No matter how hard you try, it’s difficult to stay one step ahead of scammers.
I am appalled and saddened by what happened to Loretha Hall, the 61-year-old Ohio woman who was allegedly shot and killed by an 81-year-old man last month. It appears that both were victims of fraud.
According to reports, William Bullock was charged with three counts of murder, one count each of kidnapping and assault with serious bodily injury.
Here’s how the scam works:
The scammer tells the target that a close family member is in prison or has been in an accident and needs the cash immediately. Scammers typically use apps to ask their targets to send money.
In the Ohio case, Bullock told police that before the shooting, he had received a threatening phone call from someone who was trying to collect money because one of his relatives was being held in jail. Bullock said the caller threatened him and his family, according to the report.
Ms. Bullock claims that she believed Ms. Hall was working with a man who called her posing as a district court employee.
The scammer apparently had Hall, an Uber driver, pick up a package containing money from Bullock’s house. When Hall arrived, Bullock pointed a gun at her. When her girlfriend, Hall, tried to run away, Bullock allegedly shot her several times, according to her news account.
Some may argue that this was a tragic accident, but it was not.
This incident could have been prevented if Bullock had called 911 and written down the Uber’s license plate instead of robbing the police and using a deadly weapon.
And this is something that many of us don’t want to talk about, but what role did race and age play in this shooting?
Brock is white and Hall is black. If Hall had been a white woman, would he have fired immediately?
I understand why the elderly would feel especially vulnerable, but pointing a gun at someone and allegedly firing without provocation is such poor judgment that it’s hard to believe that he is mentally ill. I have to suspect that it was.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen this scenario play out before.
Last year, an 84-year-old white homeowner in Kansas City, Missouri, was charged with fatally shooting Ralph Yahr, a 16-year-old black teenager who had mistakenly gone to the man’s house to pick up his younger siblings.
Andrew Daniel Lester, who has pleaded not guilty, was charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action.
In 1994, Renisha McBride, a black woman, was shot and killed after knocking on the door of a white homeowner in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, in the middle of the night.
Theodore Wafer, 54, was convicted of second-degree murder in the deadly encounter and sentenced to 17 to 32 years in prison.
Fraudulent calls add further anxiety to the lives of the elderly. At this time, we do not answer unknown calls.
Unfortunately, a plot like the one that killed Hall could happen again.
This tragedy should also spark a conversation about gun ownership and aging.
Frankly, how old is someone too old to own a gun?
Elder care experts say the issue should be approached like the issue of safe driving.
According to the National Institutes of Health, “the problems with memory, thinking, judgment, and physical and behavioral abilities associated with safely operating a motor vehicle in older adults also apply to firearms.”
Carol Bradley Bursak, elder care expert and author of Minding Our Older People, says, “Cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer’s disease (or other forms of dementia) and other conditions such as depression and psychosis “Mental health problems are the biggest warning sign for older people.” Family members should be kept in mind when determining whether it is safe for a loved one to own a firearm. ”
According to the National Institutes of Health, more than 17 million people age 65 and older own a firearm.
“They have the highest rates of gun suicide, and recent data suggests that a disproportionate number of them carry concealed weapons,” the agency said. “At least one new handgun is designed and marketed to seniors.”
Given what’s going on, I don’t see how selling guns to an aging population is the solution.
The best way to stop scam calls is to ignore them.