Two women in Kansas have been arrested on charges that they attacked a girl and hurt her badly by throwing something “acidic” right into her face.
Both Ye’Kira Hollins and Tayronnia West, who are 18, were arrested on Wednesday and charged with one count of aggravated assault in connection with the terrible attack on Passion Turner. Records seen by Law&Crime confirm this.
Detectives from the Wichita Police Department are still looking for a young female suspect in the attack that happened at the end of last month.
A news release says that around noon on Sunday, May 26, police reacted to a 911 call about a disturbance in the 400 block of North Young Avenue. The victim, who was later named Passion Turner, was taken to a nearby hospital with second-degree burns on her face and neck. Police said the burns were “believed to have been caused by a suspect throwing an acid liquid on the victim during a physical fight.”
Some news outlets in the area said the victim was 17 years old, but cops said in a news release that the victim was 18.
Authorities started looking for two adult female suspects and one juvenile female suspect right after the alleged event. They were joined by patrol officers and investigators from the department’s Felony Assault Unit.
The Patrol North Community Response Team found and caught Hollins and West, both 18 years old, on June 5, 2024. They were suspected of committing the attack. The third person has not been caught yet. Police said she was a Black girl from Topeka, Kansas, who was 16 years old.
On his own, Wichita Police Chief Joe Sullivan said, “As the Chief of Police, I want to make it absolutely clear that our department has a zero-tolerance policy toward violence of any kind in our community.” “Our main job is to make sure that every resident is safe and healthy, and our whole agency is dedicated to doing everything that needs to be done to hold people responsible for violent actions like these.”
Paris Polite, the victim’s older sister, told Hutchinson, Kansas’s KWCH about the attack on her sibling. She said she knew the attackers and that at least one of them used to be her “best friend.”
Polite told the station, “If you want to call it that, it was a fight between old best friends.” “They were best friends as kids, but things got too bad.”
According to Polite, the fact that her sister had a relationship with the two suspects who have been arrested showed that the attack was planned ahead of time. It happened in front of the home of her sister’s friend and had terrible effects on the victim.
“It was planned.” The right side of her face and neck. Someone got some drips on her chest, and you can see that they splashed over to this side,” Polite said, pointing to the left side of her face with her hand. “She cried a lot when she saw herself for the first time.” It’s, uh, bad. “She doesn’t seem like herself.”
After the accident, the victim’s family asked that news outlets not print any pictures of Passion Polite. Passion Polite has set up a GoFundMe page to help pay for her hospital bills.
“We do have insurance, but it won’t pay for any breast augmentation surgeries she might need or help with moving.” We need your help because this is a terrible time. “Anything will help,” it says on the page for raising money.
Hollins and West are both being held in the Sedgwick County Jail right now. Records show that their bonds were set at $150,000.