Victim’s Aunt on How She Told Her Children Laddie was Dead

Sharon Meighan

Laddie’s aunt also had to process how to tell her teenage children that he had been shot and killed by police.  Sharon Meighan told Open Your Eyes hosts that she tried to balance telling them the truth, and maintaining their respect for the police.

Sharon Meighan, Aunt of Laddie Gillett

“At the first beginning, I processed the information and I wanted to lie to them to be honest. I wasn’t sure if telling them the truth would have been too gruesome. And, after thinking a while I realized that I cannot hold the truth back from these children. They are not babies. They will hear it on social media. They will hear it on the streets. I decided that telling them the truth of what happened will be better in the longer run. I sat down with them and told them that this is what happened; Laddie is no longer with us. There was something happened in Placencia while he was there with his uncle Emil and got shot by a police officer. My son, he couldn’t understand. He said, “Mommy that cannot be true. Police officers are there to protect us that cannot be true. Was it an accident? What happened?” And, I told him what happened, and right away he had this feeling in his heart towards police men. And I said, “Tay, these police men are there to protect us, and no matter what happened last night, we should have respect for our police officers at all times. We need to find out what really happened, and I don’t want you to have this feeling at all about police officers. They are the law, they are there to protect us, and this unfortunate occurrence just happened, and we need to find out what happened.”