Courtesy of The Shaken Baby Alliance
Fort Worth mayor Mattie Parker signs a banner at the C.O.P.E. launch event in September.
Bonnie Armstrong will never forget that call.
It was 1994, and Armstrong was teaching kindergarten when the voice of the school secretary came over the speaker, telling her to come to the office due to an emergency.
“Are you sure?” Armstrong asked.
And with a shaky voice, the secretary simply replied with two words: “Bonnie, run.”
Armstrong’s brother-in-law had shaken and beaten his 2 ½-month-old daughter, Tiffany, with a baseball bat. Tiffany was flown to Cook Children’s and put on a ventilator — her brain swollen, bulging out of her skin. When Armstrong reached Tiffany’s side, Armstrong remembers kissing her niece, telling her that “if she would fight and she would breathe, I would make something good come out of something so very evil.”
Tiffany did, and today, she’s a thriving 27-year-old who enjoys volunteering at animal shelters and competing as a Special Olympics athlete. (Her father, Larry David Fox, was convicted of third-degree injury to a child and received a sentence of 10 years in prison.)
Meanwhile, Armstrong has made good on her promise.
Armstrong is the executive director of Fort Worth-based nonprofit The Shaken Baby Alliance, which she co-founded with Kim Kang and Melonie Caster (two mothers whose children also suffered from shaken baby syndrome under their caregivers) in 1997. The organization focuses on offering support for victims, helping law enforcement with child abuse cases and investigations, and educating others on abuse prevention.
The alliance’s latest initiative is an educational program called C.O.P.E., which recently received a $300,000 grant from the City of Fort Worth’s Crime Control and Prevention District to be taught at schools and other community groups over the next three years. Thanks to staff member Felicia Hernandez, the program is available in both English and Spanish.