9-year-old chalks ‘Black Lives Matter’ on Ohio street. Neighbor calls cops, mom says

A mom in Ohio says a neighbor called the police after her daughter wrote ‘Black Lives Matter’ in chalk on the street outside their home.

On Wednesday, 9-year-old Mira Acklin asked her mom, Jenna, if she could write ‘Black Lives Matter’ to show her love for the Black community, Jenna Acklin wrote in a Facebook post.

Jenna Acklin said she was proud of her daughter’s request and told her she could absolutely chalk the phrase outside their Canal Winchester home.

“I wrote ‘Black Lives Matter’; I think Black people and white people should both be treated the same,” Mira told WBNS.

A neighbor called the police not long after, Jenna Acklin said.

A document from the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office described the call and said the caller had concerns about the chalk art, which was written in the road, WSYX reported.

Deputies told the caller that the art wasn’t hurting anyone, according to the outlet.

Jenna Acklin said that the neighbor had reported “people yelling and painting in the street.”

When deputies showed up at the home, Jenna Acklin said they rolled down the window, looked at the neighbor and said: “It’s chalk.”

“I was really scared, and I was also like crying, and my whole body was shaking,” Mira said, according to WSYX.

But the deputies didn’t ask Mira to stop, her mom said. Instead, they told Mira that they agreed with the phrase and told her to write it larger, according to Jenna Acklin.

In the next several days, people in the community came out to look at the art and add to it, WBNS reported.

“I wrote ‘keep on chalking Mira,’” Craig Kahle told the outlet.

Bella and Jayden Schadle, two of Mira’s friends, have also been drawing with her and said they were watching with their mom during the incident with the neighbor, WBNS reported.

“I was feeling kind of scared, it wasn’t fair to the other people; God put us in this world to ... all get along but some people don’t agree with that,” one of the children told the outlet.

Jenna Acklin said she doesn’t regret letting Mira show her support, adding that it’s an example of why it’s important to speak up.

“[Mira] said ‘I’ve seen the police before, but they’ve never been coming to get me,’” Jenna Acklin told WSYX. “I said ‘you know honey as uncomfortable as you feel, you also have to know your friends and other people of color feel this fear every day, multiplied times one-million.’ She couldn’t understand why people would hate someone just because of their skin color.”

McClatchy News has reached out to the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office for further comment.