By all accounts, it was a picture perfect day at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Pahokee.
“Kids out having fun, playing on the swings, everyone enjoying the park...the smell of barbecue in the air,” says Parent Bryan Crawford.
One video, broadcast on Facebook Live, shows the optimism was infectious.
The optimism was short-lived, however, as gunfire rang out in the middle of the crowded park.
“Now you see children, the same children who were smiling are crying and dodging and trying to save their lives,” says reverend Patricia Wallace.
Crawford watched the chaos unfold as he attempted to track down his 5-year-old daughter at the park.
“I see my daughter running through the field screaming,” he says. “I try to get to her, I'm still hearing gunshots.”
By the time things settled down, a 22-year-old man was dead, and innocence was shattered.
Bryan says the trauma for his daughter lingered long after the gunfire stopped.
“I had to put her in the bed with me like she was a newborn baby,” he says. “I had to sit there and hold her the whole night. That's when she told me, 'Dad, I don't ever want to go to the park again,' ”
Reverend Wallace and many others are frustrated that a day meant for fun, in a park associated with peace, is now associated with a shooting.
“We need help from law enforcement, from community activists, from pastors, from parents...talking to their children and setting a strong foundation for them to grow up,” she says.
