Weekley, who retired from the police department in 2019,claimed Mertilla Jones grabbed his rifle, causing it to discharge. Family: 7-year-old shot by police was asleep. For instance, in 2008 a man was shot in the head. 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. In the case of the night Aiyana was killed, many feel the situation did not call for a military-style bust at midnight. My daughter got love, honor, and respect. There are some 10,000 unsolved homicides dating back to 1960. She thanked me for coming and showed me her home, which was clean and well kept. One question that lurked behind the scenes of the Aiyana Jones trial was whether the fact that producers from A&E's 'The First 48' played any role in what happened the night Aiyana died. [51] She was buried on the grounds. Instead of being protected, communities are treated like the enemy, the report found with a disproportionate effect on communities of color. Sharpton left and the Rev. Evans brought a refreshing honesty to a department plagued by ineptitude and secrecy. The entire botched nighttime raid was captured on camera by crews from the A&E show The First 48. Chaises mother, Britta McNeal, 39, sat on the porch staring blankly into the distance, smoking no-brand cigarettes. He assigned the SWAT team the job of rounding up murder suspects, a task that had previously been done by detectives. AP Photo Charles Jones, the father of 7-year-old Aiyana Jones, who was killed early Sunday in Detroit, holds a photo of Aiyana in attorney Geoffrey Fieger's office in Southfield, Mich., Tuesday . She arrived too late. A fresh trial was scheduled for December 2013,[29] but actually began in September 2014. The morning after he was shot, Chaises clippers were mysteriously deposited on his front porch, wiped clean and free of hair. So Dr. Schmidt keeps them on layaway, zipped up in body bags as family members wait for a ship to come in that never seems to arrive. The department was also cited for excessive force after people died in lockup and at the hands of rogue cops. Lawsuits claim it wrecked their teeth. His eyes and mouth were open and held that milky expression of a drunk who has fallen asleep with his eyes open. Bagpipes played and the rain fell. Was Detroit an outlier or an epicenter? 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 . Jones was born on July 20, 2002, to Charles Jones and Dominika Stanley in Detroit. Then they said he jumped out a back window. Some people are doomed from birth because their environment is so toxic.. It was Jameson who finally dragged Huff out of the house and gave him CPR in the driveway, across the street from the Boys & Girls Club. Six individuals, who chained themselves to a Detroit Police Department precinct, were arrested Wednesday evening during a rally honoring Aiyana Stanley-Jones, a 7-year old who was shot and. Weve got nothing but bullet fragments., A neighbor who tends the lawn in front of the dope house out of respect to Huff wonders why so many cops came in the first place, given that the police hardly come around at all, much less that many cops that fast on a home break-in.. And there are. I asked him if the way he was raising his daughter, the people he exposed her to, or the neighborhood where they livedwith its decaying houses and liquor storesmay have played a role. Weekleys trial began in June 2013 and ended in a mistrial when a jury failed to reach a verdict. Aiyana Stanley-Jones was 7 years old when she was killed by a single bullet to the head. But pollution didnt kill Detroit. [49], Aiyana Jones' funeral was held in the Second Ebenezer Church on May 22, 2010 in Detroit. It fired. But Geoffrey Fieger calls it police arrogance. JEREAN BLAKE NOBLES was one of the rare black males in Detroit who made it (PDF) through high school. What did? In Los Angeles, by comparison, the unsolved-murder rate is 22 percent. Can you pitch in a few bucks to help fund Mother Jones' investigative journalism? Go ahead, walk in the Detroit River and disappear. But I cant. Then came the homicide-by-cop of little Aiyana. (Thomas Sugrue, in his seminal book The Origins of the Urban Crisis, writes that residents in Detroits predominantly black lower East Side reported 206 rat bites in 1951 and 1952.). The lawsuit asserts that police were outside of the home where they "blindly fired random shots," and one of the bullets fatally struck the 7-year-old child in the neck. Officer Joseph Weekley, the lead commandowhod been featured before on another A&E show, Detroit SWATburst into the house. "(Jones') parole guideline score placed him in the high probability of parole range," Gautz said in an email. Not to worry: The city had its own welfare system, decades before Lyndon Johnsons Great Society. Aiyana was sleeping on the couch next to her grandmother when, just after midnight, Officer Weekley's SWAT team threw a flashbang grenade through the living room window, setting fire to . 