Back in September, an African-American 8-year-old named Donald Maiden Jr. was shot by his white neighbor, Brian Cloninger, while playing tag outside just days after his birthday.
It’s almost 6 months later and the young boy is finally beginning to make a full recovery after being in critical condition for a very long time.
While he spent many weeks in the hospital on life support and utilizing breathing tubes, Donald is “doing much better” according to his mother.
According to Political Blind Spot, however, there are still some complications with his physical health.
The site reports:
Donald still has a tracheotomy tube in his neck to help with breathing. He has continued reconstructive surgery scheduled for March 10th. But considering what he’s been through, his recovery is remarkable.
“He goes to school, he still plays outside,” his mother said. “Light playing, but he still does everything pretty normally like he would before. As his face enhances he’ll have to keep on getting it fixed.”
The worst to come from the incident has been the psychological trauma that he faces, as his mother says he is afraid when he is outside and in public.
His mother told the site:
“He has nightmares almost every night. He won’t sleep alone, and he wakes up almost every night crying because he has nightmares.”
As for Cloninger, D.J.’s mother explained, “I just want to see him get punished to the maximum, and I just want justice for what he did, because it really was unnecessary and just cruel. I don’t want him to be able to be free so he could do that to someone else.”
We keep Donald in our prayers and will continue to hope that justice is served.
SOURCE: Political Blind Spot | PHOTO CREDIT: CBS
