I get no sleep. But McNeal messed upshe admits as much. [CHECK OUT A SLIDESHOW OF ABANDONED HOUSES ON ONE BLOCK IN DETROIT]I keep calling about these falling-down houses, but the city never comes, she said. Grandmother Mertilla Jones said, "Accountability needs to be expected from cases like this, because cops can't keep killing people and getting away with it. Outside, three men were loading the boiler, tubs, and sinks into a trailer to take to the scrap yard. Its easy in our anger, our rage, to just vent and scream. Theyd not been tabulated for four years. With Chief Evans vacationing overseas with a subordinate, Fieger ran wild, holding a press conference where he claimed he had seen videotape of Officer Weekley firing into the house from the porch. The day Barrens cleaned out his desk, a burglar cleaned out Barrens house. On May 16, 2010, 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones was shot and killed in her sleep by Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley after he accidentally entered the wrong apartment in an unannounced SWAT team raid. Police report that they arrested the suspect at the duplex where the . When I called the head of the homicide bureau and explained the situation, he told me, Oh yeah? Fieger responded by saying he does not have the supposed video,[57] which he claims was made by the A&E Network reality show The First 48. [51] She was buried on the grounds. Sherrors mom, in white, lost another son to a bullet the previous year. No weapons were found on ANY person in the house after the raid, including Charles Jones and Aiyana's mother Dominika, Aiyana and her two toddler brothers, Mertilla Jones and her sister, and two adult cousins of Charles. 42,200. Thats good news until you realize that in Detroit, some 500 fires are set every single month. Owens sped two blocks back to Lillibridge and gathered up a posse, according to his statement to the police. Casei Jones, 32, and her four children Cameron Bowers, 10, Preston Bowers, 5, Mercalli Jones, 2, and Aiyana Jones, 1, were missing for almost a month. "[67], Last edited on 17 February 2023, at 18:19, Lists of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, "Detroit police outline final moments of Aiyana's life", "State to Probe Police Killing of Girl in Detroit", "Conyers seeks federal probe of Aiyana's death", "Aiyana Stanley-Jones Update: Mistrial declared in manslaughter trial of Detroit cop in death of 7-yr.-old girl", "Judge dismisses involuntary manslaughter charge against Detroit", "Manslaughter charge dismissed in cop's shooting of girl", "Charge dismissed in Detroit police shooting - the Washington Post", "Second mistrial declared in fatal shooting of Aiyana Stanley-Jones by Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley", "Second mistrial in case of Detroit cop who accidentally killed child", "Charges Dismissed Against Joseph Weekley, Cop Who Fatally Shot Sleeping 7-Year-Old [UPDATE]", "Detroit children dying in culture of violence", "Where's the outrage? He assigned the SWAT team the job of rounding up murder suspects, a task that had previously been done by detectives. The accident has led to outrage in Detroit, directed at police. The city grew to 1.3 million people from 300,000 after Ford opened his Model T factory. The official version was that two men were walking in the middle of a street on the East Side when Evans and his driver told them to walk on the sidewalk. Coco Jones has lived many lives. Aiyana Stanley-Jones was seven years old and asleep on a couch with her grandmother when Detroit police raided their east side home looking for a murder suspect in 2010. Dont bother locking it. "[60], In September 2013, J. Cole published a music video dedicated to Jones for his song Crooked Smile, featuring TLC on YouTube. The title is derived from the California penal code for murder: 187. Detroit Charles Jones,whose role in ahigh school student's 2010 slayinghelped spark thepolice raid that ended with the officer-involved shooting death of his 7-year-old daughter Aiyana Stanley-Jones, has been granted parole. He said. An 11th-grade dropout and convicted robber, he said he supported his seven children with a little this, a little thatI got a few tricks and trades.. Judge Hathaway emphasized that two juries, in 2013 and 2014, couldn't reach a unanimous verdict. It's us but for your ears. By the end of the following day, police had identified Chauncey Owens as a suspect in Blake's death and obtained a warrant to search 4054 Lillibridge[12] St, where Owens was believed to be hiding. Little Aiyana's death is heartbreaking! But our ammos so bad, we cant do ballistics testing. What the hell you doing