Christy Sanford Cocoa, FL

Details of the Crime

On Tuesday, January 24, 2006, at about 10:50 p.m. in the 1200 block of A Street, in Cocoa, Florida, Christy Sanford, 46, was gunned down by a Black male named Clarence Tarez Thomas. Christy was gunned down in an apparent robbery attempt. Police arrived within minutes and found Christy Madison-Sanford dead, still sitting in her car with the driver's door open and the headlights on. Thomas was arrested on Friday, January 27.

Christy Sanford has three children, two of them daughters, 18 and 16.

Police said they are not sure why what appeared to be a robbery turned to murder, according to the report.

"In a lot of these cases, what happens is that people do reflex things out of anger or whatever," Cocoa Police Chief Phil Ludoz said.

Investigators said Thomas is a high school dropout with an extensive criminal record.

"He has been known in the community for carrying weapons in the city and committing crimes that have not been reported," Cocoa Detective Pat Dovl said.

Sanford, a Canaveral Groves grandmother studying to be a paramedic, was visiting a friend to pick up an injured rottweiler-mix named Diamond when she was shot and killed.

Madison-Sanford, a Brevard Community College student, placed the dog in the passenger seat when someone crept up and fired at least two rounds at close range into her side, officials said.

Thomas faces a first-degree murder charge in connection with the shooting.

"I wasn't even in the kitchen and I heard the shots. It sounded like a cannon . . . I looked out and saw a guy running and there she was in the car," said Christine Lindner, who called 9-1-1 moments later to get help for her friend. "It happened too quick, like they were waiting on her."

Police have no motive but think the shooter ran off from the apartment -- located next to a fenced-off Endeavour Elementary School -- and then possibly got into a nearby vehicle.

"This is the first thing that's happened like this since I've moved here," said 24-year-old resident Natalie McCarthy, standing on the porch and watching as her 4-year-old son Davyne played in the front yard. "But I'm already looking to move. Supposed they made a mistake and shot my son?"

Family members wondered who would shoot their mother and why. "I just don't think it's a random thing. It just doesn't add up," said 18-year-old Amanda Bauler of her mother's shooting. "We have enemies . . . people that don't care for us, but none that would do something like this."

Between tears, Bauler described her mother as a good person who loved her five dogs. Madison-Sanford also loved to garden and would make freshly plucked fried green tomatoes for Bauler and her two sisters.

"My mom was a hard worker . . . always. She wanted to be a paramedic and was halfway done . . . she was trying so hard to graduate," Bauler said.

She also said her father died in a hit-and-run accident when she was about 4. "Now both my parents have been (killed). I don't know where my sanity lies," she said. "I just want people to tell their moms they love them."

"Christy cared for her children and everybody else and every animal that she came across," said James Sargent, Christy Sanford's father who said his daughter attended Brevard Community College and was studying to go in the medical field.

Comment:

A Google News Search (christy sanford cocoa) turned up only nine articles - all of them local. As I have written many times before, if this had been a White 17-year-old, who had randomly shot a Black woman to death, the national media would have a feeding frenzy with the story. But, alas, it was just a White woman, and, as much of the media describe her, "a grandmother," at that. I don't know why they should describe her as "a grandmother!" It's as though the killing is less meaningful because she was old and had lived long enough anyway. But Christy Sanford was anything but old and ready to die; she was a very young forty-six, a student at Brevard Community College, halfway through her studies to be a paramedic.

And the police also use cavalier and inappropriate language when talking about the case. The police wonder why such a simple thing as a robbery could go so wrong. To quote Cocoa Police Chief Phil Ludoz: "In a lot of these cases, what happens is that people do reflex things out of anger or whatever." But the chief has failed to tell his audience "who" does reflex things out of anger or whatever. Does he mean that the killer was angry that Christy would not hand over any money and therefore just reflexively shot her? Or does the chief mean that Christy was angry that she was being robbed and refused to give the killer any money? If the latter is what the chief meant, then he is suggesting that it is Christy's own fault that she was shot and killed, because she didn't immediately cooperate with the Black youth, who, after all, just wanted her money, and really didn't want to kill anyone.

And, if the chief meant that the killer was angry that Christy would not hand over any money and therefore just reflexively shot her, then the chief is tacitly granting justification to the act of shooting Christy, because it was just a reflex action that the killer really couldn't help. It wasn't really a conscious decision on the Black youth's part, it was just a "reflex thing out of anger or whatever."

Well we are sick and tired of such lame, concocted explanations or justifications for wanton, vicious, random murder. As the police themselves are very well aware, Thomas is a high school dropout with an extensive criminal record. Cocoa Detective Pat Dovl said that "He has been known in the community for carrying weapons in the city and committing crimes that have not been reported." In other words - he should have been locked up a long time ago. But the impotent Cocoa police just let him roam the streets until he killed a very responsible and upstanding citizen, and then they try to dismiss it as "a reflex thing out of anger or whatever."

It's high time that the responsible citizens of America started demanding that law-enforcement officials start carrying out the laws which are on the books. If this means that three-fourths of the prisons are going to be filled with Black males, then so be it. We cannot go on this way applying a double standard because so-called "civil rights organizations" yell foul when Black males are arrested for obvious crimes. Either we start getting serious about crimes committed by Black males or we will gradually be killed off by them. From now on, only vote for politicians who have a proven track record of being tough on crime. It's high time that we got serious.

Yours Faithfully, Liberty