Massachusetts father and 10-year-old daughter viciously assaulted during scenic fishing trip

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

A man and his daughter were targeted with racial slurs and had rocks thrown at them during an unprovoked attack while enjoying a fishing trip on a Massachusetts lake.
To celebrate Memorial Day Weekend, Sheron Brown, a Black father, took his 10-year-old daughter, Azaylia, to Shady Point Beach in Lunenburg for a joyful father-daughter fishing trip, as reported by Mass Live News.
But the outing quickly turned dark when a white man on the shore made it clear he wanted them gone, hurling racial slurs and launching rocks near their boat.
The man, identified as 66-year-old David McPartlan, was later arrested and charged with four counts of assault.
'Never in 1,000 years would you expect to be out doing what you love with the person you love, my daughter, and someone aggressive and yelling out things that are just awful and atrocious,' Brown told NBC Boston.
Last weekend, Sheron and Azaylia grabbed a large pepperoni pizza from Athens Pizza - her favorite - and made the 10-mile drive to the nature-filled campground for a fun, near-summer day out on the water.
'My daughter simply wanted to eat pizza and catch a fish with her dad on Memorial Day,' Sheron wrote in a post shared to Facebook.
Planning to float, fish and enjoy their meal, the pair headed to Lake Shirley to launch their boat after finding Whalom Pond too crowded for their outing.
Together, they chose to fish in a different part of the lake than usual, thoughtfully staying clear of other boaters enjoying the holiday weekend.
However, their peaceful afternoon was shattered when Azaylia faced racism for the first time - a man on shore hurled rocks at their family while shouting racial slurs, an incident Sheron captured on video.
In the footage, a shirtless white man, identified as McPartlan, is seen standing on his property with his dogs, facing the water where the father-daughter duo were fishing.
'His first words were, 'Don't fish here next to my dock, go somewhere else. Why are you here?'' Sheron told NBC.
The situation quickly escalated as McPartlan grew increasingly aggressive, shouting and swearing at Sheron and 10-year-old Azaylia with rising intensity.
When Sheron tried to ask him to calm down in front of his child, McPartlan responded: 'You guys think you own the lake', the father recalled in an interview with Mass Live.
Seconds later, McPartlan hurled a large rock that splashed into the water just feet away from their boat.
In disbelief, Sheron asked: 'Did you just throw a rock at me?'
Then, in a shocking moment captured on video, McPartlan is heard saying, 'Oh yeah, I'm throwing rocks at you, *****,' using a racial slur directed at Black individuals.
'It seemed like he was trying to establish some kind of invisible boundary where I can't fish towards his dock, even though that was not my intention anyway,' Sheron told NBC.
'There was at least 65 feet between us, which is a considerable distance,' he added.
As McPartlan fell silent for a moment, 10-year-old Azaylia - who was sitting quietly on the boat, listening - asked her father what they had done wrong, according to Mass Live.
'We didn't do anything wrong,' Sheron responded, as reported by the outlet. 'This guy is being mean.'
When McPartlan began repeating the slurs, Sheron then told him he had no choice but to call 911 - especially after what his young daughter had just been forced to witness.
'I told him, "Hey, I'm gonna record this if you're not gonna stop," the father told NBC.
According to Sheron, the video ended just moments before McPartlan picked up a large stick.
The altercation finally came to an end after nearly 20 minutes, when Lunenburg police, responding to Sheron's call, informed him they were struggling to locate him on the open water, Mass Live reported.
When police arrived to McPartland's property, he told them, 'I slipped a word out that maybe I shouldn't have but I was pissed,' according to a police report obtained by NBC.
When police asked what the word was, he responded: 'I'm not going to admit it'. He also allegedly admitted to throwing rocks around the boat.
Sheron, a competitive fisherman who has spent countless hours on his custom fishing boat over the past 13 years, said this is the first time he had ever encountered anything like this on the water - despite the fact that most Lake Shirley residents are white, Mass Live reported.
Now, he wonders how this experience will emotionally impact his daughter in the 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,' Sheron told Mass Live.
However, 'racism does exist,' he emphasized.
'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 added.
'I'm not prepared. How do you prepare for that situation?'
McPartlan, of Ayer, was charged with two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon and two counts of assault to intimidate.
He is due in Fitchburg District Court on June 16, as reported by NBC News.
It was not immediately clear whether he had retained an attorney to respond to the charges.
McPartlan did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com for comment.
'Ignorance is not bliss. I firmly believe it's a choice,' Sheron wrote to Facebook.