Over the decades, in multiple mass shooting incidents, Americans have been horrified by the deaths of their fellow citizens. When one of the victims is a child, however, the horror seems to cut a lot deeper. When it turns out the child was special from the minute she was born, her death is almost like losing a member of one’s own family.
Nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green arrived on this earth on a day of overwhelming tragedy. Born in Maryland on Sept. 11, 2001, Green was featured in the book, “Faces of Hope,” which features babies from the 50 U.S. states who were born on the same day as the terrorist attacks that took nearly 3,000 lives.
“It [9/11] was very, very special to her,” said her mother, Roxanna Green, in a phone interview with Fox News. “She would tell people when she was younger that, ‘I was born on a holiday,’ and then we would have to correct her. But she would “always try to see the positive in it,” her mom added, because a holiday is “a day of hope, and everyone getting together, and finding the good, and the hope.”
On Jan. 8, 2011, Christina was the youngest victim of a mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz. The nine-year-old third grader had just been elected to the student council at Mesa Verde Elementary School in Tucson. Her father, John Green, told the media his daughter had been interested in politics from a young age. Roxanna Green said that her daughter was “very interested in government, she was interested in her community, how she could help her community.”
That interest sparked a neighbor’s invitation to attend a “Congress on your Corner” session at a local shopping mall to meet Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. The civics lesson turned to tragedy when a gunman opened fire on the crowd, injuring 20 people, including Giffords. Five people died at the scene. Fourteen were wounded, including the congresswoman, who suffered a gunshot wound to the head and is in critical condition at a nearby hospital.
Christina was also rushed to the hospital, where trauma experts tried to save her life but were unable to resuscitate her.
Christina’s uncle, Greg Segalini, spoke afterwards to the Arizona Republic, asking “How do you prepare for something like this? My little niece got killed — took one on the chest and she is dead.”
She was athletic and from a sports family. Christina’s father is a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers and her grandfather is former major league pitcher and ex-Philadelphia Phillies manager Dallas Green, according to ESPN. She played Little League herself - the only girl on an all-boys team, her mother told reporters. The brown-eyed girl had an 11-year-old brother named Dallas and had already said she wanted to attend Penn State one day and have a career that involved helping other people, according to local news reports.
Phillies president David Montgomery said in a statement, “She was a talented young girl with a bright promising future. Her untimely death weighs heavily on our hearts. Our thoughts and prayers are with all the families affected by yesterday's horrific shooting."
"I have a really empty feeling about this," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said on MLB.com. "I have two grandsons and I know what they mean to me. I remember Dallas telling me how smart she was. He said she gave him a warm feeling when she was around."
Almost immediately after her death was announced, a worldwide outpouring of support for the family began, including several Facebook pages where thousands of total strangers offered the family their prayers and condolences.
"As young as she was, Christina talked about getting all the parties to come together so we could live in a better country," her mother told ABC News. "She was going to Giffords' event to ask questions about how she could help and to learn more about politics in our country."
"She was proud of her country and wanted to know more about the political process," she said. "She was a beautiful girl inside and out."
Green also told ABC News she hopes that her daughter's death brings change to the political landscape in the United States. "All I want is awareness and change, just like Christina would," Green said.