Girl killed in shooting had high hopes

TUCSON, Ariz.

AT age 9, Christina Taylor Green was already an aspiring politician with hopes of being the first woman to play Major League Baseball.

She had just been elected to the student council at Tucson's Mesa Verde Elementary School. "She was a good speaker. I could have easily seen her as a politician," her father, John Green, told the Arizona Daily Star.

Christina was born hours after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. She is featured in "Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 9/11," a book by Pennsylvanian Christine Naman that spotlighted one child from each state. A wishful quote accompanied the black-and-white photo of the then-tiny girl. "I hope you see rainbows," it said.

The third-grader was among six people killed outside a supermarket where a neighbor had taken her to meet Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).

The brown-eyed, athletic girl loved to swim with her only sibling, brother Dallas, 11.

Her mother, Roxanna Green, told the Star that Christina loved animals, singing, dancing and gymnastics. She already had told her parents she wanted to attend Penn State and have a career that involved helping those less fortunate.

She was the only girl on her Canyon del Oro Little League team and played second base.

The game was in her blood. Her dad is a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers and her grandfather, former big league pitcher Dallas Green, managed the 1980 world champion Philadelphia Phillies.

Dallas Green also managed the Yankees for most of the 1989 season and the Mets from the 1993 season through most of 1996. "Our thoughts and condolences go out to Dallas . . . and everybody impacted by this tragedy," Mets chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon said.

"She was a strong girl, a very good athlete," Roxanna Green told the newspaper. "She was interested in everything. She got a guitar for Christmas so her next thing was learning to play guitar."

John Green remembers making his daughter an omelet with bacon and cheese for breakfast Saturday morning and kissing her goodbye as the neighbor took her to the event to meet Giffords.

Hours later, John Green was at University Medical Center with his wife and son, with a doctor telling them the girl he called "Princess" was dead from a gunshot wound to the chest.

The unidentified neighbor was shot four times but survived and is recovering.

"She was all about helping people and being involved. It's so tragic," Roxanne Green told the Star. "She went to learn . . . and then someone with so much hatred in their heart took the lives of innocent people." With McClatchy Newspapers