Clark County Sheriff’s Office
As hard as we try, staying one step ahead of scammers is difficult.
I am appalled and saddened by what happened to Loletha Hall, a 61-year-old Ohio woman who was allegedly gunned down by an 81-year-old man last month. Both parties were apparently victims of a scam.
William Brock was indicted on three counts of murder and one each of kidnapping and felonious assault, according to news reports.
Here’s how the scam works:
The scammer tells the target that one of his close relatives is in jail or has been in an accident and needs cash immediately. The scammer usually asks the target to send money using an app.
In the Ohio case, Brock told police that prior to the shooting he had received threatening phone calls from someone who attempted to get money from him claiming one of Brock’s relatives was being held in jail. Brock says the caller then threatened him and his family, news reports said.
Brock alleges he thought Hall was working with a man who called him pretending to be an officer at the local court.
The scammer apparently had Hall, an Uber driver, go to Brock’s home to pick up a package with the money. When Hall arrived, she was confronted by Brock, who held her at gunpoint. When Hall tried to escape, Brock allegedly shot her several times, news accounts said.
You could argue that this was a tragic accident, except it wasn’t.
It could have been prevented if Brock had called 911 and taken down the license plate number of the Uber vehicle instead of allegedly playing cops and robbers with a deadly weapon.
And — this is something that many of us don’t like to talk about — what role did race and age play in this shooting?
Brock is white and Hall is Black. Would he have been so quick to allegedly shoot had Hall been a white woman?
