THE USA celebrated its Independence day last Saturday, colloquially known as the Fourth of July. But this year’s holiday weekend was marked with dozens of murders and shootings, including the murder of six children.

One of the children is 8-year-old Secoriea Turner, killed on the border of the new “autonomous zone” set up in Atlanta by the anti-racists from the Black Lives Matter Movement, obviously inspired by a similar “autonomous zone” in Seattle.

Children killed in Washington, Chicago, and Atlanta

Besides her, an 11-year-old boy in Washington and a 7-year-old girl in Chicago have also been killed. The girl, Natalia Wallace, was shot in the head while she was playing with other children. 

According to CBS News, seventeen people have been killed in Chicago, and more than 70 have been injured. Fifty people have been injured in New York, and 11 killed; one of them was a man who was killed in a drive-by shooting while he was walking with his 9-year-old daughter. 

Two police officers have also been injured when a bullet hit the windshield of their car in the Bronx, on Saturday around midnight.

Let’s remind you that the protesters in Seattle have been occupying the area around the police station for a month, calling it “The Autonomous Zone Capitol Hill” until the police chased them away last week, after many shootings and murders that had happened in the zone.

On the other hand, in Atlanta, the protesters occupied a fast food restaurant Wendy’s and the area around it, where a police officer killed a young Rayshard Brooks on June 12, after he resisted the arrest, ran off and stole their taser with which he allegedly tried to hit the officer while running before he was shot in the back. The police officer Garreth Rolfe was arrested and accused of murder, while protests and riots broke out in Atlanta, just as it happened in Minneapolis after the police killed George Floyd.

8-year-old girl killed in a car near barriers in front of the protester’s zone 

The protesters firstly set the restaurant Wendy’s on fire, in front of which Brooks was killed, and they occupied it. 8-year-old Secoriea Turner was killed not far away from the place where Brooks was killed, while she was riding in the car with her mom and another person. The group of armed men fired at the vehicle, and the girl succumbed to her wounds in a nearby hospital.

The suspects haven’t been found for now, but the murder happened near the barrier, which was set up by the protesters at the entrance of the occupied zone, and guarded by armed militants, just like in Seattle. The car, in which the girl was killed, tried to bypass the barrier to continue its way, said Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, while Fox News reported the news.  

“You’ve shot a little girl. And there were at least two killers,” said Lance Bottoms, being an African American herself, to the protesters.

“At the point that an 8-year-old baby is killed, the discussions have ended. “Now we are demanding action for Secoriea Turner, and all other people who were shot in Atlanta last night. Enough is enough. If you want people to take us seriously and you don’t want us to lose this movement, we can’t lose each other,” Bottoms said during a Sunday-night news conference. She announced that the city will clear the area and will no longer negotiate with protesters. 

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp also declared the state of emergency and authorized the activation of 1,000 National Guard troops.

“Peaceful protests were hijacked by criminals with a dangerous, destructive agenda. Now, innocent Georgians are being targeted, shot, and left for dead,” the Republican governor said. The anarchy has to stop, and the order has to be restored in our capital city,” said the governor Kemp.

“They say Black Lives Matter. You’ve killed your own”

At the end of last month, Fox News recorded a short reportage and a conversation with three protesters armed with shotguns guarding the “occupied zone” entrance in Atlanta.

“The police aren’t allowed here because they aren’t here to protect us,” said the armed protester to the reporter, expressing the same stand as the protesters that occupied “The Autonomous Zone Capitol Hill” in Seattle. 

In the meantime, the police offered a 10,000 dollars reward for any information about the killers of the 8-year-old Turner. The police have also announced that two more people have been killed during the weekend, and more than 20 people have been injured in the shootings.

“They say Black Lives Matter. They killed their own,” said the father of the late Secoriea Turner, Secoriya Williamson. “They killed my baby when she crossed the barrier. You killed a baby. She didn’t do anything to anyone,” he added. 

In the meantime, the police have cleared the area around Wendy’s restaurants, which the protesters occupied, and the communal services remove the barriers.