While defending her 12-year-old daughter from a dangerous brawl, the mother was fatally stabbed. The 43-year-old woman died outside of her residence in Staten Island, New York City. While protecting her pre-teen daughter, one of the brawlers stabbed Jennira Roundtree in the chest multiple times.
Videos by Wide Open Country
This horrible incident occurred around 7:30 PM on Tuesday when a social-media-motivated brawl started on Henderson Avenue. One of the neighbors revealed to The Daily News that a group of girls started picking a fight with the young daughter. The mother was quick to jump into action, according to the 30-year-old neighbor.
Mother Tragically Dies After Protecting Daughter In Brawl
"Some girls come in to fight with the little girl and some friends, they go upstairs and then the sister was coming," they explained. "I don't know where her mom came from. Maybe she was outside." Allegedly, there were around 20 people involved in the brawl, most of them being teenagers.
The neighbor couldn't see the event fully from where she was. But by the time she ran downstairs, officers were already taking away the wounded mother. "When they carried her, I saw she had a lot of blood," the neighbor continued. "I heard her say, 'I can't breathe!' That's the only thing she said.
First responders rushed Roundtree to Richmond University Medical Center, but tragically, doctors pronounced her dead on arrival.
Family members have spoken up concerning Roundtree's unnecessary death. "She only wanted to protect her baby," one relative told The Daily News. "She only went outside to get her child in the house, only to find her child with a pack of more than a dozen girls on her." They then explained how the mother attempted to pull her daughter away from the fight before they jumped and stabbed her.
The relative also believed that the fight "started from her daughter's page because this was a fight dealing with her daughter and one of her daughter's friends."
According to neighbors, Roundtree worked as a security guard. Just a few days before her death she got into a fight. "Just punched a MF with both hands at the same time I'm not playing this year," she wrote on Facebook on January 3.
More of Roundtree's family have come forward in remembrance of Roundtree. "She loved her kids, loved them to death," said Janice Diggs, Roundtree's aunt.
Neighbors and loved ones decided to make a makeshift memorial outside of the apartment building. It included candles and written cards mourning the mother.
