A 13-year-old Ohio girl appeared in court after allegedly killing another 13-year-old girl with a pocket knife.
“We are devastated by this tragedy,” Cincinnati Public Schools said in a statement. “Our mental health support teams are actively supporting our school community at this time. We also have additional crisis teams in place to support our students and staff, if needed.”
Janiah Pate, a 13-year-old from the Cincinnati area, is accused of fatally stabbing 13-year-old Nyaira Givens with a pocket knife Monday. Officers responded to the scene to find Givens suffering from a stab wound to the right side of her neck. The teenager was rushed to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, where she later died.
“During a verbal dispute, (the teen) pulled out a pocket knife and cut the victim on the right side of her neck causing her death,” court documents state.
POLICE RELEASE BODY CAMERA VIDEO OF OFFICER FATALLY SHOOTING TEENAGE GIRL ARMED WITH KNIFE IN OHIO
Pate was charged with murder Tuesday.
“A whole lot of people are hurting. Young lady who was a viable part of the community — energetic, friendly — is no longer here,” Pastor Peterson Mingo with GOD Squad with Cincinnati Police Department said of the incident.
“Young lady, 13-years-old — you haven’t lived; you haven’t experienced a whole lot. And so now, she won’t experience these things. And then there’s another young lady who’s going to be handicapped in some form or another the test of her life by this same situation,” Mingo continued.
Police did not say what occurred in the moments before the stabbing. Both teenagers attended the same school.
The news comes amid the high-profile police shooting of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant in Columbus, Ohio, Tuesday. In that incident, body camera footage shows an officer arriving at the scene as Bryant attacks one woman with a knife before charging another woman. The officer opened fire on Bryant as she pinned the other woman to the car, fatally wounding the teenager.
Some, including civil rights lawyer and former NAACP Chairman Cornell Brooks, have questioned the response of the officer and likened the situation to a “schoolyard fight.”
“Not everything that you’re permitted to do is something that you should in fact do,” Brooks said of the officer’s actions. “What if it were your daughter? What if it were your child? What if it were a member of your family … in essentially a teenage fight, a schoolyard fight?”
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The incident generated controversy, happening just moments before the jury returned a guilty verdict on all charges against former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd.
