A Black man and a friend were viciously attacked in the early hours of June 22, and his wife says she feared she’d lose the father of two.
Shawn Carolina was heading out of Brickhouse Saloon in Shawnee, Oklahoma, with a pal, Oklahoma News 4, reported when the duo was beaten by two white men in the parking lot on the way to his car.
“I honestly thought I was going to lose him,” said the victim’s wife, Jamie Carolina, to the news station. “I wasn’t sure it was the whole racial slurs thing until later that day at the hospital when the video surfaced.”
A witness filmed the violent encounter, which occurred Saturday morning at around 2 a.m. In it, the two white men are seen pulling their arms back and pounding the victims. As they walk away and hop into a white pickup truck, one can be heard shouting, “You’re dead, n—-r!”
“After they knocked him out, why continue to beat him? They just pounded on him like he was nothing,” Jamie Carolina tearfully says. “It made me angry.”
Shawn Carolina was rushed to the hospital via ambulance with life-threatening injuries, and he reportedly remains there as of Monday. According to Jamie Carolina, a witness told her the guy who pelted her husband the most was acting completely different inside the saloon.
“The guy that did most of the pounding on him, he was buying my husband drinks and hugging him and acting like they were the best of friends,” she says.
Jamie Carolina feels the attack was a racist one based on the racial slur hurled in the clip.
“I just want people to pay attention, and quit thinking that color even matters,” she says. “We are all made by the same person, and we were all made to love each other.”
Details on his condition are being kept private out of “respect for Shawn’s family,” according to a GoFundMe page set up to raise money for his medical expenses. The campaign hopes to raise $8,000 “to help ease his wife’s mind as they go through an unnecessary experience.”
As for Shawn Carolina’s friend’s condition, that information remains unclear as well
Yet while the exact ins and outs of Shawn Carolina’s condition are not clear, the GoFundMe makes it plain that the Oklahoma resident is a kind, family-oriented person.
“Shawn is a hard working man and very supportive family man who has never met a stranger and would give the shirt off his back to help someone else in need,” the campaign stated.
On Facebook Sunday, Jamie Carolina posted a status update expressing the pain she and her family have encountered.
She said the men responsible had been arrested, but one is “already out on bail.” The other, she said, “smiled in their mugshot like he just hit the lottery.”
“It’s ridiculous because my love is laying in bed not seeing his kids… his kids can’t see him while I wish I could fix this but this is a problem momma can’t fix and that’s the hardest thing,” she wrote. “I miss him so much and it hurts so bad I wasn’t there standing by his side fighting the battle with him … that is my job! Now I have to stand by his side trying to give him the strength to get better over a senseless attack.”