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. After the grandmother's outburst, the judge ordered the jury out of the room and the grandmother was escorted from the court room screaming. Lyvonne Cargill wears a shirt that honors her son, JeRean Blake Nobles. The trial of a Detroit police officer who fatally shot a seven-year-old girl began today.Officer Joseph Weekley shot Aiyana Stanley-Jones during . He also told me that perhaps 50 percent of Detroits drivers were operating without a license or insurance. The city provided clothing, fuel, rent, and $10 every week to adults for food; children got $5. [4], Officer Joseph Weekley was charged in connection with Jones' killing. He didn't elaborate. [9][10] The department decided to withdraw him from active duty shortly after the shooting on May 16, 2010. Now Detroit has fewer than 800,000 people, is 83 percent black, and is the only American city that has surpassed a million people and dipped back below that threshold. Detroit, MI The family of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, a 7-year old girl shot and killed by a Detroit police officer, has received an $8.25 million settlement almost 9 years after the tragic incident. The presence of children in the house was known. And he wouldnt even help her. The city of Detroit has settled a lawsuit with the family of a girl shot and killed by a Detroit police officer nine years ago. Little Aiyana's death is heartbreaking! Thats a hell of a pair of bookends, I offered. The killing contributed to raising national awareness of the ongoing issue of young unarmed African Americans being killed by police. The streetlights still go on and off. This has helped reinforce a culture shift within police departments. Of course I would. [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. You might blame it on the urban renewal and interstate highway projects that rammed a freeway down the middle of Paradise Valley, displacing thousands of blacks and packing the Negro tenements tighter still. Jones, too, later became a person of interest in JeReans murderhe allegedly went along for the ridebut Jones denies it, and hes lawyered up and moved to the suburbs. [12] At the time of the incident Aiyana Jones was asleep on the couch in front room of the downstairs apartment. People are awake. Her death drew national media attention and led U.S. Representative John Conyers to ask U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for a federal . ], My baby, my baby, my baby. [6][7][8] On October 10, the judge declared a mistrial due to jury deadlock. Even Time bought a house on the East Side last year for $99,000. The suspect fingered for Blakes murder, Chauncey Owens, lived in the upstairs flat, with Charles Jones sister. Now, Jones family attorney Geoffrey Fieger and the city of Detroit confirm theyve settled the case for $8.25 million. The prisoner has not incurred any serious misconducts while in prison. We noticed you have an ad blocker on. Go. He wore a gold bracelet as thick as a gymnasium rope. . JeReans mother drove as he gurgled in the backseat. People are drinking. The environment didnt affect us none, Jones said. You dont go into a home around midnight. The judge denied the motion for mistrial, saying she believed the jury could still be "impartial." Southeasterns motto is Age Quod Agis: Attend to Your Business. And JeRean did. The family of Aiyana Jones, the 7-year-old girl accidentally killed by a Detroit police officer during a raid in 2010, has reached settlement with the city o. The auto industry allowed for sprawl. Officials said Gibson ran out the front of the house. Predictably, Gibson did not show for his new court date. [12][17][18] Officer Weekley claimed that the flash grenade subsequently blinded his view of the person on the couch in the living room. Aiyana Jones was a seven year old girl living in Detroit, who was killed by the police while sleeping in her own home. Huff and his partner were not actually called to the scene; theyd taken it upon themselves to assist the younger cops, according to the police version of events. Forego a bottle of soda and donate its cost to us for the information you just learned, and feel good about helping to make it available to everyone. One year after a Detroit police assault team shot 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones to death in her home while A&E's "First 48" TV show was filming, neither Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy nor U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has brought charges against those responsible. Owens got there first and shot JeRean clear through the chest with Lil James gun. His seven-year-old daughter, Aiyana Mo'nay Stanley-Jones (PDF), slept on the couch as her grandmother watched television. The official went on to say that the SWAT team was not briefed about the presence of children in the house, although the neighborhood informant who led homicide detectives to the Lillibridge address told them that children lived there. But is she responsible for police officers with broken computers in their squad cars, firefighters with holes in their boots, ambulances that arrive late, a city that cant keep its lights on and leaves its vacant buildings to the arsonists match, a state