https://www.facebook.com/honestie.hodges.9
https://www.gofundme.com/f/b7bcqb-covid19-sucks
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...45a-story.html
A Michigan girl who was handcuffed at gunpoint by police when she was only 11 years old died this week after a two-week battle with coronavirus, her family said.
Honestie Hodges, 14, was taken to a Grand Rapids hospital on Nov. 9 after testing positive for the virus, but her condition rapidly deteriorated in recent days and she was pronounced dead Sunday, according to her grandmother.
'It is with an extremely heavy heart that I have to tell all of you that my beautiful, sassy, smart loving Granddaughter has gone home to be with Jesus,' Alisa Niemeyer said in a post on the GoFundMe website.
Honestie drew national attention when cops investigating an attempted murder on Dec. 6, 2017, confronted the child outside her home, pointed their weapons at her, handcuffed her and threw her into a police car.
The shocking incident, part of which was caught on an officer's body-worn camera, sparked widespread outrage and led the Grand Rapids Police Department to change an internal policy about interactions with children. The agency's 'Honestie Policy,' adopted in early 2018, calls for the least restrictive options when dealing with minors, local news outlet MLive.com reported.
Police were searching for the girl's 40-year-old aunt when they detained the girl and two other women, all of whom were unarmed, as they tried to leave their home for a store that night.
Honestie, who was Black, wondered at the time if her race played a role in the officers' controversial decision.
'I have a question for the Grand Rapids police: If this happened to a white child, if her mother was screaming, 'She's 11,' would you have handcuffed her and put her in the back of a police car'' she said in a news conference days after the incident.
The police chief at the time, David Rahinsky, described the video of Honestie screaming as cops took her into custody as 'disturbing,' but none of the cops were ever disciplined for their actions.
The teen, who was taken to the ICU shortly after being hospitalized this month, was 'heavily sedated' and put on a ventilator during her fight with COVID-19, Niemeyer said. Honestie later received iron and blood transfusion as her condition kept getting worse before her death, according to her grandmother's GoFundMe posts.
A candlelight vigil with family and friends was held Monday night in Grand Rapids.