Tag: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department

The teenage girl slammed to the ground by a school resource officer at West Charlotte High School has gone from singing, dancing and interacting with her siblings to sleeping all the time, her mother told The Charlotte Observer on Saturday.

Freshman Ke’Nadie Cathey suffered a “serious brain injury” after the Oct. 31 incident, family attorney Micheal Littlejohn said. A CT scan “confirmed bleeding on the brain,” or a subdural hematoma, he said. She began having seizures, he said.

“Everybody’s upset and angry and feeling overprotective about the whole situation,” said her mother, Shakera Rorie. “We just want something done, and this never happened to us before, so we don’t even know what steps to take.”

The family took one step on Saturday when they held a press conference outside the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s headquarters in uptown. They held up signs that read “DEMANDING JUSTICE FOR KE’NADIE” and wore matching black.

All she knows, Rorie told the Observer after that press conference, is that her daughter got into a fight at school before the officer slammed her to the ground.

The incident was partly caught on video. It showed a crowd of people in a bus lot, watching a fight. A police officer in the middle of the crowd held a stun gun as he picked up a female student — apparently Cathey — and slammed her. Another officer walked over as she was motionless.

Rorie has heard nothing from CMPD except for when they asked for a statement from her daughter, she said.

The family’s hope is for something “more than a suspension,” she said. For now, she has taken her daughter back to the hospital several times, she said, and another appointment is scheduled.

The girl’s father, Keai Cathey, simply asked that the community pray.

At one point during Saturday’s press conference, one of the girl’s siblings suddenly collapsed on the steps outside CMPD’s headquarters, seemingly fainting. It was just another sign of what the family was going through, Rorie said.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday afternoon.

Deputy Chief Ryan Butler previously said that the officer in the video is on administrative leave while criminal and internal affairs investigations are underway. Police want information from witnesses, they have said.

Ryan Oehrli covers criminal justice in the Charlotte region for The Charlotte Observer. His work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The Observer maintains full editorial control of its journalism.