Where is Ja'Niah Bryant now? Ma'khia Bryant's sister describes her as 'other half': 'She just wanted to be great'
Ja'Niah Bryant, Ma'Khia Bryant's sister in an interview has opened up about her relationship with her sister, her hopes and dreams. Ja'Niah also spoke about what her sister would have been like had she not been shot down dead by a police officer who claimed that he attempted to break a fight in which Ma'khia had allegedly brandished a knife at the woman in front of her.
She appeared on 'Good Morning America', as a guest for ABC News' Eva Pilgrim's show where she spoke about her relationship with her sister and called her as the other half. She said, "We did everything together." The fifteen-year-old also added that she had called 911 on the day her sister Ma'Khia had been shot.
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The recording of the phone call was accessed by ABC News who played it for the viewers in which Ja'Niah can be heard asking the police to "get here now." In the background, there is screaming and over it Ja'Niah explains that the police have to come right away because there were "grown girls over here trying to fight us, trying to stab us."
Before this, Ja'Niah had reportedly made another call to the police, on March 28. On this day, she had informed the police officers who responded to the residence that she wanted to transfer to a different foster home. This had happened after Ja'Niah had had an argument with her sister, and the same was noted in the report accessed by the media. Speaking of this, Ja'Niah said, "I wanted to leave. She wanted to leave, too. But my biggest fear was us being split up again."
Where is Ja'Niah Bryant now?
She also described the situation in the foster home as 'complex'. It must be noted that Ja'Niah and Ma'Khia reunited just a few months ago after having been placed in separate foster care from her sister before. Bryant's attorney Michelle Martin told 'Good Morning America' that the foster home "did the best they could with what they had available". Martin revealed that the reason why there was a problem on the day of the shooting was that one of the foster sisters who had lived in the same house had wanted the other girls to clean the house after a party that she had thrown.
Martin alleges that the situation "escalated to threatening behavior, in an effort to, you know, quote-unquote discipline them and tell them what to do." She explains that the girls had at that point "felt unsafe and began to be attacked." So they called their grandmother, their foster mother Angela Moore who was at work that time, and eventually 911. Ja'Niah then said of her sister that "she was being a bigger sister," and added, "she was trying to protect herself."
Ja'Niah also revealed that she had now moved in with her grandmother and this was something that she had wished for her and her sister Ma'Khia all along. Martin also added, "If your family needs assistance, we should have been able to support them as a community," and said, "I think that we're missing the bigger picture and that they were victims of our failing system."
Meanwhile, Ja'Niah also said that she hopes people do not judge her sister by what they have seen in the video footage so far. She remembers her sister as a good person who loved her family, dance battles, singing, applying makeup and styling her hair. She wanted to grow up and be successful, said the sister and added that Ma'Khia loved animals and wanted to be a veterinarian. "She just wanted to be great," Ja'Niah said. "She wanted to grow up and be great."