Roxbury teen hit as tot: ‘Get guns off the street’
A Roxbury teen paralyzed since age 3 when a stray bullet hit her back said Hub streets are not a “safe space anymore,” after an 8-year-old girl was lucky to survive a shooting yesterday in Jamaica Plain.
“Children should have the liberty to just be children,” Kai Leigh Harriott, now 17, told the Herald in a statement. “They deserve to live and laugh. The streets of Boston are what we call home, however, it seems like home isn’t a safe space anymore. Courage has to come. Let kids be kids. Get guns off the street so that children can safely be on them.”
Boston police said 15 rounds were fired after midnight yesterday at the Mildred C. Hailey Apartments on Heath Street. The young girl’s family told the Herald she was struck in the arm and had another bullet graze her abdomen.
Harriott, who uses a wheelchair after a bullet shattered her spine, was shot on July 1, 2003. Anthony Warren, then 26, accidentally shot her in the back with a revolver as she sat on a third-floor porch. Prosecutors said Warren was firing warning shots at the downstairs neighbors.
In a courtroom in April 2006, Harriott stated, “I forgive Anthony Warren.”
Judge Margot Botsford called it the “most moving thing that I have ever heard in my career.”
Warren pleaded guilty to assault and weapon charges and was sentenced to 13 to 15 years in state prison.
Harriott’s mother, Tonya David, said yesterday that July 1 is a day that is celebrated in her household. Saturday marks 14 years since Harriott’s life changed forever.
“We try to take it as a positive because we are celebrating life that day and not death, like so many families in the city,” David said.
She added that she’s praying for the 8-year-old victim and her family.
“Kids can’t even play anymore. I know that this is a hard ordeal that no one wants to go through. I just pray that they continue to have strength.”