A teenager arrested as an 11-year-old in an incident that sparked huge condemnation in the US has died from COVID-19.
Honestie Hodges, 14, died on Sunday in a children’s hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan, her grandmother said.
Alisa Niemeyer wrote on a GoFundMe fundraising page: “It is with an extremely heavy heart that I have to tell all of you that my beautiful, sassy, smart loving Granddaughter has gone home to be with Jesus.”
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She tested positive for the virus on her 14th birthday. Pic: GoFundMe
Honestie, her mother and aunt were handcuffed by police outside their home in December 2017.
The incident was captured on body-cam and showed Honestie distressed and screaming as police arrested her – despite them searching for a 40-year-old white woman suspected in a stabbing.
It led to worldwide attention and forced police to introduce changes, The New York Times reports.
At the time, Honestie told US broadcaster Fox17: “I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t do anything wrong, I’ve never got in trouble by the Grand Rapids Police.
“I used to want to be a Grand Rapids police officer, but ever since that happened, I want nothing to do with them.”
Honestie was taken to hospital on her birthday, on 9 November, where she tested positive for coronavirus and was sent home.
She was rushed back in an ambulance the same evening and moved to intensive care.
Her grandmother said she was put on a ventilator and given blood transfusions.
On 18 November, she said Honestie was “not doing well at all” and that doctors “didn’t know if she was going to make it or not”.
Her death has prompted an outpouring of support on her GoFundMe page, set up to help Honestie’s mother cover health costs and care for her four other children.
The page has raised over $60,000 (£44,940), with thousands leaving messages of condolence.
There have been over 262,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the US to date, according to Johns Hopkins University.