Not everyday we get the stereotype of a Basketball-American engaging in the type of impulse control trope even the most ardent member of the Klan would have trouble making up in a fictional story.
Friend mourns loss of Wellington parents killed after neighbor dispute shooting, CBS12.com, May 8, 2024
'LOSING THIER WHOLE WORLD' | The lives of a devoted mother and father of four school-aged children were tragically cut short after a dispute ended in a shooting, CBS12's @LuliOrtizCBS12 reports.
— WPEC CBS12 News (@CBS12) May 9, 2024
Read more: https://t.co/bDQ6qpVTn9 pic.twitter.com/dayKX5x1nNWELLINGTON, Fla — The lives of a devoted mother and father of four school-aged children were tragically cut short after a dispute ended in a shooting over the weekend.
The incident lasted about a minute, according to investigators.
“These kids, their whole life, just turned upside down, so quickly. It was just a Saturday. On a Saturday, not thinking of losing their whole world. That is their foundation,” family friend Anjelii Loconte told CBS12 News on Wednesday.
Loconte, a California resident, hopes by sharing stories about Tara and Taylor Jones would help bring the children some peace and comfort.
“The Jones, they were known to be a village. They were a tribe. They only had each other,” recalled Loconte.
Investigators found them shot to death in the Black Diamond residential community over the weekend.
The unprovoked shooting was over the location of a basketball hoop, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
The gunman, identified as Norman Scott, is facing murder charges.
Loconte met Tara when the family lived in Roseville, a city near Sacramento, a few years ago.
“Our girls were on the same softball team, and we just clicked. It was like softball moms,” Loconte said. “It was just one of those friendships that was so easy. Then, the rest was history.”
These young moms were inseparable. They always tried to make memories with their children.
We dressed up as werewolves together for Halloween,” Loconte said. “We took our daughters to see the Jonas Brothers. We got a limo for them. It was just us four and we all rolled in the limo,” she said with a huge smile on her face. “Me and Tara took it upon ourselves to dance the night away.”
She described Tara as the best mom.
“Taylor, her husband, was always traveling for work because he was the sole provider,” she said. “He loved his family. Just all around, amazing man.”
A community has since united by offering support by raising money through a GoFundMe Page for the children, while making sure the couple’s legacy lives on.
“It’s going to set them up and take that burden off of their shoulders, and the family’s shoulder, and people around them that are trying to figure out how to even be there for these kids, because I can’t even imagine what they’re going through,” Loconte said.
For those wondering, Wellington is in Palm Beach County, one of the best places to live in Florida. The median income is $90/k and the population is 60 percent white and 10 percent black. Tara and Taylor Jones were white; the individual who shot them over a basketball goal/property dispute, Norman Scott, is a black man.
The Joneses leave behind four white children.
Even in one of the best places in Florida to raise a family, you can’t escape diversity. James Kirkpatrick put it best when he said, “American life is defined by the struggle to earn enough money to move away from diversity. Our entire country—suburbs, long commutes, private schools, zoning battles—is built around the need to avoid diversity and actually live in a recognizably American community.”
Tara and Taylor Jones found out too late that not even the idyllic community of Wellington, located in the heart of Palm Beach County, Florida, is free of the black undertow. We are running out of not only Americans, but an America where American life can flourish free of disputes over basketball goals.
