Hey, it's time to get weepy with the Derby. See, sometimes as parents we can barely write about the stuff in the news because we use up too many tissues and risk electrocution from tears on our laptops. But let's give it a go anyway: Selitha Parker dated Calvin Tillie for a few months before breaking it off. But Tillie kept calling and bothering Parker, and on December 2, when Parker and her 7-year-old daughter Alexis Goggins climbed into the SUV of a friend on the way to the friend's mom's birthday party, Tillie jumped into the backseat of the vehicle next to Alexis. He pulled a gun and forced them to drive around, until the friend convinced Tillie she needed to stop for gas and called 911 with the station attendant.
When she and the attendant heard shots they ran back to the vehicle, and saw Alexis curled up under the steering wheel in a pool of blood. She had leaped from the backseat to the front seat, shielding her mother with her body, saying, "Don't hurt my mother!" Six bullets hit Alexis, piercing her eye and striking her jaw and chin. She was blinded in that eye, and has undergone three operations since the shooting. Parker was struck with two slugs, and while seriously wounded, she was well enough to be released from the hospital a few days later. Tillie was arrested at the scene.
Parker said, "My baby is just an angel to her
mother. I thought as the mother, I'd be saving my child. I never
thought my daughter would be saving me." At Alexis' special education classroom at school (she has learning disabilities, suffered a stroke before age 1 and has epilepsy) classmates named a stuffed toy "Hero" and put it in her seat because they didn't want her chair to remain empty. Her teacher showed off her recent progress in writing letters in a journal. Parker's cousin said, "I know she can do it. There's
no stopping Alexis. It may take her a little longer now because of this. But she is a
fighter."
Feel free to sob without restraint.
Associated Press photo by Carlos Osorio
