Dec 17, 2007 9:16 pm US/Eastern
Child Shot Protecting Mom Hailed A Hero
DETROIT (AP) ―
As the gunman was about to open fire, 7-year-old Alexis Goggins
lunged from the back seat of the SUV and threw herself across her mom,
crying, "Don't hurt my mother!"
Six bullets from the 9 mm handgun slammed into Alexis, one piercing her right eye. Two slugs hit her mother.
Alexis' mother pulled through. But two weeks later, Alexis lies in
critical condition, blind in one eye. And to her classmates and many
people in this city so depressingly familiar with violence, the little
girl is a hero.
"She was trying to save me," her mother, Seliethia Parker, 30, told
The Associated Press on Monday. "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."
Alexis has undergone three operations since the shooting, and her mother sits by her bedside at Children's Hospital of Michigan.
As for the mother, she was seriously wounded, with one slug grazing
her head and the other entering her chest and stopping just short of an
artery. But she was released from the hospital just a few days later.
Parker's former boyfriend, Calvin Tillie, a 29-year-old ex-convict
on parole, was arrested in the shooting and charged with two counts of
assault with intent to commit murder, along with other offenses. He
could get life in prison.
Alexis is learning-disabled and lags behind other youngsters her
age. As a result, police say it may never be known whether Alexis meant
to shield her mother from the bullets with her body. But Parker said
that if her daughter hadn't put herself in between, "I really don't
know. We might have been dead."
Parker said she met Tillie earlier this year and called off the
relationship after three months, but he had other ideas. "He was
harassing me," she said. "He would constantly call my house, popping up
in the middle of the night."
Shortly after midnight on Dec. 2, police say, Alexis and her mother
climbed into their friend Aisha Ford's vehicle for a late night
birthday get-together for Ford's mother. The girl got into the back
seat, and her mother took the front passenger seat.
Tillie, who had been standing outside the house in the shadows
despite the cold, jumped into the back of the SUV, next to Alexis, and
forced Ford to drive at gunpoint for several harrowing minutes until
the woman convinced him she needed to stop for gas, according to an
account the women gave police.
Ford told police she tried to stall for time while pumping gas. As
she and the station attendant called 911, several shots erupted from
inside the vehicle. Police say the girl had jumped toward her mother in
the front seat.
Parker bolted from the SUV, screaming. Officers found Alexis curled
beneath the steering wheel in a pool of blood. Tillie was arrested at
the scene.
His attorney, Kim Basen Michon, asked for a psychological evaluation
for Tillie. The lawyer was on vacation and could not be reached for
comment Monday.
In addition to losing her right eye, Alexis was shot in the chin and
jaw. Several days after the shooting, the little girl, her face
horribly swollen and wrapped in bandages, stirred and squeezed her
mother's hand.
"She is doing much better," Parker said. "She opened up one eye. Everything seems to be going great."
In Alexis' special education classroom at Campbell Elementary
School, her classmates have named a stuffed toy with pink ears "Hero."
"We didn't want Alexis' spot to be vacant, so she's got a sweet bear
to sit in her place until she comes back," said her teacher, Angela
Lang.
Alexis suffered a stroke before age 1 and has epilepsy. Her
teacher showed off a journal revealing strides Alexis had made in
writing over the past few months. What started as an illegible series
of lines had evolved into distinct letters: A, L and E.
"I know she can do it. There's no stopping Alexis," said her
mother's cousin, Tonya Blockett-Colbert. "It may take her a little
longer now because of this. But she is a fighter."
