![]() Even babies are shot to death, but the vast majority of young victims are teenagers. ![]() Black kids are more than four times as likely to die in shootings as White ones, according to CDC data, though White kids are much more likely to use guns to take their own lives. Often, children killed by bullets are memorialized only by brief news reports or anguished obituaries. But the way they lived matters as much as the way they died. The 13 children profiled here were funny: the 6-year-old who wanted to be a doctor so she could give shots to all the doctors who had given her shots. They were generous: the 12-year-old who used his chore money to take his family out to McDonald’s. And they were ambitious: the 15-year-old who wanted to be a nuclear physicist. These are their stories, one for each month of a violent year.Īlyse and Ava Williams, 6 and 9 Always togetherĪlyse and Ava Williams, 6 and 9, knew their parents were arguing, so they made themselves pizza rolls in the microwave for dinner and closed the door to the bedroom of their Columbus, Ohio, home. It was the first day of 2021, and the previous evening, they’d celebrated New Year’s Eve with sparkling cider and party poppers. In the hours before midnight, Alyse had repeatedly asked their mother, Vanecia Kirkland, about the time. She was too young to read a clock, but she wanted to be the first to wish her older sister a happy new year. They had always been each other’s best friend. When their mother and father would ask which parent the girls liked best, they’d refuse to choose. While Ava’s first word had been “Dada,” Alyse’s was “Ava.” She adored her older sister. The third-grader could read her books from R.L. Stein’s horror series “Goosebumps.” Afterward, when Alyse was scared to use the bathroom alone, Ava would flip on the light and check for monsters in the bathtub.Īva was fearless, a “ball of energy,” Kirkland said. ![]() When she received a baby walker just before her first birthday, she dashed across their home so fast that she flattened the family dog’s tail. The 9-year-old liked drawing animals with big sparkly eyes in her sketchbook. She wanted to be an artist and knew how to appreciate the finer things in life, like canned corn and the icing in Oreos - she never deigned to eat the chocolate cookies. Ava was opinionated and outspoken, like her father, Aaron Williams, and had his light hazel eyes.Īlyse, meanwhile, was her mother’s “little twin.” The 6-year-old often wore long dresses. She liked the way they spun when she twirled. She could argue like a lawyer and knew exactly what she wanted.
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