Ma’Khia Bryant squabbled with two other teens about a messy house and an unmade bed before she was fatally shot by police, her foster mom said in a new interview.
Angela Moore told CNN that two of her former foster children came to her Columbus, Ohio, home on Tuesday for her birthday when 16-year-old Bryant began bickering with the others about housekeeping.
“It was over keeping the house clean. The older one told them to clean up the house because ‘Mom doesn’t like the house dirty,'” Moore recalled being told when she arrived home from work.
“So that’s how it all started,” she added.
Police on Wednesday released dramatic bodycam footage that appears to show Bryant lunging with a knife at a girl before she was fatally shot by a police officer who was later named in reports as Nicholas Reardon.
He had been placed on paid leave pending an investigation after the incident.
The foster mom told CNN that the girls “argue all the time,” adding that she “never thought it would escalate like that.”
Moore said she got a frantic call from one of her former foster children, who is seen on video wearing pink as Ma’Khia lunges at her with a knife.
“‘Mom, get home! Where are you? They’re going crazy,'” Moore said the young woman told her. “She said they shot Ma’Kiah and I said, ‘Huh?’ It was just crazy.”
Moore said she then started to pray and soon got text messages from people saying, “I’m sorry.”
When she arrived home, a police officer told her Ma’Khia had died.
“She was fun. She liked to dance. She did chores around the house,” Moore said.
“I never in my worst nightmare would have thought it would ever come to this,” she added.
