Friend indicted in shooting that killed S. Cobb honor grad

According to her mother, Ka’Mani’ Kirkland, a recent South Cobb High School honors graduate, planned to study nursing, but the 18-year-old never got the chance. In May 2020, Kirkland was killed in what investigators initially believe was an accidental shooting. This week, a Cobb County grand jury indicted Kirkland’s  shooter, Christopher Lemon Morris, on charges of involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct, according to the Cobb District Attorney Flynn Broady.

Morris, then 17, was a former classmate of Kirkland’s and was riding in her backseat at the time of the shooting after she picked up Morris. Kirkland’s mother said she believes he may have been showing off a gun when he fired it. “I think he got his hands on something he had no knowledge of,” Maisa Bates, Kirkland’s mother said. “It ended up taking my baby’s life, out of ignorance. It’s so senseless.”

The youngest of eight siblings and half-siblings, Kirkland was set to begin nursing school.  Kirkland was with a half-sister when she was killed. Bates thinks her daughters picked up Morris and planned to hang out when everything went wrong.

Morris was arrested after the shooting and released on $25,000 bond. His indictment in that incident occurred last week.

Bates said she doesn’t want other families to face the pain of losing a child because guns are in the wrong hands. “This has got to stop,” said the grieving mother,