Ma’Khia Bryant’s mom said in a new interview that she wants her daughter to be remembered for being “a very loving 16-year-old girl” – not for the incident that ended her young life.
“I want the world to know that Ma’Khia Bryant was a very loving 16-year-old girl. She was my daughter, my baby. I loved her,” Paula Bryant said on CNN on Thursday night.
“She was very talented and smart. She was funny. Her favorite color was blue,” the grieving mom told host Chris Cuomo.
“I’ve always had sympathy for the Breonna Taylor story and her family and her friends and her situation. And now I know what it feels like to lose a child,” she said, referring to the woman who was fatally shot by Louisville, Ky., police in March 2020
Bryant said she was at the dentist when she received word that her daughter had been killed by police.
“This is so unreal, the hurt that I feel, I’m devastated. I was shocked when I heard the news. It was unbelievable,” she said. “No parent should have to go through this.”
Bryant said she still has not been able to bring herself to watch the entire police bodycam video of her daughter’s final moments.
Dramatic footage released by police appears to show Ma’Khia lunging with a knife at a girl before she was fatally shot by a police officer, named in reports as Nicholas Reardon.
“I want to remember Ma’Khia, you know, the good things about Ma’Khia, the loving things about Ma’Khia,” Bryant said.
“I’m a single mother of five kids and, you know, now Ma’Khia is gone and I only have four kids, and I can’t — that is so hard for me to say,” she said, choking back tears.
“Ma’Khia I believe is in heaven. She’s an angel,” Bryant added.
