VILLA RICA, Ga. (AP) — Shaquille O’Neal is offering to pay for the funeral expenses of a 12-year-old Georgia girl who died days after she collapsed after an after-school fight.
The former NBA star said he doesn’t want Jada Smith’s family to have to bear the financial burden of a funeral while mourning the sixth-grader who died in a hospital on March 8.
“As a father, my heart goes out to Jada’s family,” O’Neal said in a statement. “No parent should have to bury their child, and if I can do anything to ease even a small part of the burden, then it’s the right thing to do.”
O’Neill’s proposal was announced in a joint news release by the Douglas County Sheriff, where the brawl occurred, and the Henry County Sheriff, where O’Neill owns a home and serves as the sheriff’s director of community relations. Both counties are located in suburban Atlanta.
Police in Villa Rica, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Atlanta, are investigating the girl’s death. Police said on March 5, Jada got into a fight with another girl near a nearby bus stop after school. Jada died in hospital three days later.
Sgt. Police spokesman Spencer Crawford said investigators were reviewing cellphone video of the fight posted to social media, which showed Jada and another girl approaching each other and starting to punch each other after the school bus left. The video shows the girls falling to the ground before adults intervene. The story ends when Jada picks up her backpack and starts walking away.
She never came home. Sgt. Police spokesman Spencer Crawford said emergency crews were dispatched to reports of a “teenager lying in the street in cardiac arrest.”
Autopsy results to determine the cause of death have not yet been released.
Jada’s funeral is scheduled for Saturday, one of the girl’s aunts, Lindsey McClendon Pettiford, said in a social media post.
