Ka’Mani’ Kirkland planned to study nursing so she would have a career helping others, according to her mother. But the 18-year-old never got the chance.
Kirkland was killed in May 2020 in what investigators believe was an accidental shooting. This week, a Cobb County grand jury indicted the shooter, Christopher Lemon Morris, on charges of involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct, according to the Cobb district attorney.
Morris, then 17, was a former classmate of Kirkland’s and was riding in her backseat at the time of the shooting, according to her family. She had picked up Morris, and Kirkland’s mother said she believes he may have been showing off a gun when he fired it.
“I think he got his hands on something he had no knowledge of,” Maisa Bates, Kirkland’s mother, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution days after the shooting. “It ended up taking my baby’s life, out of ignorance. It’s so senseless.”
Kirkland was a recent South Cobb High School honors graduate and was set to begin nursing school. The youngest of eight siblings and half-siblings, Kirkland was with a half-sister when she was killed. Bates thinks the two girls picked up Morris and planned to hang out.
Bates said she doesn’t want other families to face the pain of losing a child because guns are in the wrong hands.
“This has got to stop,” she said.
Morris was arrested after the shooting and released on $25,000 bond.
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