What started as a roadside stop for two Black residents of Richmond, Virginia, quickly spiraled into what they describe as a racially charged attack that left one of them hospitalized with life-threatening injuries — and both fearing for their lives.
Around 6:30 p.m. on July 20, Amylah Majors and her wife, Jamaria Gaskins, were driving along Partlow Road in rural Spotsylvania County when they struck debris in the road. As they pulled over to check for damage, what happened next has shaken the local community and drawn national scrutiny.
Before they could even get out of their car, a man emerged from a nearby home and gave them a thumbs-up gesture. They assumed he was coming to help. Instead, Majors said, he and two other white individuals — one of them a woman — began shouting racial slurs and threats.
“They called us [N-words], told us we didn’t belong there, and one of them even exposed himself while screaming hate and slurs at us,” Majors wrote on a GoFundMe page launched by Gaskins.
That incident — caught on video — has led to misdemeanor charges against two local residents, Elizabeth Wolfrey, 32, and Mark Goodman, 59.
Wolfrey is charged with pointing and brandishing a firearm, and Goodman faces a charge of indecent exposure, according to the Fredericksburg Free Press, citing the Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Office. A third person seen in the video has not yet been charged.
Majors and Gaskins were visiting Gaskins’ mother, who lives in neighboring Caroline County. What was supposed to be a brief visit turned into a terrifying chase that ended in a serious car crash and a hospital stay.
Majors said the confrontation escalated rapidly after the initial threats.
“As we tried to leave, all three of them jumped into vehicles and chased us down the road,” she wrote. “One of them rode up beside us on a 4-wheeler and aimed a gun directly at my head through the driver’s window.”
Moments later, Majors lost control of the car and crashed. She was ejected from the vehicle.
“I woke up in the hospital with a fractured spine, broken clavicle, broken rib, severe concussion, and multiple head injuries that required a staple,” she wrote. “I am beyond grateful to be alive.”
Gaskins reportedly sustained minor injuries, but both women say they were assaulted, traumatized, and left permanently changed.
“This was not just an accident — this was an attempted act of violence meant to harm and silence us,” Majors added. “We survived something that should’ve ended us. And now we’re speaking out — not just for ourselves, but for everyone who’s ever been targeted and forced to stay quiet.”
The Spotsylvania County NAACP is now involved, and the Sheriff’s Office says additional charges, including hate crime charges, are under review. Sheriff’s Maj. Delbert Myrick confirmed that a detective has been assigned to the case and is working closely with Commonwealth’s Attorney Ryan Mehaffey to determine next steps.
“We have a detective who is assigned to the case that is taking a deeper dive,” Myrick said. “Part of the evidence he’s looking at is visual evidence, so we have to get our hands on the original video because what you see posted online has probably been altered. By altered, I mean probably been snipped and stuff.”
Myrick said the crash data is a major part of the investigation, as are the suspects’ actions prior to and during the incident. He called the video “mind blowing.”
“We can extrapolate data from the car to see what was going on prior to the crash… vehicle dynamics, speed, the duration of speed, stuff like that,” he said.
Wolfrey was arraigned on Thursday and is due back in Spotsylvania General District Court on Nov. 20. Goodman’s arraignment is scheduled for Monday, with a court appearance also set for Nov. 20.
The delay in publicly releasing information about the attack sparked criticism online, especially after the sheriff’s office posted about the incident 11 days after it occurred. Myrick defended the timing, citing safety concerns while Majors was still hospitalized.
“I didn’t want to release it because the moment I release it, the families or the suspects themselves know exactly where the victim is,” he said. “Once we saw the video, we knew they were out. That’s why we started releasing information.”
The case has struck a nerve in Spotsylvania, where other racially charged incidents have recently gone viral — including a separate video in which a white man hurled slurs at a Black woman during a road rage dispute on State Route 3. No charges were filed in that case due to jurisdictional uncertainty and a lack of a formal complaint.
“This one [in Partlow] is a little more sensitive,” Myrick said. “There were a couple of videos that arose around the same time that potentially deal with hate and racism and stuff like that, and we don’t want that in our community at all. We don’t want racism. We don’t want hate in our community. We want a happy community where everybody gets along.”
Meanwhile, Majors and Gaskins have launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise $125,000 for medical bills, legal fees, trauma therapy, and the cost of replacing their totaled vehicle. As of this week, they had raised $830.
“This was hate. Targeted. Deliberate. And deadly,” Majors wrote. “I’m not sharing this for sympathy — I’m sharing it because silence protects the people who did this. And they walked away while we were left to fight for our lives … This kind of hate is still out here. It’s real. It’s violent. It almost killed us. But we survived for a reason.”
Great Job A.L. Lee & the Team @ Atlanta Black Star Source link for sharing this story.
