An Orlando community reels after death of 4 children
Orlando Sentinel
ORLANDO, Fla. — Eleven-year-old Irayan was an over-achiever in school. Lillia, who was 10, enjoyed playing with her friends and going to Volcano Bay. Aidan, 6, loved dinosaurs. Dove, who was two months shy of her second birthday, was a lively toddler.
That’s how the family friend and attorney Walter Benenati described the four children who authorities say were held as hostages and killed by a man suspected of shooting an Orlando police officer.
Mr. Benenati first identified the minors on Tuesday through a GoFundMe campaign. Their grandfather works for him as a building maintenance employee, but he has yet to meet the 31year-old mother.
“She’s in a deep state of shock,” Mr. Benenati said in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel. “Everybody loved these children and the fact that they were lost like this is just unfathomable.”
Also feeling the shock were residents at west Orlando’s Westbrook Apartments complex. Several hours after the standoff there ended, residents were allowed to go home early Tuesday. They streamed in and out of the police checkpoint in their cars, many with childrenin the back seat.
Jackie Robinson said she’s lived in the area for five years. Around this time of the year, the apartment complex is packed with children playing on their summer break, she said.
Ms. Robinson said she heard about how the standoff ended after getting a text from her grown daughter: “Mommy,the kids are gone.”
“It hurts too much,” Ms. Robinson said.
The children’s mother lived at the home where they were held hostage by Gary Wayne Lindsey Jr., according to Mr. Benenati. She worked as a customer service agent. Lindsey was the father of two of her children. He didn’t work nor live with her, but he would occasionally stay at her place.
Sandi Marti planned to spend her day Tuesday — which marks two years since the massacre that claimed 49 lives at Pulse nightclub in 2016 — at the Pulse memorial withher wife, Carry.
Instead, the couple started a memorial of their own. They live across from the complex where the four children were killed. They took balloons and hearts and set them near the apartment Tuesday morning.
They said they heard three gunshots and saw flashes of light Monday night.
The stand off began after officers responded about 11:45 p.m. Sunday to a woman who reported being battered by Lindsey at the Westbrook Apartments, police said. The woman had fled the secondstory apartment to a nearby restaurant on Kirkman Road to call police.
Officers tried to arrest Lindsey at the apartment when a shootout began. Officer Kevin Valencia was wounded and taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center, where he was in critical condition after surgery but expected to survive, according to Mina.
The standoff stretched on for more than 21 hours. A spokeswoman for the Orlando Police Department said Tuesday that the medical examiner, as part of an investigation, will determine when Lindsey shot the four children he was holding hostage.
Police said Lindsey died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Nicole Gonzalez said Tuesday that 35-year-old Lindsey — a felon who was on probation for arson and other charges — came off as polite and friendly. But another neighbor, Miguel Lopez, said interactions with him were weird.
Lindsey was father to Aidan and Dove.
“As a mom, my heart is completely broken,” Ms. Robinson said.
“Some may question why she ran out of that building, but nobody can know what she was going through, what horror she was feeling,” Mr. Benenati said of the mother. “In fairness to her, nobody can imagine taking the life of precious young children, which is what happened here.”
Mr. Benenati added that the family’s thoughts and prayers were also with Orlando police Officer Valencia.
The mother of the young victims, who is Puerto Rican, is currently staying at a hotel and is being supported by her family, according to Mr. Benenati.
“These are good people, these are good folks. These are people who would bring a tres leches, a flan to your house, you know, ‘Here’s a cake to eat, ’”Mr. Benenati said.
Sara Au, a spokeswoman for Orange County Public Schools, said that three of the children killed in the standoff attended Sadler Elementary School. She added grief counselors are available for the school’s community, despite being on summer break.
Mr. Benenati said the mother is not willing to speak publicly at the moment, but he hoped the Orlando community could help expense funeral arrangements for her four children. He said although she doesn’t plan to return to the home where the police standoff took place, he doesn’t know exactly where she’s planning to live.
“These beautiful babies never hurt anyone,” wrote Mr. Benenati in a public GoFundMe campaign page (https://www.gofundme.
Lindsey “was the father of two of the children and selfishly took the lives of these precious innocent angels and then took his own life,” Mr. Benenati said. “It is a tragic ending to a night of horror.”