Posted on 04/15/2006 6:19:27 PM PDT by roadrunner96
15 Apr 2006
A five-year-old girl, Kai Leigh Harriott, wheelchair bound after a bullet paralyzed her three years ago, forgave the man who shot her and told him what he had done to her was wrong. She did this to his face, in court.
After breaking down and crying, the girl picked up a glass of water, took a sip, and said to Anthony Warren ‘What you done to me was wrong…..but I still forgive him.' Anthony Warren had pleaded guilty to shooting her, shots that paralyzed the girl.
Kai Lee Harriot used to be able to walk. She had been a healthy little girl. Almost three years ago she had been sitting on a porch. Warren had had an argument with some people who lived in the first floor of the house (a building which housed three families). He returned at about 11pm and shot three times at the house. His target had been the person he had had an argument with - not Kai. Kai, three years' old at the time, was hit by one of the bullets. She had been sitting there on the porch with her older sister.
The bullet shattered the little girl's spine. From that moment onwards she lost all movement from the chest down.
Warren was sentenced to 13-15 years in prison and 5 years' probation.
Hopefully, one day, as medicine makes new headways in neuroscience, Kai may eventually be able to get up from her wheelchair and walk again, unaided. I am humbled by her benevolence. She will always be an example to me of how good and untainted a human can be. I am 50 and she is five - yet she is light-years ahead of me.
Written by: Christian Nordqvist Editor: Medical News Today Article URL: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=41704
Makes me cry, an Easter story.
People are so quick to pick up a gun nowadays. Whatever happened to handling conflicts like civilized people.
God answers kneemail.
Prayers for this little girl and her family.
That happened in Dorchester (Boston), not a suburb I think.
I wonder if she will feel the same when she reaches an age where she can actually realize to full impact what has been done to her. I wonder if she will feel the same in about 13 years when she is 18 and Anthony goes jogging by agile and free having paid his debt to society.
Repopulate the cities with civilized people-then gun crime would all but disappear.
I hope so. The benefit of forgiveness is to the forgiver, not the forgiven.
Shockingly enough, none of the writeups of this tragedy make any mention of Kai Leigh Harriott's father. Even more shocking is that Kai's mother's last name is not Harriott.
Antwayone Harriot - call your... er...
Saw this on the news tonight and cried like a baby. What a dear sweet and precious little girl. Whats even more amazing is the mom got up to shake the guy's hand that shot her little girl, and also told him she forgave him. That handshake turned into an embrace. Wow......don't know if I could be that forgiving.
Warren was sentenced to 13-15 years in prison and 5 years' probation.
This makes me want to throw up. Justice has once again not been served.
That sounds like exactly what I would do. I would make it really, really convincing.
The guy should be dispatched to electric chair, and the girl encouraged to be glad justice was done. Let God worry about whether to forgive him. This kind of thinking is what leads to lenient sentences, and early parole, and recidivism which ruins the lives of yet more innocent people. Love and forgiveness and understanding do NOT solve this sort of problem, they perpetuate it.
This is a sortof "turn the other cheek" type of story right before Easter, not saying I totally agree with this position; I mean we see a story ever so often like I think on the 700 Club (OK, maybe some of you have never watched it) or somewhere, where a family forgives the murderer of a family member and might visit them in jail; it's sort of that kind of story.
All I can say, is if the guy is 50 now, I hope he serves that 13-15 years... not getting out until then.
Hell for what he did, should have been 25 years and no possibility of parole.
There is soemthing to be said for forgiveness... this is a most trying case. I don't think I could forgive like the author says as well towards the end of the story.
And my thoughts and prayers do go out to the little girl involved.
what on EARTH was a two year old girl doing sitting on a porch at 11 at night?
though this factor in no way excuses the perp, it condemns her parents and the culture of which they -and the perp- are exemplars.
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