(Newswire.net — November 28, 2018) — A 13-year-old girl from Milwaukee who won an award for her essay on gun violence two years ago when she was just eleven years old has been killed by a stray bullet. She realized the issue of gun violence at a young age, yet her life was cut short when a stray bullet hit her, killing her while she watched television in her bedroom.
The young Sandra Parks claimed in her essay writing in sixth grade that, “We are in a state of chaos. In the city which I live, I hear and see examples of chaos almost everyday. Little children are victims of senseless gun violence.”
Parks’ mother claims that her child was not violent and did not like violence.
Police have since announced the arrest of two men involved in the shooting. Isaac D. Barnes and Untrell Oden, 26 and 27 respectively, were charged in the shooting. The two were arrested within hours of Parks’ death. Barnes was charged with first-degree reckless homicide. He is a felon.
Oden has also been charged with two counts of being a felon with a gun.
“We must not allow the lies of violence, racism, and prejudice to be our truth. The truth begins with us. Instead of passing each other like ships in the night, we must fight until our truths stretch to the ends of the world,” wrote the young Parks in her final paragraph of her essay.
Parks was sitting in her room, days before the Thanksgiving holiday, watching television when the bullet entered her home, hitting her in the chest. She told her mother, “Momma, I’m shot.” The shooting was random, with the stray bullet entering her home by chance.
Investigators claim that the two may have fired at the home because of anger or to try and scare someone.
Bernice Parks told the police that she woke up before 8 p.m. to the sound of gunshots before finding her daughter bleeding on the floor. She claims that her daughter told the shocked mother to call the cops as she laid on the floor, peaceful and with a gunshot wound in her chest.
Oden claims that he and Barnes were walking home from a store when Barnes decided to shoot his firearm at no one in particular.
Parks wanted to be a writer, and her mother hopes to be able to publish her daughter’s poetry in a book. Mass shootings in the United States have hit 314 in 2018, with over 38,000 people killed annually in gun violence-related events.