Читать книгу Guilty When Black - Carol Mersch - Страница 9

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Not an ordinary day

ON November 18, 2013, Keahmiee fixed herself shrimp in a skillet with grease for lunch and left the skillet on the back burner of the stove. She kissed the children goodbye and left for her two o’clock shift.

Less than an hour later, Miashah heated pre-grilled chicken strips for the children’s lunch, a task that took less than five minutes. After feeding Noni, she changed the baby’s diaper and put the two girls in her bedroom to watch television. She turned the burner off and left to carry the dirty diaper and the rest of the trash to the dumpster, taking care to lock the door behind her to ensure the youngsters couldn’t get out to the walkway with the missing wooden slats.

Surveillance cameras show Miashah leaving her apartment in the far southwest corner of the building and proceeding down the outside stairs to the trash bin in the parking lot directly next to the building. After emptying the trash, she stopped at a pop machine and crossed the parking lot to visit briefly with a tenant who waved her down from a nearby building.

When she turned to head back to her apartment, she saw black smoke billowing from the southwest corner of building 700—right where only a few minutes earlier she had left Noni and Nylah secure and happy, watching television in her bedroom.

The rest was a blur.

As fire trucks, EMS, and Tulsa Police screamed into the complex, Miashah fell to the ground screaming “My babies! Somebody save my babies!” A helicopter from a local news station circled overhead, capturing the ferocious blaze and surrounding chaos. A man was seen trying to climb up the outside of the building to the porch but he fell off because the bricks were too hot.

London Square 2005 fire (Courtesy: Tulsa NewsOn6)

Courtney, Miashah’s stepfather, was the first to answer her frantic calls and raced to London Square, where he found her curled up on the ground in front of the complex, hysterical and vomiting from smoke inhalation. He watched as a policeman approached Miashah and threatened to restrain her if she didn’t calm down. Courtney wrapped his arms around her and held her tight as they watched #716 burn.

There was nothing they could do.

Miashah’s mother, Chrisandria, was completing her shift as a Tulsa school bus driver when her cell phone rang. Drivers are prohibited from using cell phones on duty, so she didn’t answer. By the sixth or seventh call, a bad feeling came over her. With the phone in her lap she punched the speaker button. What came next would change her life: Courtney was sobbing and screaming something about the babies, Miashah, and a fire.

The conversation was overrun by an urgent call from the school radio dispatcher: “TPS Route 1120, SB21. Please, come in.”

“They almost never used my government call sign,” she said. Her hand was shaking as she keyed the radio. An emotional dispatcher pleaded, “Chrisandria, sweetheart, please, please call the office!”

News from the dispatcher confirmed the alarming event. Chrisandria returned the bus to the school bus depot, picked up Keahmiee from work, and drove straight to Saint Francis Hospital. When they entered the children’s hospital room, Noni appeared to be sleeping peacefully. “Wake up, baby,” Chrisandria whispered, patting her cheek. “Wake up.”

The children were pronounced dead at 3:45 p.m. Miashah wasn’t there when her nieces died. Courtney had left her with a cousin, as by now she was covered head to toe with vomit.