Ma'Khia Bryant and her sister lived with their foster mother in a two-story house in a middle-class neighborhood, next to a cornfield along the edge of the city limits here.

Residents described the neighborhood as quiet and most of those interviewed said they did not even know that the sisters were foster children until April 20, when Bryant, 16, was shot and killed by a Columbus police officer when he saw her swinging a knife at a woman during a disturbance in front of the foster home.