[31] In June 2013, Howard pleaded "no contest" to the obstruction of justice charge, and the perjury charge was dismissed. She got pregnant at 15. Look at the Trending Topics on Twitter. Aiyana Jones, Up Closed, https://upclosed.com/people/aiyana-monay-stanley-jones/; Aiyana Jones, Mother Jones, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/09/aiyana-stanley-jones-detroit/; Aiyana Jones, Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/17/aiyana-stanley-jones-joseph-weekley-trial_n_5824684.html; CBS News, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aiyana-stanley-jones-case-final-charge-dropped-against-detroit-cop-in-fatal-raid/. [19], Police officers, bystanders, and residents of the home disagreed about the events that followed. The conceit of the show is that homicide detectives have 48 hours to crack a murder case before the trail goes cold. So bad is it for Detroits children that Education Secretary Arne Duncan said last year, I lose sleep over that one.. It fired. It occurred during a frenzied raid by elite officers who burst through the door to search for a murder. Do a Google search for "Aiyana Jones" and you get just 42,200 results. Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox. Then came the homicide-by-cop of little Aiyana. When we look at accountability and an institution that was not designed for black people and that was not designed in the interest of black people, he says, how do you find justice in an already unjust system?. Two trials against Officer Joseph Weekley ended without verdicts on a charge of reckless use of a gun. People taking advanage of my benevolence. I think its evil. [50][bettersourceneeded] The casket was white and was afterwards driven to the grave by horse-drawn carriage. What killed Aiyana is what killed the people in New Orleans and the rider on the transit in Oakland, and thats police bullets and police arrogance and police cover-up, Jones lawyer said. He has three boys with Aiyanas mother, Dominika Stanley, and three boys with another woman, whom he had left long ago. [12], According to press reports, police were on the scene by 12:40a.m. on Sunday, May 16, 2010. [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". Dante Barry, a 26-year-old organizer and executive director of the Million Hoodies Movement for Justice, said the outcome of the case was disappointing but not surprising. 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. Parts of the Detroit River are now clean enough for swimming. 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. People are awake. I get no sleep. Whenever I see a person who died of violence or misadventure, I think about the dead man with the open eyes on the dirty floor of the liquor store. Soon, the Motor Citys population surpassed that of Boston and Baltimore, old East Coast port cities founded on maritime shipping when the world moved by boat. I got something for you.. It feels like there aint no love no more.. Its easy in our anger, our rage, to just vent and scream. Thats when Owens, 34, pulled up on a moped. More than 4,000 people attended Officer Huffs funeral at the Greater Grace Temple on the citys Northwest Side. The president of the school board, Otis Mathis, recently admitted that he had only rudimentary writing skills shortly before being forced to resign for fondling himself during a meeting with the school superintendent. As for the tape that Geoffrey Fieger claimed would show the cops firing on Aiyanas house from outside, A&E turned it over to the police. Thats five times as many as New York, in a city one-tenth the size. Young Municipal Center in Detroit. An Arab family owned the store, and one of the menthe one with the pocked face and loud voicewas talking on the telephone, but I remember no sounds. Jones and two other men known as Lil James and Dirt rode along for JeReans ass-whipping. I am sick. Henry Ford built his first automobile assembly-line plant in Highland Park in 1908 on the east side of Woodward Avenue, the thoroughfare that divides the east of Detroit from the west. But the people of Lillibridge Street still look like theyve been picked up by their hair and dropped from the rooftop. Of course I would. Legal name. The slap caused the gun to fire with the bullets striking young Aiyana in the head and killing her instantly. 1:46 Detroit After nearly five years, the officer who accidentally killed 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones during a raid being filmed by a TV camera crew has been restored to active duty as a. The raid took place at about 12:30 a.m. Was it inevitable, as the doctor said, that abject poverty would lead to Aiyanas death and so many others? I am sick as hell. Aiyana was severely burned and then shot in the head and neck by an unidentified police officer standing on the porch. But there is no money; the struggling school system has a $363 million deficit. But police officials have refused to discuss how one got shot in the foot. Folks want to blame Aiyana's "crime ridden" neighborhood for her death. He gives details of the way streets look like at night, and gives a captivating detail of girl's father suffering from insomnia. Some 45,000 abandoned houses pock Detroit. There is speculation that the attending television crew may have increased the incentive for a glamorised, military-style operation. . . The psychopathology of growing up in Detroit, he said. Chaises mother, Britta McNeal, 39, sat on the porch staring blankly into the distance, smoking no-brand cigarettes. [59], On April 2, 2015, nearly five years following Jones's death, Officer Weekley was returned to active duty as a Detroit police officer. Chauncey Owens, the uncle wanted on murder charges, was said to be going in and out of the house as normal and could have been apprehended during the day. 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. Evans drivera copgave chase. It was unlocked. In an attempt to distract the occupants, police fired a flash grenade through the front window of the lower apartment, where Aiyana Jones was sleeping. "[27] His trial was scheduled for October[28] and finally took place in June 2013 but resulted in a deadlocked jury. Weekley, who retired from the police department in 2019,claimed Mertilla Jones grabbed his rifle, causing it to discharge. January 30, 2015 / 4:13 PM [37], Weekley's retrial started in September 2014. As recently as this week, Fieger said in a press release, thatto date, theCity of Detroithas refused to participate in good faith in any resolution regarding Aiyana's death and continue to deny the family justice. Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley stands in judge Cynthia Hathaways courtroom in Detroit, in June 2013. Rayshard Brooks was a 27-year-old African American restaurant worker who lived in Atlanta. The crime most likely happened at the . The Rust Belt. JeRean knew badness was on its way and called his mother to come pick him up. She denied grabbing the weapon. But I felt unraveling this one death could help diagnose what has gone wrong in this city, so I decided to retrace the events leading up to that pitiable moment on the porch on Lillibridge Street. Al Sharpton spoke her eulogy. People my mothers age like to tell me about Detroits good old days of soda fountains and shopping markets and lazy Saturday night drives. In this way, what happened to J Cole's daughter? The fire department is little better. Can you pitch in a few bucks to help fund Mother Jones' investigative journalism? While other American metropolises have gotten control of their murder rate, Detroits remains where it was during the crack epidemic. The civil rights lawsuit, which alleges officers attempted to cover-up how Aiyana Stanley-Jones was killed, names Officer Joseph Weekley, Robert Rowe, the Detroit Police Department, and the city as defendants. The department was also cited for excessive force after people died in lockup and at the hands of rogue cops. But he doesnt return my calls. A good kid who showed neighborhood children how to work electric clippers, his dream was to open a barbershop. The family is seeking $7.5 million in damages and a jury trial conceded by the court filing. Oddly enough, that's what supposedly happened to a beautiful 7-year-old girl named Aiyana Jones. [34][35], Weekley's first trial ended in a mistrial in June 2013. In the end, Gibson was charged with Huffs murder and the attempted murders of four more officers. The police were searching for a murder suspect thought to be in the Jones home. The case garnered national headlines for all of the obvious reasons: an innocent child caught in police crosshairs, another black life taken in a city filled with heartache. He didn't elaborate. 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.. She looked at her barefoot grandson playing in the wreckage of the dwelling next door and wondered if he would make it to manhood. Thats how its supposed to be done.. "[60], In September 2013, J. Cole published a music video dedicated to Jones for his song Crooked Smile, featuring TLC on YouTube. 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. But it was dark. Instead of being protected, communities are treated like the enemy, the report found with a disproportionate effect on communities of color. Forget what you saw, little man. The whole country knew it, and the whole country laughed. I saw the tape and wrote about its existence after the killing of Aiyana, but the story went nowhere until two months later, when someone in City Hall leaked a copy to the local ABC affiliate. Its about state-sanctioned violence., US police departments are increasingly militarised, finds report, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Outside, three men were loading the boiler, tubs, and sinks into a trailer to take to the scrap yard. [20] He pushed his way inside, protected by a ballistic shield. These girls are the lucky ones. In a photograph from May 2010, Dominika Stanley and Charles Jones hold a picture of their daughter, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, in a Detroit courtroom. Owens sped two blocks back to Lillibridge and gathered up a posse, according to his statement to the police. Bobb did uncover graft and fraud and waste, however. Weekley was the first officer to enter the home, seconds after a flashbang grenade a war device created by the British SAS in the 1960s to disorient with a blinding flash and a temporarily deafening noise was lobbed into it. Grover 08:10, 10 June 2014 (UTC) Reply . You might blame postwar industrial policies that sent the factories to the suburbs, the rural South, and the western deserts. Weekley claimed his gun accidentally went off as he struggled with the girls grandmother, Mertilla Jones. Clutching his juice in one hand and two dollars in the other, JeRean staggered across Mack Avenue and collapsed in the street. And he wouldnt even help her. Stanley suddenly emerged from her stupor: Whats that got to do with it? she hissed. Some people are doomed from birth because their environment is so toxic.. The presence of children in the house was known. Sharptons full of shit, said Cargill, a brassy 39-year-old who works as a stock clerk at Target. Evans told me then that major crimes were routinely underreported by 20 percent. DETROIT - At the prosecutor's request, a judge on Friday dismissed the last charge against a Detroit police officer who fatally shot a 7-year-old girl during a raid. You might point to the trade agreements of the Clinton years, which allowed American manufacturers to leave the country by the back door. As it turns out, he was filming a pilot for his own reality show, entitled The Chief. A thousand people attended, as did the predictable plump of media. Completed in 1917, the school, attended by white students at the time, was considered so far out in the wilds that its athletic teams took the nickname Jungaleers.. Louis Miriani, the last Republican mayor of Detroit, who served from 1957 to 1962, was sent to federal prison for tax evasion when he couldnt explain how he made nearly a quarter of a million dollars on a reported salary of only $25,000. Her death drew national media attention and led U.S. Representative John Conyers to ask U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for a federal . Detroit VA hospital harmed patients, altered records, investigation reveals, $8.5 million wrongful death lawsuit settlement, Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. Jones was born on July 20, 2002, to Charles Jones and Dominika Stanley in Detroit. Lyvonne Cargill wears a shirt that honors her son, JeRean Blake Nobles. Seven-year-old Aiyana Jones was sleeping on the couch next to her grandmother in their Detroit, Michigan home when a SWAT team threw a flashbang through the window, which landed on her blanket. Somebody should have told company executives back in New York that they had wildly overpaid. Two days later, on May 16, police arrived at the house where Aiyana Jones lived, hoping to find Owens. You might blame Coleman Youngthe citys first black mayorand his culture of cronyism. The Detroit chapter of the Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100) and Black Lives Matter Detroit organized the rally on what would have been her 14th birthday. That is, until someone realized that the schools are controlled by rival gangs. The team, which had received intelligence that at least one rifle was in the house,wasaccompanied by a crew from the cable TV show, "First 48.". School wasnt a priority. Over 10 years ago, Detroit police executed a nighttime raid at a home on the city's east side in search of a murder suspect. Inside the lower unit of a duplex halfway down the gloomy street, Charles Jones, 25, was pacing, unable to sleep. But the real mystery behind Officer Huffs murder is why Gibson was out on the street in the first place. He admitted in his first trial that, "It's my gun that shot and killed a 7-year-old girl. [23] At Weekley's retrial in 2014, it was disclosed that Mertilla's fingerprints were not found on Weekley's gun. 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