ANOTHER Life Tragically Taken Just as 2016 Ended… MEDIA IGNORES

02 Jan, 2017 by Cassy Fiano

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The media has been wrapping up 2016 with moving tributes to celebrity lives we lost throughout the year. From Dick Clark, Alan Rickman and Carrie Fisher, to Prince and George Michael, it’s understandably been a sad year for their fans. But there are other people that tragically died that the media has completely ignored… maybe because it doesn’t suit their narrative. People like 17 year-old Keoshia Ford apparently don’t matter as much to them.

Keoshia Ford was shot at 13, in 2012, when a shootout between two gangs took place at Highland Park. Ford was just there to play and was tragically caught in the crossfire, taking a bullet to the head. After the shooting stopped, Ford was found being held by another girl, body limp and still. She survived, but was in a coma. She could not sit, stand, eat, smile or talk. Yet eventually, she was stable enough to be released from the hospital, although she needed round-the-clock medical care.

Slowly, Ford began to recover. She was able to sit in a wheelchair and though her gaze would be unfocused, occasionally her foot would wiggle or her eyelids would flutter. Lekeshia Matthews, her mother, celebrated each achievement, as it meant her daughter was one step closer to the full recovery she was hoping for. “It’s been — oh my God, it’s been rough,” Matthews said. “It’s been a rough journey. When she got shot, the things she did, she couldn’t do anymore. She couldn’t walk, talk, couldn’t do anything for herself. It was hard to see your child suffer like that. If she was in pain, she couldn’t tell me, she couldn’t do anything.”

Ford survived for four years after the shooting. And in 2016, something miraculous began to happen. She began to respond to voices. She could shake her head yes or no, could squeeze her mom’s hand and could recognize the voices of her sisters. She was beginning to recover. But she struggled with respiratory problems and ultimately, died at the age of 17. An autopsy will be performed to determine if her death was related to the shooting, and if it was, then the man who shot her — 17 at the time and sentenced to two years in prison — could have his charges upgraded to homicide.

Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. These tragedies play out every single day in inner-city communities, with innocent people being killed needlessly and yet Black Lives Matter and Barack Obama never have a word to spare for people like Keoshia Ford.