A Columbia mother is currently facing grave charges, including attempted murder, in an incident that saw two teenagers shot near a local Giant grocery store parking lot in October of last year. Dieneba Sekou Traore, 47, reportedly believed that these teens were linked to a previous armed robbery of her son. In statements detailed by WBAL-TV, charging documents reveal a narrative of a mother pushed to the brink by what she perceived as slow-moving justice, culminating in a violent confrontation.
Traore's son was the victim of an armed robbery on October 7, and frustrations regarding the investigation's progress ran high. According to WBAL-TV, Traore threatened to take matters into her own hands if the case remained stagnant. Surveillance video places Traore at the scene just before the October shooting. Mere hours before the incident, Traore had confronted a teen's parents, accusing their son of the robbery. This confrontation resulted in a police visit.
Following the shooting, which injured two teenagers who miraculously survived, Traore was identified by police through car and phone records. Authorities have charged her with attempted first- and second-degree murder, among several other charges. She is currently being held without bond. An anchor in these developments is the statement Traore made to the police, demanding the recognized responsibility for child protection laid on the officers, "What I care about is not putting us in a position where we have to be the ones to protect our kids when (you all) are the ones hired to do that," according to the charging documents cited by WBAL-TV.
On the other side of the justice scale, Traore's defense paints a different picture—one of a mother's desperate pleas for justice overlooked by law enforcement. Latoya Francis Williams, Traore's attorney, suggests her client has cooperated with the authorities. "She's been open and honest with law enforcement. She's been an open book and provided all the information she can provide and she gets hit like a ton of bricks," Williams contended in a statement, as FOX Baltimore reported. As the case unfolds, questions linger about the lengths one might go to when the systems seem unresponsive to a mother's outcry for her child's safety.