up here for? In the witness box in September, Jones said: Im laying there screaming, asking someone to help my granddaughter because he shot her in the head. Cargill said her two surviving children, a 30-year-old daughter and son, 22, took the news of Jones' pending release hard. The environment got nothing to do with kids.. Have him call me, and then hung up the phone. Not all of us are blessed.. The camera crew was not inside the house when the girl was hit. She's irresponsible," said Ron Scott, referring to Hathaway's decision to dismiss the involuntary manslaughter charge before a jury at the second trial could consider it. Aiyana Mo'Nay Stanley-Jones (July 20, 2002 May 16, 2010) was a seven-year-old African-American girl from Detroit's East Side who was shot in the neck and killed by police officer Joseph Weekley during a raid conducted by the Detroit Police Department's Special Response Team targeting a suspect in the apartment a floor above Jones' on May 16, 2010. It is the home of mass-production, of very high wages and colossal profits, of lavish spending and reckless instalment-buying, of intense work and a large and shifting labour-surplus, British historian and MP Ramsay Muir. The slap caused the gun to fire with the bullets striking young Aiyana in the head and killing her instantly. Charlie LeDuff is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, filmmaker, and multimedia reporter. Al Sharpton delivered the eulogy, though his heart did not seem to be in it. We hope this resolution will provide everyone involved a measure of closure," Detroit Corporation Counsel Lawrence Garcia said in a statement, according to the Detroit News. Until there wasnt. [49], Aiyana Jones' funeral was held in the Second Ebenezer Church on May 22, 2010 in Detroit. JeRean might have thought it was funny to see a grown man driving a moped. She arrived too late. Behind the door was Jason Gibson, 25, a violent man with a history of gun crimes, assaults on police, and repeated failures to honor probationary sentences. They made it to the trauma ward, where JeRean was pronounced dead. Cargill said because of COVID-19 restrictions, she was unable to attend Jones' parole hearings to contest his release. A half-dozen masked officers of the Special Response TeamDetroits version of SWATwere at the door, guns drawn. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. I also found that the police and judicial systems were so broken that in more than 70 percent of murders, the killer got away with it. Owens was convicted of first-degree murderand sentenced to life in prison. Its about state-sanctioned violence., US police departments are increasingly militarised, finds report, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. "Aiyana's death was a tragic loss for her family and has been a heavy burden on our community. Outside, a reality television crew filmed the events for A&E. A bunch of lazy, uneducated blue-collar incompetents. Thats how its supposed to be done.. Somebody should have told company executives back in New York that they had wildly overpaid. In 2010 Aiyana MoNay Stanley-Jones, a seven-year-old African American girl, was accidentally shot and killedduring a raid that was conducted by the Detroit,Michigan Police Departments Special Response Team. Owens switched his moped for a Chevy Blazer. [12], Two weeks prior to the incident, a Detroit police officer had been killed in the line of duty while attempting to arrest a suspect. His brother stood over the dead man, a pistol in his hand, keeping an eye on the door in case someone walked in wanting to settle things. The police were searching for a murder suspect thought to be in the Jones home. I forgive him, but I don't forget what he did.". The water in the Detroit River was so bad, it was said you could bottle it and sell it as poison. I can accept the shooting was a mistake, Jones said about his daughters death as a bleary-eyed Stanley sat motionless next to him. The Jones family also sued Weekley and the Detroit Police Department in 2015. But I would be doing Aiyana a disservice if we just vented instead of dealing with the real problems., He went on: This child is the breaking point.. It also allowed a man to escape the smoldering city. Police first floated the story that Aiyanas grandmother had grabbed Weekleys gun. Aiyana's mother Dominika Stanley, and paternal grandmother Mertilla testified, and both had "emotional outbursts." Can she be blamed for that? And TV may have needed some pyrotechnics. They were conducting a police raid in search of a murder suspect who lived at that address -- and being filmed for a reality TV show in the process -- when Officer