White Woman Charged With Assaulting 11-Year-Old Black Girl She Falsely Accused of Stealing Mail

The incident began when 11-year-old Skhylur Davis was falsely accused by 38-year-old Elizabeth Shirey of stealing mail. Shirey's now been charged with assault.

May 20, 2020

A white woman in South Carolina was charged with assault and battery in the third degree in connection with false accusations of mail theft she made against an 11-year-old black girl.

Per the Augusta Chronicle's report on the alleged assault against 11-year-old Skhylur Davis by 38-year-old Elizabeth Shirey, Skhylur was on her way back from picking up mail for her grandmother when Shirey came outside and started yelling at the 11-year-old child, claiming she was stealing her mail. At one point, Shirey—according to an Aiken Department of Public Safety report on the incident—"grabbed Skhylur by her arms and pulled them."

The family's lawyer, Justin Bamberg, outlined the absurdity of the May 11 incident during a recent Zoom-conducted press conference.

"We shouldn't have to sit here and have this discussion in 2020, in South Carolina on the heels of Ahmaud Arbery down in Brunswick, Georgia, a situation which the world is very much familiar," Bamberg said. "Right here in Aiken, South Carolina we have another victim and this time, the charge is assault and battery. The victim unfortunately is an 11-year-old girl."

Once Shirey noticed the address on the mail in question, she apologized, though her husband is also said to have intervened and told Skhylur that the encounter would have gone differently she were a different "type." Though no slurs are said to have been used , Skhylur noted that it wasn't difficult to understand what the husband meant by his comments.

"You don't have to think about what type he meant," Skhylur added.

As Bamberg explained, this case—for which he and his team will do "everything possible" to ensure justice—is a small part of a much larger problem. "People need to stop judging other people based on what they look like, based on the color of their skin," he said.