Mourners remember Dallas grandmother killed in firebombing, a misplaced act of gang retaliation

Mourners remember Dallas grandmother killed in firebombing, a misplaced act of gang retaliation Matt Peterson

Family members console Sharonda Williams at her mother’s funeral at Greenway Park Church of God in Christ on Saturday in Dallas. (Photos by Andy Jacobsohn/Staff Photographer)

By AUSTIN HUGUELET
Staff Writer
ahuguelet@dallasnews.com

Debra Williams was always a hero to her daughter.

But she cemented that status on a summer evening 2 1/2 decades ago when Sharonda Williams was just 12.

Her father had put a chicken in the oven before falling asleep at their West Dallas home. By the time Debra Williams got home from church, smoke was coming out of the windows.

So she raced inside, roused her kids and turned off the oven.

“She was always protecting us,” Sharonda Williams said, “always there for us.”

But no one could protect Debra Williams early on the morning of May 11, when Dallas police say her apartment was firebombed in a misplaced act of gang retaliation for a shooting hours before.

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