Support A Father: Justin Augustine Needs Our Help

On June 13th, Justin received a call from his panicking 14-year-old daughter.  In a shaky voice, his daughter explained that while she and her friends were walking to the store, she was harassed by her own 18-year-old female cousin and 50-year-old female cousin as they sat in a truck in front of the store. To get away from harassment and threating, Justin’s daughter escaped into the store until the truck pulled off. Her group exited the store and hurried down the street, only to have the truck violently approach with her 44-year-old male cousin and now accompanying the female cousins. The 18-year-old female cousins again began making threats to fight the young women as the 50-year-old joined in the threatening while reaching into a bag; the group of friends on the street were sure that the 50-year-old female was looking for a gun. Amidst this activity, 44-year-old male grabs Justin’s daughter by the shoulders and smacks her across her face. Throughout the interaction, all adult parties are belittling the group of teenage girls by calling them out their name. As the truck departed, Justin’s daughter called her father again in a cry for help.

 

As any father would want to, Justin defended his daughter by confronting the two adult cousins who participated in these interactions. As a result, Justin was put on administrative leave without pay which in turn suspended the health and dental insurance for him and his family. Losing his income and benefits has created an immense hardship on Justin to continue providing for his family! Justin is an amazing father of 7 but without his health insurance, his autistic son will have to stop his therapy services because Justin cannot afford it. He is now being slandered by a rouge reporter who is making false claims against his character and out right lying about the situation.

 

This is not justice. Being put on leave with no pay for protecting one’s daughter is just simply not right. This unfair predicament has placed Justin in tough spot. So, it’s our time to step up as a community and help him as he has helped others (and maybe even you). Justin’s resume speaks for itself, and he is not the monster they are painting him out to be. He is a FATHER protecting his KIDS!

 

I am making this GoFundMe for not only a good friend, but a man of the community who has educated the children of New Haven from Kindergarten to 6th grade about public safety. Just to give glimpse of the heartfelt gestures Justine has done over the years, here’s a few: He donated his own money to gift –  AirPods and clothing to local kids through different organizations.  Justin also donated Amazon Fire Tablets to the special needs bus students to serve as educational and recreational aids for their commute to school. Additionally, on Field Day, he donated an ice cream truck to the K-3rd grade class at a New Haven Public School.