This was one of the stories that broke our hearts. It is unbelievable to think someone could be so callous and cold to a young child, but it happened to Donald Maiden Jr., known as DJ.
DJ was playing tag in his front yard on the faithful day in September when a white neighbor walked up and shot him in the face. DJ collapsed to the ground and was eventually rushed to the hospital where he survived, but the nightmare of recovery began.
The shooter was 46 year old Brian Cloninger. The crazy thing is he told the police “he wanted to” shoot the child. Period.
With all the white men getting away with shooting black children these days, you would have thought he got away with it, but fortunately he didn’t and will rot in jail.
Obviously, little DJ and his family are traumatized by this event. It will take a lifetime of theraphy for him to try and live a normal existence, but the little man is a fighter and doing his best.
He has been hooked up to machines and breathing tubes for weeks trying to keep him alive and get him to recover, but he is now doing better. A metal plate and wire mesh was put in place to hold his damaged jaw in place.
Original Story: White Dallas man shoots 8-year-old black boy in the face as he plays tag
From the Root:
“We’re doing much better,” his mother, Monique Locklin, told The Root. “A lot better. He’s doing well.”
D.J. still has a tracheotomy tube in his neck to help him breathe, and is due for a reconstructive surgery on March 10, but he is functioning as normally as anyone could expect an 8-year-old who was shot for seemingly no reason to function.
“He goes to school, he still plays outside,” Locklin said. “Light playing, but he still does everything pretty normally like he would before.”
His March surgery is also expected to be his last for a while, although more operations are in his future as he grows.
“As his face enhances he’ll have to keep on getting it fixed,” his mother said.
Physical well-being aside, however, the toll that the shooting has had on D.J.’s mental health has been severe, to say the least.
“He’s afraid that [Cloninger] is going to get out of jail [and come for him] … or that he’ll hurt somebody else,” Locklin said, saying that D.J. goes to therapy once a week. “He has nightmares almost every night. He won’t sleep alone, and he wakes up almost every night crying because he has nightmares.”
Our hearts and love go out to this young boy and his family. Can’t imagine having to deal with this tragedy. We pray he is able to have a full recovery and a great life.
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