It is approximately 110 miles between Columbus, Ohio, and Cincinnati, Ohio.

But apparently, news travels slowly between those two communities because LeBron James and the national media have not yet mentioned Monday’s death of 13-year-old  Nyaira Givens who was stabbed to death by another 13-year-old girl during a fight near her family’s home in Winton Hills, a suburb of Cincinnati.

Givens’ father held her in his arms as the life drained away from her body, helpless to do anything to prevent her from dying.

“I held her. I watched her as she died. I watched her, you know. All I could do was just hold her, hold her,” Maurice Jackson said.

Devastation, heartache and loss are all emotions that Jackson, Nyaira Givens’ father, is feeling after her sudden death.

“I tried. I tried to stop the bleeding,” Jackson said.

The 13-year-old Nyaira, a high school freshman, didn’t wake up Monday morning with the thought that it would be her last day on earth.  But she had been involved in a series of incidents with an “off-and-on” friend from school, and there was a confrontation between them on Monday afternoon.

Her assailant, not named in the media because of her age, made her first appearance in court on Wednesday.

A 13-year-old girl, accused of killing another 13-year-old girl, appeared in court for the first time today.

The proceedings were virtual and quick.

The suspect at the center of it all was emotional.

The teen could be seen wiping away tears while getting words of encouragement from her mother.

The weight of the murder charge crashing down on the shoulders of a 13-year-old girl.

She sat silent as her attorney argued for her release.

“Your honor, I know these are very serious, as serious they get, charges, however these are allegations at this point. We’re asking if the court would consider releasing her on EMU back to her mother. She’s only 13. She goes to Aiken. She has absolutely no record, she’s an A student,” said her public defender, Kelly Rice-Hunt.

When the Columbus Police Officer shot and killed 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant on Tuesday, he was preventing Bryant from completing the act of stabbing another young woman with a kitchen knife.  Unbelievably, there have been public excuses made for Bryant’s behavior and an unrelenting drumbeat that the Officer’s intervention with deadly force was not necessary.

This may have reached the height of sheer idiocy earlier today when a guest on Joy Reid’s show on MSNBC seemed to want to shift the blame for Bryant’s behavior onto the responding officer, explaining that police just “don’t understand black girls as girls.”  Pay attention to her guest’s comment at about 1:25 on the video:

WHAT?! MSNBC's Joy Reid, guest blame the Columbus police officer for having somehow triggered #MaKhiaBryant into wanting to stab one of the other girls on the scene.

They add that Bryant didn't deserve to die because she was having an off day and not behaving "perfect" pic.twitter.com/emtnqXIkfq

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 22, 2021

Well, Prof. Cooper, how about this:

The suspect is accused of slashing the throat of another 13-year-old girl Monday night in Cincinnati’s Winton Hills neighborhood.

Nyaira Givens, 13, was killed. Family members and witnesses said Givens got into a fight Monday night near where her family lived. During the fight, police say [Givens] was stabbed with a pocket knife.

A freaking pocket knife in the hands of a 13-year-old “young black girl” took the life of another 13-year-old young black girl.

And there is this stunning and ridiculous campaign underway in the media to claim that the action taken by the Columbus Police Officer was unnecessary and excessive under the circumstances because he didn’t understand “young black girls.”

Joy Reid’s producers need to reach out to Mr. Jackson in Cincinnati and invite him to be a guest on her show.

Bring back Prof. Cooper —  Mr. Jackson might have a different perspective to offer about “young black girls.”

He might be holding his daughter tonight if a police officer had been on the scene Monday night.