government that allows corpses to stack up in the morgue, multinational corporations that move away and leave poisoned fields behind, judges who let violent criminals walk the streets, school stewards who steal the childrens milk money, elected officials who loot the city, automobile executives who couldnt manage a grocery store, or Wall Street grifters who destroyed the economy and left the nations children with a burden of debt? There are lawyers and doctors and auto executives with nice homes and good jobs, community elders trying to make things better, teachers who spend their own money on classroom supplies, people who mow lawns out of respect for the dead, parents who raise their children, ministers who help with funeral expenses. As for the videotape of the killing, Geoffrey Fieger said he did not have it. His murder led to the police raid that killed Aiyana.With large swaths of the city rewildingempty lots are returning to prairie and woodland as the city depopulatesSoutheastern was slated to absorb students from nearby Kettering High this year as part of a massive school-consolidation effort. Sharptons people called JeReans mother, Lyvonne Cargill, promising to come over to her house after Aiyanas funeral. Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley is accused of fatally shooting Aiyana during the raid that targeted a murder suspect. McNeal wondered how she was going to pay the $3,000 for her sons funeral. No one can answer that fully. The red halo around his skull gave the scene a feeling of serenity. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. The environment got nothing to do with kids.. Tens of thousands of them, hundreds of thousands. People call it police brutality. It's now Monday at 10:30pm. But she added: "I hope he does the right thing when he gets outand triesto help these other young Black males out here;tell them about lifeand tell them what he did.". They killed a child and then they lied about it.. In Detroit, the official response time of an ambulance to a 911 call is 12 minutes. I think its abominable. That year, the police said there were 306 homicidesuntil I began digging. Police caught him again in November 2009 in possession of a handgun stolen from an Ohio cop. [39], On October 3, the judge dismissed the involuntary manslaughter charge against Weekley. Why would anyone move a gunshot victim, much less toss him in a car? Impoverished communities such as Detroit, which is almost 83% black and has a poverty rate of 39%, have been on the receiving end of a decades-long war on drugs, which has made the US the country with the largest number of people behind bars, ahead of China and Russia. She said she made no contact with any officers. Three ISO members describe what happened when a neo-Nazi . The whole country knew it, and the whole country laughed. Police arrested Mertilla, administered tests for drugs and gunpowder, and released her Sunday morning. So is the house across the street. January 7, 2022 . Robert Bobb was hired in 2009 as the emergency financial manager and given sweeping powers to balance the books. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. A wary Detroit police officer keeps watch over an unruly crowd after an arrest on the East Side.The judge, Cynthia Gray Hathaway, set his bond at $20,000only 10 percent of which was due upfrontand adjourned the trial without explanation, according to the docket. Today75 years after the beavers disappeared from the Detroit RiverDetroitism means something completely different. "She's not a scapegoat. [48] On January 28, 2015, county prosecutor Kym Worthy dismissed the last remaining charge against Weekley, the misdemeanor of 'careless discharge of a firearm causing death'. "Aiyana's death was a tragic loss for her family and has been a heavy burden on our community. Scott said a civil suit had been filed and an appeal made to US attorney general Eric Holder to pursue a case for the violation of Aiyanas civil rights. Murder suspect Chauncey Louis Owens, the target of the raid, will be charged. Lil James brought along a .357 Magnumat the behest of Jones, Detective Williams testified, because Jones was afraid someone would try to steal his diamond Cartier glasses.. The victim, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, was shot in the head while she slept on a couch in May 2010. I have . Her parents say they hope Aiyana will be remembered as more than a symbol of heightened tension in a city in crisis. 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley Jones died from bullet wound during the raid Police say officer's weapon fired after an encounter with an adult in the house (CNN) -- An attorney representing the. Weekley claimed Aiyana Jones' paternal grandmother, Mertilla Jones, attempted to slap his MP5 submachine gun, causing it to fire. 42,200. [5] Wayne County Circuit Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway presided over the case. Evans driver dropped him with a single shot. Submachine gun, causing it to fire a tragic loss for her family has... 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