Black Lives Matter protests erupted when Columbus, Ohio police shot and killed a 16-year-old Black girl named Ma’Khia Bryant. This shooting happened as a Minnesota jury deliberated the verdict in the George Floyd murder case against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
On April 20, 2021, Police were dispatched to a Columbus neighborhood due to an attempted stabbing. Relatives of Ma’Khia stated that Ma’Khia was the person who called the police to report an attempted stabbing. Despite this, body camera footage shows police firing multiple shots at Ma’Khia. She died from her injuries at a hospital shortly after.
Child murder by police officers is not a new incident. Many Black and brown children have been killed by police in recent history. In 2010, Aiyana Stanley-Jones was sleeping in her Detroit home when police shot and killed her during a raid; she was 10 years old. In 2014, 12-year-old Tamir Rice was fatally shot by Cleveland police while in possession of a toy gun. More recently, Adam Toledo was murdered by Chicago police on March 29, 2021 at the age of 13. Adam’s death draws parallels to the 2014 murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was shot in cold blood by a Chicago police officer over 16 times while his back was turned.
Generally, the murder of Black girls and women often goes un-checked and overlooked, especially at the hands of law enforcement. Our community continues saying Ma’Khia’s name alongside Breonna Taylor’s, a young woman murdered in her home by Louisville police last year. Her murderers were never charged.
This country must reckon with its racism. SisterLove remains in solidarity with our community in its stance against state violence and police brutality against Black people. We honor and remember all of the victims, both known and unknown, that have been killed at the hands of law enforcement.
Our condolences and sympathies are with Ma’Khia’s grieving loved ones, and with the collective mourning of our community in the face of these traumatic and recurrent murders. To continue supporting SisterLove in our mission to make sure our communities are safe click here.
To watch Dr. Brittney Cooper’s Instagram live discussing the murder of Ma’Khia Bryant and Black girls everywhere click here.
