The image of 5-year-old Raven Wyatt's little pink sandals next to a pool of blood and surrounded by crime scene tape last July was a grim reminder that while gun violence in the city is down to levels not seen in decades, it remains an all too common in some neighborhoods - and doesn't exclusively affect warring drug dealers. Raven was critically injured, and sources told me at the time that the prognosis was bleak.
But her family never accepted that as an outcome, and I'm happy to report in today's paper that Raven, now six, has been quietly progressing well in her recovery. With a bullet still lodged in her cerebellum, she emerged from a coma, began speaking, and is now up and walking and out of the hospital. She attends therapy five days a week, and she's quite independent. We watched her go up and down the steps of her family's home, and snack on cheese, crackers and juice without any help. As her mother told me repeatedly, "She's like anybody else."
The trial of the 17-year-old accused of firing the bullet is scheduled to begin Monday. But that's far from the mind of her family, who are focused on Raven's recovery. I met her mother, Danielle Brooks, 31, who is raising five children alone, and her grandfather, Wallace, who is looking forward to taking Raven to the National Aquarium - it will be the first trip there for both of them. Colleen Smith, a 29-year-old missionary from Kansas who works in Southwest Baltimore, and Sonya Johnson-Branch, a physical therapist at Mt Washington Pediatric Hospital, also talked about their work with the family.