A month after child, 6, shot dead at party, Miami-Dade mayor vows to curtail gun violence

Law enforcement, political and community leaders gathered near a playground under a wet thunderous sky in Brownsville Tuesday to remember the “senseless” shooting death last month of the “Tik Tok Princess,” a 6-year-old who was fatally struck by a bullet as she was leaving a birthday party just down the road from the park.

Chassidy Saunders was buried on Jan. 30. Her murderer remains free. The little girl, a student at Beacon College Prep Elementary in Opa-locka, was one of three people shot on a Saturday night outside a home at Northwest 54th Street and Sixth Place. The two adult victims survived.

The gathering, exactly a month after Chassidy was killed, was designed to show the community that its leaders were united in an effort to stop the gun violence that has plagued the county — particularly its north end — for the past year.

Under a tent protecting a couple of hundred people from Tuesday’s stubborn rainfall, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava spoke briefly of initiatives to help identify troubled youth and that help prisoners re-enter society. But the group mainly used the anniversary of Chassidy’s death to explain how united it is in trying to solve the crime and end the gunfire that is gripping the community.

“We must not let this crime, this travesty go,” said the mayor. “We can and must reverse these alarming trends.”

Vice Mayor Oliver Gilbert said the public should be offended that a 6-year-old child lost her life to gunfire.

“It’s become so routine that we have these press conferences and say ‘no more.’” he said.

Last July, a 7-year-old with a bright smile named Alana Washington was shot and killed just eight blocks from the Olinda Park playground where Chassidy was remembered Tuesday. Less than a mile east of the park are colorful painted portraits of 9-year-old named Sherdavia Jenkins, whose life was taken by a bullet as she played with her brother, sister and best friend on the front stoop of her Liberty Square home. The park with her portraits now bears her name.

Gunfire over the past year has been problematic. Though homicides still remain historically low, 2020 was a particularly devastating year as far as recent statistics go, Miami-Dade records show. Through Christmas 2020, Miami-Dade recorded 272 homicides, up 31 cases from all of 2019, and up significantly for most years the past decade.

The reasons are multiple: The pandemic limited community policing and and gun sales are at record highs. The economy has tanked and people are stuck at home and frustrated. Overall, the number of people struck by gunfire was also up in 2020 by about 16 percent from a year earlier.

And the toll gun violence took on young people in 2020 and that has continued into this year has been high. There were 62 homicides of people 21 and under last year, according to records from the county’s Medical Examiner’s office. Some have been particularly jarring: Alejandro Ripley, 9, a nonverbal autistic child who drowned when police say his mother pushed him into a West Miami-Dade canal; 7-year-old Hezekiah Mucherson, shot and killed alongside his father in Miami Gardens; and newborn Ke’lani Brown, who died after his mother was shot and wounded in the head in Northwest Miami-Dade.

The cries for justice and for help from the community, they aren’t new, either. They happen almost every time a child is needlessly killed. They were heard in 2015 when a stray bullet took the life of 10-year-old Marlon Eason as he dribbled a basketball in the front yard of his Overtown home.

The grew louder in February of 2016 when King Carter, a 6-year-old on his way to the store to buy candy, was struck by a stray bullet and killed. And they crescendoed six months later when 8-year-old Jada Page lost her life to gunfire in the front yard of her home as Jada and her dad were on the way to the movies.

Still, the goal of halting gun violence that is all-too-familiar to the inhabitants of the county’s northern end has been elusive.

Also speaking Tuesday were Miami-Dade’s State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle and Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez. Rundle said the community had been devastated too often by the shooting death of a young child. Ramirez attributed most of the shootings to a small number of people.

“They don’t care about your kids and they don’t care about themselves,” he said.

At one point with the rain finally easing, Santonio Carter, King’s dad, who initiated anti-gun violence youth programs after his son’s death, implored county leaders not to ignore him and to tap his knowledge to help end the gun violence.

“I’m in the streets,” he said, “with no financial gain.”

Then the mayor made a promise about curtailing gun violence, one that’s proven tough to uphold for past administrations.

“I’ve only been in office three months,” she said. “But hold on, ‘cuz we’re gonna get it done.”