A Dorchester woman who was struck by an errant bullet and left paralyzed at age 3 was the guest speaker at a remarkable youth basketball event at UMass Boston on Tuesday. The 10th annual Basketball for Peace Tournament, organized by Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley, brought hundreds of young Bostonians to the Clark Athletic Center for a day-long series of games that also featured a ceremony honoring community leaders and law enforcement officials who work to improve connections with police and young people in city neighborhoods.

Kai Leigh Harriott, now 18, was one of the guest speakers at the event. In a tragedy that shocked the city and the region, she was critically injured by errant gunfire while sitting on her porch on Bowdoin Street in 2003. The man who fired the bullet was later caught and convicted for the crime. At his sentencing hearing, Harriott offered him forgiveness while sitting in the wheelchair he had put her in. Conley called her courtroom statement “one of the most powerful moments in the history of the Suffolk County courthouse,” one that resonated with people around the city, the state, and across the country.

Kai Leigh is a student at Newton Country Day School who enjoys studying Mandarin as a second language and is a participant with the school’s diversity committee. She also is a community ambassador, reaching out and lending her support to other victims of random gun violence.
In addressing bleachers full of school-age basketball players on Tuesday, she spoke to the importance of having a support system to help her through her journey, and encouraged black and brown children like herself to use the resources and organizations available to them.

“Whether you have big dreams, or you just want to make a difference in your community, it’s pretty easy to find someone who cares if you’re looking for them,” she said. “Opportunities like this don’t really come to kids from Dorchester and Roxbury too often. You guys are here in a place where people care enough about you to create safe spaces for you, because the places we come from are not necessarily always safe.”

Conley’s tournament is meant to be just that — a safe space. But as he explained to the gathering, it also serves as an opportunity for kids to interact with the officials meant to protect and serve them.

“When we started this tournament,” he said, “our main goal was not only for you to meet each other, but for you to also meet us— prosecutors and police officers and victim witness advocates— in a different environment, in an environment that’s friendly and open, where you could look to us, I hope, as friends and people who might help you perhaps as a mentor, rather than in the criminal justice system.”

Conley also addressed the event’s other function as a platform to honor community leaders with awards and by designating them honorary team captains, saying, “When we think of role models we often think of movie stars or professional athletes or singers or celebrities, but there are people all around us who offer us inspiration through the way they conduct themselves each and every day.”

This year’s honorary captains included Sydney Chaffee, a Codman Academy teacher and 2017 National Teacher of the Year; Assistant Suffolk DA Caitlin Fitzgerald; Brent Henry, founder of Vibrant Boston; and Ken Green, MBTA Transit Police Chief.

Conley also recognized Ch. 4 sports broadcasters Ron and Paul Burton, who run the Ron Burton Training Village, as recipients of the DA’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and saluted BPD Superintendent Lisa Holmes, who received the Alfreda Harris Award for Exceptional Community Service.