UPDATED: Rosewood man arrested for aggravated assault
Photos: tire tracks courtesy of Dr. Dunn's Facebook page; Emanuel's mugshot, LCSO.
PRESS RELEASE by by Lt. Scott Tummond
September 15, 2022
On September 6, 2022 a group of men were assembled on the edge of the right of way on SW 96 Court in Rosewood discussing a land clearing project with a local company. The owner of this property wanted to have the land improved for future use. An unidentified man approached the group in a pick-up truck and confronted them using multiple racial slurs during the verbal altercation. The unidentified man then retreated to a nearby property.
This group of men then observed this same subject exit the property in a pickup truck. One of the men in this group was standing near the edge of the road when the unidentified subject accelerated rapidly in his direction causing him to jump out of the road to avoid being struck.
Levy County Deputies were summoned to the scene. Multiple witness statements were obtained during the initial investigation. Numerous follow up interviews were conducted during which the driver of the truck was identified as David A. Emanuel (age 61) of Rosewood, Florida. The investigation determined Emanuel intentionally and recklessly drove his motor vehicle in the direction of a pedestrian after using derogatory racial slurs which by Florida law enhance the penalties of the crime. A warrant for this crime was obtained and Emanuel was arrested on September 12th and booked into the Levy County Detention Center. He was later released after posting a bond of $50,000.00.
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UPDATED: Man arrested by LCSO, charged with using truck as weapon in racist attack in Rosewood, FL
The suspect in the case (detailed in the article below) was identified by the Levy County Sheriff's office as David Allen Emanuel, 61, of Cedar Key, Florida, who was arrested, after the completio of an investigation by the agency, on Sept. 12, 2022, charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill. He was booked into the Levy County Detention Bureau at 9:30 pm and released on bond at 10:12 pm. His bond was listed at $50,000.
Emanuel's arrest report stated, that on Sept. 6, 2022, Emanuel, "Not having any intent to kill made an asssault upon Frederick Douglas Dunn...intentionally threatened by word or act to do violence to Frederick Douglas Dunn...coupled with an apparent ability to do so created a well-founded fear that violence was imminent, and in committing said assault used a deadly weaon, to wit: a Ford truck, and in commiting such felony David Allen Emanuel made statements, assertions, and took actions that evidences prejudice based on the race, color, ancestry or ethnicity of the victim or victims he was targeting..."
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Racist attack, by man driving truck in Rosewood, FL, reported to LCSO
According to several newspaper articles, as well as Facebook posts by Dr. Marvin Dunn, a black historian from Miami, Florida, a rascist attack occurred in Rosewood (Levy County), Florida on Tuesday, September 6, 2022, in which a man allegedly used his vehicle, a white Ford F250 pickup truck, to make several passes at a group of eight people while traveling at a high rate of speed, possibly 50 miles per hour, coming within inches of striking Doug Dunn, the son of Dr. Dunn and a member of the group of eight people at Dr. Dunn's property.
"The man was screaming racial insults as he charged us with his truck," said Dr. Dunn in one of his Facebook posts about the incident.
On Sepember 7, Dr. Dunn made this post on his Facebook page:
"Racial Attack in Rosewood, Florida Yesterday: A white man used his pickup truck to try to run down me and a group of seven other people including two local whites, who were with me visiting my property in Rosewood. I am the only black person who owns land in Rosewood. The man was upset that my group parked on his side of the road. This image shows one of the witnesses, a local white man who was very upset by this and called the police. The witness is showing a Levy County sheriff's deputy the scene noting skid marks. The man was screaming racial insults as he charged us with his truck. He came within inches of killing my son Doug. In addition to the Levy County police, I have reported the incident to the FBI as a hate crime. Will keep you posted."
Information regarding this incident was requested of Lt. Scott Tummond, Professional Standards Commander and Custodian of Records with the Levy County Sheriff's Office, but the request was denied. "This case is still an active and on-going investigation. I am unable to release any reports at this time," said Tummond.
According to the articles, Dr. Dunn has been the co-owner of approximately five acres in Rosewood, Florida for more than ten years, and he was meeting with Bobby Prevatt, the owner of a land clearing company called Prevatt Earthworks, to discuss preparing the land for an event planned for January 2023, the 100-year anniversary of the Rosewood Massacre, which occurred during January 1-7, 1923.
It has been estimated over the years that up to 200 people were killed in the Rosewood Massacre, but accordng to Britannia.com, an official study conducted in 1993 placed the death toll of the Rosewood Massacre at eight, which included six African Americans and two whites.
