Myrah Zeigler, 19, was afraid, and she said so to the officers standing in front of her. Her mother says body-camera video shows what happened next: the officers offered to go with her to a park to find her stolen car keys, then stayed near the house while she walked there. Moments later, gunshots.
Zeigler, from Fort Pierce, was shot on May 19, 2025, outside a Fort Lauderdale rental house where a party had turned into a fight. She died at Broward Health Medical Center. Her mother, Alacia Ford-Barron, has now made public the video she obtained, and she says it shows police failed her daughter before anyone fired a shot.
Here is what the footage shows, as reported by Local10 and Atlanta Black Star. Officers had already come to the house once over a disturbance among several groups. On a second visit they told everyone to leave. Zeigler explained that she could not go without her keys, which she said were at a nearby park. An officer told her they would go get them. Instead, the two officers stayed near the house as Zeigler and one other person walked toward the park. Gunshots were heard, and only then did the officers drive toward the sound.
“They just neglected her,” Ford-Barron said, according to Atlanta Black Star. Local10 quotes her: “My daughter was scared. She knew she was in danger. No one listened to her. They neglected my baby.” Zeigler had also called 911 earlier that night after she was pepper-sprayed and robbed, her mother says.
Fort Lauderdale police expressed condolences, said the lead detective has kept in regular contact with the family, and declined further comment, citing the active case.
That case is against the man accused of the shooting, not the officers. Larry Lamar Smith, 21, was arrested July 6, 2025, and is charged with second-degree murder with a firearm. He has pleaded not guilty. He is presumed innocent, and the video does not change who is charged with firing the shot.
It does raise a separate question that the department has not answered publicly: why two officers who told a frightened young woman they would go with her did not. No one has said the officers face review. Ford-Barron, who started a nonprofit called Myrah’s Purpose to give young adults a voice, is asking for accountability from the department.
A department that sent two officers to the same house twice knew the night was dangerous. Fort Lauderdale should release the officers’ names, say whether their conduct has been reviewed, and explain why an offer of protection ended at the front door. Smith’s trial will decide who fired. It will not answer for what police chose not to do.
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