Death of 9-year-old girl adds tragic nuance to Ferguson story
Police in Ferguson, Mo., are looking for the person responsible for the death of a 9-year-old girl who was killed when someone fired shots into a home where she was doing her schoolwork.
Jamyla Bolden died Tuesday night while her mother was hit in the leg and brought to a local hospital. It is unclear whether their home was directly targeted or whether the shots were random. The shooting took place just a few blocks from the place where Michael Brown was fatally shot by white police officer Darren Wilson last year, a death that fueled the Black Lives Matter movement and, in Ferguson, protests that occasionally turned violent.聽
Following Tuesday鈥檚 shooting, police rushed to the scene.
"You have a 9-year-old child on her mother's bed doing homework and a bullet strikes her," Sergeant Dominica Fuller, the first officer to arrive on the scene, said. "Our concern is to get this person off the street."
"As a mother I was hurt," Ms. Fuller, who is also the mother of a 9-year-old, said. "I showed emotion and I cried and said a prayer for her and my heart is still broken."
Thursday聽evening, more than 200 people, including police officers and Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III, gathered for a vigil honoring聽Jamyla, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Crime data in Ferguson for 2014 and 2015 are not yet public, but some reports have suggested that the crime rate has begun to rise in recent years. 聽
A 2014 of crime data suggested Ferguson's violent crime rate is relatively low compared with surrounding areas.
This report contains material from the Associated Press.
