News

Actions

Mom of Milwaukee girl killed by stray bullet says daughter's essay gives her strength

Posted

It was just a few days before Thanksgiving, when an 8th grader was shot and killed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Sandra Parks was sitting in her room watching TV, when a stray bullet came through the window.

“She said, ‘Mama, call the police. I been shot,’” Sandra’s mother, Bernice, describes of that night. “She was laying on the floor. I thought she was playing, but I called the police anyway because I’m like that’s too many gunshots, what the hell is going on?”

The 13-year-old’s award-winning essay is now being shared around the world and read on national news outlets. In the young girl’s essay, “Our Truth,” Sandra wrote about gun violence.

Sandra’s words are now some of the only things her mom says she has left of her daughter.

“I don’t have her flesh. I don’t have her smiling at me all the time. I don’t have what I want, and I want my baby,” Bernice says. “Ain’t nothing gonna make that better. It’s just that being in this house, since she been gone, it’s strange, scary, and it’s unacceptable.”

Bernice says her daughter’s words are giving her strength as she prepares for the funeral. The mother hopes Sandra’s essay might prevent another family from going through the same pain.

“The stuff that she wrote, people should listen to it. Heed to it. Follow it, because it’s only right that kids should live. Adults should live,” she says. “I don’t think nobody should die, not by the hands of body else for no apparent reason. She didn’t do nothing.”

Police have arrested two suspects they believe were connected to the shooting.

A public visitation for Sandra will be held Friday.

,

Weather

Daily Forecast

View Hourly Forecast

Day

Conditions

HI / LO

Precip

Wednesday

04/23/2025

Sunny

84° / 53°

0%

Thursday

04/24/2025

Partly Cloudy

80° / 51°

0%

Friday

04/25/2025

Mostly Sunny

72° / 51°

2%

Saturday

04/26/2025

Partly Cloudy

64° / 50°

24%

Sunday

04/27/2025

Partly Cloudy

68° / 51°

12%

Monday

04/28/2025

Sunny

77° / 56°

2%

Tuesday

04/29/2025

Sunny

86° / 60°

1%

Wednesday

04/30/2025

Mostly Sunny

89° / 62°

1%