Neighbor calls police on 9-year-old girl who wrote ‘Black Lives Matter’ in chalk

CANAL WINCHESTER, Ohio — Police spoke with a 9-year-old Ohio girl in response to a neighbor’s 9-1-1 call after the girl wrote “Black Lives Matter” in chalk on a neighborhood street.

“I wrote, ‘Black Lives Matter,‘” Mira Acklin told WBNS-TV on Wednesday. “I think that black and white people they should be treated the same, and I wanted to show my support and how much I really care about black people.”

Mira’s mother, Jenna Acklin, said that police who arrived on the scene told the Acklins they had done nothing wrong and were in the parameters of the law.

Jenna Acklin also said officers spoke with the neighbor that had placed the call.

“He got out of the car and talked to her and said she had called and said there was vandalizing in the street and screaming,” she said.

In the moment, Mira was scared and shaken, and Jenna said she was angry.

“She said, ‘I’ve seen the police before, but they’ve never been coming to get me,‘” Jenna told WSYX-TV. “I said, ‘You know, honey, as uncomfortable as you feel, you also have to know your friends and other people of color feel this fear every day, multiplied times one million.”

Neighborhood friends of Mira watched as the incident unfolded and said they were also upset.

“I was feeling kind of scared. It wasn’t fair to the other people,” Mira’s friend, Jayden Schadle, told WBNS-TV. “God put us in this world to be all to all get along but some people don’t agree with that.”

Christopher Burton, who heard about what happened in the Acklin’s neighborhood, said he supported what Mira was doing and wanted his daughter to help Mira with her drawings.

“It was alarming that we’ve reached a point in life to where we have to call the police on a third-grader who just simply wants to voice her opinion and voice her feelings,” he told WSYX-TV. “I think that’s a very sad position of where we have come to be in this world.”

In the days after the situation, more people in the neighborhood stopped by to look at the chalk art, and some even added to it.

“Keep on chalking, Mira,” one neighbor wrote.

Cox Media Group