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Honestie Hodges, whose 2017 encounter with police in Grand Rapids, Mich., Went viral and sparked national outrage, died on Sunday from complications from COVID-19.
She was 14 years old.
Honestie’s grandmother, Alisa Niemeyer, has shared news of her passing a GoFundMe page which had been created to support Honestie’s mother and her four other children while Honestie was in hospital.
“It is with an extremely heavy heart that I must tell you that my sassy, intelligent and loving beautiful granddaughter has come home to be with Jesus,” Niemeyer wrote of Honestie on Sunday.
According to The New York Times, Honestie had started to experience severe stomach pain on November 9 – her 14th birthday.
That evening, Honestie was taken to the intensive care unit at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids. Honestie received iron and blood transfusions over the next few days and was finally placed on a ventilator on November 14.
Niemeyer said local station affiliated with NBC WOOD-TV that before Honestie contracted COVID-19, she was “healthy” and “happy” with no underlying health issues.
Honestie gained attention after an incident on December 6, 2017, in which Honestie walked out the back door of her home with her mother and another family member when confronted by police.
“Put your hands on your …” an officer ordered them before being interrupted by Honestie’s mother who shouted: “She is 11, sir!”
“Stop screaming!” the officer responded, according to body camera footage of an officer.
The footage then showed the officer ordering Honestie to walk back towards him with his hands in the air.
A second officer pulled Honestie’s arms behind her back and handcuffed her, and Honestie shouted, “No, no, no!
Police removed the handcuffs within minutes and later claimed they were looking for a 40-year-old woman in connection with a stabbing, according to the Times.
Honestie, who was black, told MLive.com at the time: ‘I have a question for the Grand Rapids Police Department: if this happened to a white child, if her mother was screaming,’ She’s 11 ‘ ‘, handcuffed her and put her in the back of a police car?
At a press conference, then police chief David Rahinsky said: “Listening to the 11-year-old’s response turns my stomach; it makes me nauseous physically.
Although none of the police officers involved in the incident were punished, with Rahinsky claiming at the time that they had not violated any official policy, the national outrage that followed prompted the police department to implementation of internal changes.
In March 2018, the force implemented the “honesty policy”, in favor of using the least restrictive methods possible when interacting with younger populations.
Niemeyer told WOOD-TV that she hopes the Battle of Honesty against COVID-19 serves as a warning about the reality of the pandemic.
“We have to take this seriously,” Niemeyer said. “I know there are people who just don’t want to take this seriously and who don’t want the government to tell them what they can and cannot do. I understand that, but at the end of the day it’s a real, real thing. “
the Centers for Disaster Control and Prevention noted that while deaths from coronaviruses are particularly rare in children compared to older populations, Hispanic and black children are more likely than their white peers to be hospitalized or admitted to an intensive care unit.
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