Horriffic Rascist History of Rosewood, Florida
Before 1923, Rosewood served as a whistle-stop along the Seaboard Airline Railway and was home to approximately 200 residents, until almost all the buildings in the town were burned by angry mobs of white people, upset by claims made by 22 year old Fannie Taylor on January 1, 1923, that a black man had entered her home and assaulted her. She had bruises on her body, but specified that she had not been raped. Word got out to mobs of angry white men that Fannie Taylor, a white woman, had been sexually assaulted by a black man.
According to the Washington Post newspaper, Fannie Taylor's story was disputed by Sarah Carrier, a black woman from Rosewood who did laundry for Taylor. Sarah Carrier told neighbors that a white man had visited and left the Taylor home, a short time before Taylor made her allegations.
Fannie's husband, James Taylor, a foreman at a local mill, riled up a mob of people to hunt down the culprit, asking for help from neighboring communities, which included an estimated 500 members of the Ku Klus Klan who were attending a convention in Gainesville, Florida, nearly 50 miles away.
Law enforcement officials learned that a black prisoner named Jesse Hunter had escaped from a chain gang and determined that black residents may be hiding him, so the mob set out to find him.
Aaron Carrier, the nephew of Sarah Carrier (who did laundry for Fannie Taylor), was dragged from his house, tied to a car and dragged to Sumner, where he was cut loose from the car and beaten. He was later taken into protective custody in Gainesville.
Blacksmith Sam Carter was tortured by the mob, until he told them he was hiding Hunter. Carter agreed to take the mob to Hunter's hiding spot, purportedly in Otter Creek, Florida, although he was never located. Carter led the mob into the woods, and when Hunter was not found, he was shot and hung on a tree.
Sarah Carrier and her son, Sylvester Carrier, were shot and killed, but before he died, Sylvester Carrier shot and killed two of their white attackers, C.P. “Poly” Wilkerson of Sumner, Florida and Henry Andrews of Otter Creek, Florida.
Mingo Williams, another black man, was shot and killed by another mob of frenzied white men, while he was chopping down a tree, about 20 miles from Rosewood.
Another son of Sarah Carrier, James Carrier, fled into a swamp and later sought refuge in the home of the local turpentine factory manager, but the mob found him and forced him to dig his own grave before shooting and killing him.
Buildings were burned, and people were shot as they escaped from the burning buildings. Lexie Gordon, a black woman suffering from typhoid fever who did not leave her home when ordered do so by the angry mob, was either shot in her face as she hid under her home, that had been set on fire, or she was shot as she attempted to escape from the back door of her burning home.
The Rosewood Massacre is recognized as one of the worst racist attacks on a predominantly black community in U. S. history. The horrific massacre was portrayed in the 1997 film, Rosewood, by John Singleton, which can be streamed for free on Pluto TV and Filmrise.
About Dr. Marvin Dunn (from www.DunnHistory.com)
Marvin Dunn was born and raised in Florida and currently lives in Miami, Florida. He's a former naval officer who later served as Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Florida International University. He retired as chairperson of the department in 2006.
Dr. Dunn has published numerous articles on race and ethnic relations in leading newspapers, which includes the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Orlando Sentinel and Miami Herald.
Dunn is the author of two books: "The History of Florida: Through Black Eyes," CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (2016) and "Black Miami in the Twentieth Century," University Press of Florida (1997) and the coauthor of two books: "This Land is Our Land: Immigrants and Power in Miami." University of California Press (2003); and "The Miami Riot of 1980: Crossing the Bounds," Lexington Books (1984).
He has produced three documentary films, “Rosewood Uncovered,” which documents the Rosewood Massacre of 1923, “Murder on the Suwanee: The Willie James Howard Story,” the story of the 1944 lynching of a fifteen year old black youth in Live Oak, Florida, and “Black Seminoles in the Bahamas: The Red Bays Story,” which documents the flight of slaves escaping from Florida to the Bahama Islands in the 1800s, and “The Black Miami,” based upon Dunn's book, "Black Miami in the Twentieth Century."
In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, a black man, by white police officer Derek Michael Chauvin in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, 2020 - while he was being taken into custody on the suspicion that he may have passed a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill at a store - Dunn and other advocates for racial justice founded the Miami Center for Racial Justice.
“The Miami Center for Racial Justice will be a beacon in our community," said Dunn. "We seek to foster a safe space for dialogue on racial issues, to promote unity, and allow for frank confrontation of the history of racial terror through the examination and preservation of stories of racial terror in Florida.”