N.C. girl cries out
A shame our dads & moms killed, she tells pols
A POWERFUL message was delivered to North Carolina officials this week from one of the state’s youngest voices.
Ten-year-old Zianna Oliphant climbed up on a stepstool to reach the podium and speak in front of the Charlotte City Council about police-involved shootings of African-Americans.
“It’s a shame that our fathers and mothers are killed and we can’t see them anymore,” the young girl said as tears streamed down her cheeks during a tense council meeting Monday night.
“It’s a shame that we have to go to their graveyard and bury them. And we have tears. And we shouldn’t have tears,” she said. “We need our fathers and mothers to be by our side.
Charlotte residents packed the meeting, many unleashing furious criticism aimed at officials and Mayor Jennifer Roberts over the handling of the aftermath of the death of Keith Scott.
An officer fatally shot Scott in the parking lot of his apartment complex last week after cops say they saw him smoking pot and brandishing a gun. Scott’s family disputes the police account, saying the disabled 43-year-old man wasn’t armed but reading a book while waiting for his son to get off the school bus.
Protests erupted in Charlotte during the four days it took the police department to yield to mounting pressure and release video of Scott’s death. It was discovered Tuesday that Scott’s wife filed a protective order last year that said he hit her son and had a handgun without a permit. Rakeyia Scott received a restraining order in October after saying her husband had hit her 8-year-old three times with his fist and kicked her earlier that month. In the request for legal protections from her husband, Rakeyia Scott said the father of seven could be a threat to cops because he had an unpermitted 9-mm handgun. She dropped the order 11 days later.