yeah, I'm throwing rocks at you.' A father fishing with his 10-year-old daughter target of alleged racist attack
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USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
Librarians, teachers and others plan day of action to fight book bans and preserve history
Librarians, teachers and others plan day of action to fight book bans and preserve history Show Caption Hide Caption Major publishers and authors are suing Florida over its book ban law Major publishers and authors are suing Florida over its law banning books deemed to have sexual content, saying the law violates free speech. Straight Arrow News In Gainesville, Florida, The Lynx Books will host a screening of 'Banned Together" on its back patio. In Washington, D.C., participants will march on the National Mall stopping at museums to highlight the importance of preserving history. And in Seattle, visitors to some public libraries will join a ''silent read-in'' of banned books. Across the country, librarians, teachers, bookstore owners, civil rights activists and others plan to hold as many as 100 events June 7 as part of Teach Truth Day of Action. The national campaign aims to support the teaching of unvarnished history and to encourage people to read more, including banned books. 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