WI 11-Year-Old Who Prayed For End To Gun Violence Fatally Shot

MADISON, WI — “They won’t stop killing; they won’t stop. God, can you make it better?” Anisa Scott tearfully prayed as a 7-year-old after a boy she didn't know was shot and killed in Chicago.

Four years later, the Madison, Wisconsin, girl was shot and killed while riding in a car. Investigators said the bullet that lodged in her head Aug. 11 was intended for the driver. It was another shooting during a summer in which gun violence has surged.

“This can’t be OK, this can’t be something we as a city or community accept,” Acting Police Chief Vic Wahl said at a news conference last week.

“God, I just want to go outside to play, like a 7-year-old is supposed to,” Anisa prayed in the 2016 video that touched hearts around the world hurt by stories of bullets that too often find children. “I don’t want to die.”

You can watch the video here.

Four children between the ages of 1 and 17 die of gun violence every day in America, according to the Brady Center, which used emergency room data collected by the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project in a comprehensive look at how gun violence affects different populations.

Anisa’s prayer four years ago included a special plea for Chicago, America’s third-largest city, where the young boy whose death touched her heart was among 50 people killed in a weekend of gun violence.

“God,” she said, her clasped hands pointing upward in prayer as she knelt by a bed, “no one else is fixing Chicago, so I’m asking you. Can you please fix Chicago?”

When Anisa prayed, her stepfather — faith-based filmmaker Rafael Ragland — reassured her “that won’t happen to you,” he told CNN.

“Where you live, it’s not like that,” he said. “Where we live, here, it’s not like that. It’s not like Chicago.”

Anisa appeared in many of Ragland’s films and preferred those in which she got to see God, her stepfather told CNN. In one video that has been shared since her death, she was shot and went into a coma.

“And when she came out of the coma, she was talking about [how] she met God,” Ragland said. “She wanted it to be seen, so I’m sad that it took this for people to see it.”

Anisa’s mother, Ashley Rios, and father, Marcel Scott, made the painful decision to remove their 11-year-old daughter from life support at 11:11 a.m. Thursday. At that moment, mourners released silver, red, pink and purple balloons from a park near the hospital in a signal to her family that they joined them in mourning her death.

“It’s time for this to stop, it’s time for this to come to an end,” Lillian Hopkins, who starred in a YouTube series with Anisa called “Madison Situations,” told the Wisconsin State Journal. “We don’t need to be burying our babies because of gun violence.”

Anisa was one of those kids who “stand out as little beacons of light,” Matt Carr, whose son Declan had been friends with the slain girl since kindergarten, told the State Journal, describing her as kind, polite and quick to stand up for her friends.

Declan, who will begin sixth grade at Prairie View Middle School without his good friend, was stunned by the news she had been shot.

“I just can’t believe this, it’s really unfair,” he said. “She never deserved this.”

Friends and strangers alike showed up for the memorial. “That could have been anybody’s child,” Lavern Brown, a mother of two who didn’t know Anisa, told the State Journal.

“I grew up in Madison, born and raised, so just to see this happen it’s kind of tragic because it used to didn’t be like this,” Brown said. “She was in a car. It’s like you can’t even have kids enjoy a ride.”

Perion R. Carreon, 19, and Andre P. Brown, 16, both of Madison, were each charged with first-degree murder Tuesday, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. Anisa was in the front seat of the SUV driven by her mother’s boyfriend, Christopher Carthans. Investigators have not said why they believe Carthans was targeted.

Carreon and Brown also face charges of attempted first-degree intentional homicide. Carreon faces several other charges in unrelated cases.

Bail was set at $2.1 million for Carreon and $1.5 million for Brown.

A “heaven-on-Earth homegoing celebration” for Anisa will be held Saturday, beginning with an 11 a.m. unity march from the state Capitol in Madison to Breese Stevens Municipal Athletic Field at 917 E. Mifflin St. A private funeral will follow.

Funeral arrangements were made by the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County, which said on Facebook that Concero CEO Amy Arenz had donated $10,000 to cover funeral expenses. Rios, Anisa’s mother, said in an interview with Channel 3000 that she appreciates the community support.

In an announcement of the public services last weekend, Rios said she thanked “everybody who has reached out” to offer ways to remember her daughter, including through T-shirts and other artwork.

“I’m just speechless at the amount of love and support and just overall greatness from everybody around me,” Rios said. “I am only able to be strong because of y’all and I just want to thank everybody.”

At Saturday’s services, between 500 and 1,000 people are expected to “show unity by marching behind Anisa’s casket, which will be carried in a low-rider monster truck, one of her favorite things. Those attending are encouraged to wear white and red, her favorite color.

“The family thought it was important for the Madison Police Department to be there, people who are participating in protests to kind of bring the community together in unity,” Boys and Girls Club of Dane County President and CEO Michael Johnson told the Cap Journal. “Her family made it clear to me that they wanted this memory to be tied to a unity campaign around ending gun violence and bringing the community together and not dividing our community.”

Rios “was clear that she wanted the public to send her baby off, and she wanted it to be inclusive of the community,” Johnson told Channel 3000.