She was only six.
Six — the age of bright hair bows, unicorn backpacks, and stuffed animals that go everywhere.
Six — the age of giggles that sound like sunshine, hands too small to hold anything heavy, and dreams too big to fit inside a bedroom.
But on May 17, 2021, as six-year-old Aniya Allen sat in the backseat eating McDonald’s after a happy day at the lake with her mom, a stray bullet ended her life in an instant.
A single moment of violence.
A single shot fired by someone she never met.
A single wound that tore through a family, a city, and a nation still asking the same question:
How does a child die on her way home from getting dinner?
A Perfect Day That Ended in the Darkest Way
It had been a simple outing — one filled with sunshine, water, laughter, and a tired little girl still buzzing with joy from the lake. On the drive home, her mother did what any parent would do:
She stopped to get her daughter’s favorite meal.
McDonald’s fries.
A Happy Meal.
A moment of comfort, routine, normalcy.
Aniya climbed into the backseat, opened her food, and took a bite — the kind of small, ordinary moment that makes childhood feel safe.
But safety was an illusion.
Because while she was chewing, smiling, talking, living… another car was approaching.
And someone inside it pulled a trigger.
Her world — and her mother’s — changed before they had time to understand what was happening.
Gunfire exploded in the street.
The car shook.
Her mother screamed.
Aniya slumped over, a bullet lodged in her tiny head.
The car was still rolling when her mother realized her daughter wasn’t responding.
She didn’t wait for an ambulance.
She didn’t call 911.
She didn’t stop to think.
She grabbed her wounded child and drove — fast, frantic, praying the whole way — to the nearest hospital.
But prayers weren’t enough.
Aniya died shortly after arriving.
A little girl who had spent her last minutes eating fries in the backseat never made it home.
