Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) is frustrated with people she says are forgetting 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant was a child when she was killed.
“Ma’Khia’s TikTok videos show her childhood and joy. Her smile at the end of the videos just breaks me a little more. It’s been maddening to see so many people strip away the fact that a child was killed. We cannot be a society that justifies the killing of a child,” Tlaib tweeted on Thursday.
Ma'Khia's TikTok videos show her childhood and joy. Her smile at the end of the videos just breaks me a little more. It's been maddening to see so many people strip away the fact that a child was killed. We cannot be a society that justifies the killing of a child.
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) April 22, 2021
Columbus, Ohio, police officer Nicholas Reardon reportedly fired four shots at Bryant. It appears on body-camera video Bryant was holding a knife and lunging at two people.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki during a press briefing on Wednesday said Bryant “was a child,” adding, “We’re thinking of her friends and family and the communities that are hurting and grieving her loss.”
She continued, “We know that police violence disproportionately impacts Black and Latino people in communities. And that Black women and girls, like Black men and boys, experience higher rates of police violence. We also know that there are particular vulnerabilities that children in foster care, like Ma’Khia face.”
Tlaib’s fellow “squad” member Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) also tweeted, “Black girls deserve girlhood — uninterrupted. Black girls deserve to grow up and become women.”
Black girls deserve girlhood — uninterrupted.
— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) April 21, 2021
Black girls deserve to grow up and become women.
Bodycam footage also showed a man yelling at the police officer, “You didn’t have to shoot her! She’s just a kid, man!”
The officer replied, “She had a knife. She just went at her!”
Bryant’s death came as jurors convicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd.