Maralyn Kirkland with her granddaughter, Kaia Rolle.
Meralyn Kirkland gets emotional thinking about her granddaughter handcuffed, scared and all alone in the backseat of a police car.
Yet she said the worst part was learning from 6-year-old Kaia Rolle that staff at Lucious & Emma Nixon Academy — the charter school where Orlando police Officer Dennis Turner arrested the first grader after a tantrum — didn’t intervene to discourage the arrest, or respond to the girl’s pleas for someone to accompany her as she was transported to the county’s Juvenile Assessment Center.
“I cannot accept knowing that my granddaughter was being arrested, handcuffed, taken away, and nobody said, ‘Can I go with her? Can I follow her?’” Kirkland said. "Somebody could have tried to do something to try to mediate this so she’s not as traumatized.”
Kirkland said Kaia suffers from a sleep disorder that can contribute to tantrums, but noted that her family has been proactive with treatment and working with the school. She said she’s worried how this traumatic experience will affect the young girl.
“She’s had nightmares — Kaia never has nightmares," Kirkland said. "Kaia’s a very independent girl … but now she insists on sleeping in my bed, she stays by me.”
Sisters Jennifer Adams, 31, and Lauren Kennedy, 29, are both diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, just weeks apart. There is no family history of the disease and both women tested negative for gene mutations known to increase a person’s chances of developing breast cancer
The cancer is in the sisters’ left breast but both have chosen to undergo a double mastectomy, with some lymph node removals, to decrease the chances of a recurrence.
“A lot of people say this is the easy part but we both think this is the hard part," Kennedy said. Both women said they are working to change their mindset about their femininity in the wake of their surgeries. Still, the imminent loss of their breasts takes an emotional toll.
“I don’t think you can mentally prepare — this is a hard surgery," Kennedy said. “Breasts aren’t what makes you beautiful but it’s a woman thing. It’s hard to cope with."
Returning from Mexico to visit her father and older sister in Davenport, 10-year-old Estela Juarez needed a moment alone inside her pink princess-themed bedroom to relish being back in the U.S.
A year ago, she was wedged between her sobbing mother and sister at Orlando International Airport. They were surrounded by a horde of media members as Alejandra Juarez self-deported to Mexico.
Sitting on her bed underneath a pink, star-patterned canopy last week, Estela talked about her mother’s immigration saga and the impact the separation has had on her family.
“I understand that she had to move to Mexico because she came here without permission," Estela said. “I understand she’s sad because she misses our family. I see her pain ‘cause she cries almost everyday how she misses my sister and all that, especially my dog."
Cuauhtemoc Temoî Juarez, a Marine veteran, at his Davenport home. In August of 2018, his wife Alejandra Juarez self-deported to Mexico as the result of President Trump's policy change to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Thursday, January 31, 2019.