Joseph Weekley accidentally fired his gun. I was thinking that, she said with tears. A total, unfortunate fuck-up.. Police officers came from Canada and across Michigan. To me, thats like writing about the surf conditions in the Gaza Strip. Clutching his juice in one hand and two dollars in the other, JeRean staggered across Mack Avenue and collapsed in the street. McNeal wondered how she was going to pay the $3,000 for her sons funeral. . But even he couldnt stanch the tsunami of red ink; the deficit ballooned more than $140 million under his guidance. There is speculation that the attending television crew may have increased the incentive for a glamorised, military-style operation. [30], Allison Howard, a videographer and photographer with A&E who was also present at the raid, was indicted on obstruction of justice and perjury for allegedly "copying, showing or giving video footage that she shot of the raid to third parties". All Rights Reserved. The police were . Ive seen him in the faces of soldiers when I was covering the Iraq War. A retrial began on September 23, 2014 but on October 3, 2014, it was declared a mistrial after a second jury deadlocked on a verdict. After the grandmother's outburst, the judge ordered the jury out of the room and the grandmother was escorted from the court room screaming. Your donation is fully tax-deductible. The department was also cited for excessive force after people died in lockup and at the hands of rogue cops. Short answer: Yesand no. Thats five times as many as New York, in a city one-tenth the size. Mertilla Jones was held overnight by Detroit police and then released. For years it was the all-but-official policy of the newspapers to ignore the black city, since the majority of readers lived in the predominantly white suburbs. Im trying to find him, Sheffield complained. Soon, the air was the color of a filthy dishrag. His motive, authorities say, was that the teen failed to pay him the proper respect. At the center of this economic dynamo was Detroit. . The number was actually 375. Was it inevitable, as the doctor said, that abject poverty would lead to Aiyanas death and so many others? Sharpton left and the Rev. But it was dark. On May 14, 2010, JeRean Blake, a senior at Southeastern High School of Technology and Law was shot and killed near an intersection on Detroits east side. They were wondering if the Rust Belt cancer had metastasized and was creeping to Los Angeles and London and Barcelona. Joneswas retried in 2019 for manslaughter and for being a habitual offender, and was sentenced to 10-20 years, with2,841 days credit for time served. Were going to pull people over for traffic violations and were going to take their cars if theyre not legal. You might blame the UAW, which demanded things like full pay for idle workers, or myopic Big Three management who, instead of saying no, simply tacked the cost onto the price of a car. Compounding the tragedy is the fact that the police threw the grenade into the wrong apartment. Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley in court in Detroit, Mich. on June 18, 2013 during his first trial. Weekley still is charged with careless discharge of a firearm causing death in the May 2010 shooting, which happened as police executed a search warrant for a murder suspect. The blood was congealing into a pancake on the dirty linoleum. Radley Balko | 5.24.2010 3:00 PM. What I find ironic is a friend of the punks released his video t. A good kid with average grades, JeRean went to Southeastern High, which is situated in an industrial belt of moldering Chrysler assembly plants. I need help. Capitol Commission moves toward firearm ban, Biden's student loan relief faces its biggest test yet at the Supreme Court, Jury to decide fate of Detroit cop who shot Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Second trial begins for Detroit police officer who shot Aiyana Jones, Detroit officer faces misdemeanor charge in Aiyana Jones's death; jury deliberating. The man stopped, turned, and pulled a gun. [2], Weekley was a member of Detroit's SWAT team and a frequent subject on the A&E Network (A&E), whose film crews were also filming the investigation for the documentary TV series The First 48. AIYANA WAS LAID TO REST six days after her killing. I stared through the windshield at the little boy in the diaper playing amid the ruins, reached over, and switched it off. Final charges against Joseph Weekley, a police officer who shot dead a 7-year-old girl, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, in Detroit in May 2010, were dismissed on Friday, leaving a family bereft and. 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