TAMPA, Fla. — At West Dog Park in Tampa’s Leto neighborhood, the individuals are as a lot of a pack because the dogs.
“We would discuss or textual content day by day, ‘Like, hey, will I see you at the moment?’ ‘Oh yeah, I’ll see you presently.’ And [he] would simply carry a smile to my face,” stated Kim Wolsby, one of many frequenters on the park.
For these regulars, this specific Saturday morning was something however a walk within the park.
Standing hand in hand, all of them joined in mourning one among their very own, John Walter Lay.
“A pal of mine stated, ‘Why would somebody carry a gun to a canine park at 8:30 within the morning?’ No one understands why,” stated Tommy, Lay’s greatest pal of 33 years.
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Lay was shot and killed within the canine park on Feb. 2.
The night earlier than his demise, Lay despatched a foreboding video to a different pal about an incident that occurred that morning with George Declan Radford.
His associates say the suspected shooter, who additionally frequented the canine park, was identified to throw homophobic slurs Lay’s means.
The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office by no means arrested the shooter. The division stated Radford claimed self-defense. There had been no witnesses to substantiate or deny.
“Walter did not need to go the best way he did in any respect. No one deserves one thing like that to occur. For him to be… Just the brutality of it, and simply it is unfathomable,” stated Tommy.
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The case has even garnered consideration from Equality Florida. Ant Avila, the Tampa Bay neighborhood organizer for Equality Florida, got here out to the vigil.
“It’s a continuous, persistent plea for a good justice course of and that an investigation is taking place. So I believe when it comes to what it seems like, it is persisting in that and asking for that investigation, to be truthful, and to be thorough as everybody deserves,” Avila stated.
As they search justice, they’re additionally wanting into methods to memorialize Lay. Right now, Equality Florida and his associates are exploring avenues like a bench, marker, and even renaming the park in his honor. It’s additionally a show that exhibits the LGBTQ neighborhood remains to be combating for justice.
“He was discharged from the Navy [because] an officer discovered he was homosexual,” Tommy stated. “We went to the March on Washington in ’93 to help gays within the navy. So I’m certain he can be wonderful getting used as a trigger for our neighborhood.”
