This could be a precedent setting case if the Court . The judge denied the motion for mistrial, saying she believed the jury could still be "impartial." 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 . Which is what he was doing at this house, authorities contend, when he put three bullets in Officer Huffs face. [4], Officer Joseph Weekley was charged in connection with Jones' killing. McNeal wondered how she was going to pay the $3,000 for her sons funeral. The fire department is little better. In October 2011, he was charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment with a gun. It fired. They want to blame her parents and her aunt who is engaged to the murder suspect. The sad and confusing circumstances of the murders of JeRean Blake and Officer Huff, both black, robbed Sharpton of some of his customary indignation. It is like that all over Detroit, where whole blocks regularly go dark with no warning or any apparent pattern. The Detroit City Council needs to approve the settlement. IT MIGHT BE a stretch to see anything more than Detroits problems in Detroits problems. The silent suffering.. Fieger alleged a police cover-up. He got paid exactly what he was supposed to be paid.. Aiyana Stanley-Jones was 7 years old when she was killed by a single bullet to the head. All Rights Reserved. Newspapers made little of ituntil the US Attorney revealed that the federal monitor of the decree was having an affair with the priapic mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who was forced to resign, and now sits in prison convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. [38] Weekley insisted he accidentally pulled the trigger during a struggle with Aiyana's grandmother. Police Chief James Craig stated, "He'll be in a limited duty capacity. If he didn't give him the gun, they feel like their brother would still be alive, and Aiyana would still be alive.". Jones was arrested, and though she was quickly released it was not before she and two other family members Aiyanas parents had been forced to sit in their childs blood for hours, Scott said. He came here for publicity. ", The mother of Jones' victim, Lyvonne Cargill, said: "I'm stressed thinking about that man coming home." You might say that the homicide of Aiyana is the natural conclusion to the disease from which she suffered, Schmidt told me. Known as Half-Day Hathaway, the judge was removed from the bench for six months by the Michigan Supreme Court a decade ago for, among other things, adjourning trials to sneak away on vacation. 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. 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. If youre a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.. In October, judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway dismissed a charge of involuntary manslaughter, citing a lack of evidence. To me, thats like writing about the surf conditions in the Gaza Strip. Moreover, the Detroit public school system is the worst performer in the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests, with nearly 80 percent of eighth-graders unable to do basic math. All rights reserved. Would you take a job at that Chrysler plant if there were any jobs there? I asked one of the men, who was sweating under the weight of the cast iron. Bagpipes played and the rain fell. The family of a 7-year-old who was fatally shot during a botched raid in 2010 is suing Detroit police, alleging officers lied about how she was killed as part of a cover-up. At its peak popularity, 810 fires were set in a three-day span. The beavers disappeared from the river around 1930. But there is no money; the struggling school system has a $363 million deficit. 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 . He was shot in the head and killed last year. [66] On July 20, 2016 Detroit police arrested six unknown individuals for chaining themselves to a precinct of the Detroit Police Department, their protest honoring Jones. All Rights Reserved. You might point to the trade agreements of the Clinton years, which allowed American manufacturers to leave the country by the back door. Me? Charlie LeDuff is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, filmmaker, and multimedia reporter. 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. and Weekley for the unlawful use of excessive force. She refused to let me see the original paper file, despite the fact that it is a public record, and has said that she cant comment on the case because she might preside in the trial against Gibson. In tow was an A&E crew filming an episode of The First 48, its true-crime program. When I called the head of the homicide bureau and explained the situation, he told me, Oh yeah? In the process, the gun belonging to police officer Joseph Weekley . Cargill said because of COVID-19 restrictions, she was unable to attend Jones' parole hearings to contest his release. A good kid with average grades, JeRean went to Southeastern High, which is situated in an industrial belt of moldering Chrysler assembly plants. That is, until someone realized that the schools are controlled by rival gangs. He said. 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. If such a thing could be true, Chaises neighborhood is worse than JeReans. It was 2:40 in the afternoon on May 14 when JeRean went to the Motor City liquor store and ice-cream stand to get himself an orange juice to wash down his McDonalds. On October 4, 2011, a Wayne County grand jury indicted Officer Joseph Weekley for involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment with a gun. I was allowed to meet with Charles Jones the following morning at Fiegers office, but with the caveat that I could only ask him questions about the evening his daughter was killed. He was formerly a reporter for The Detroit News. [25], Chauncey Owens, the suspect who the raid was intended to apprehend and boyfriend of Aiyana's aunt LaKrystal Sanders,[26] was found in the upper-floor apartment of the duplex and surrendered without incident. The environment got nothing to do with kids.. The whole country knew it, and the whole country laughed. "But I can tell you this: If anyone is looking for a scapegoat for justice, then you've got one here as owner, coach and quarterback. Cole's character, it turns out, is a drug dealer. 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. ], My baby, my baby, my baby. 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. I need help. Your donation is fully tax-deductible. His partner took the rear entrance. The title is derived from the California penal code for murder: 187. Police arrested Mertilla, administered tests for drugs and gunpowder, and released her Sunday morning. A total, unfortunate fuck-up.. Editors note: On October 4, 2011, following a yearlong investigation by the Michigan state police, Officer Weekley was charged with involuntary manslaughter and careless discharge of a firearm. Owens was convicted of first-degree murderand sentenced to life in prison. 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, Geoffrey Fieger said. Young Municipal Center in Detroit. Lyvonne Cargill wears a shirt that honors her son, JeRean Blake Nobles. But the SWAT team didnt wait. A fresh trial was scheduled for December 2013,[29] but actually began in September 2014. The Jones family contends that the shot that killed Aiyana was fired from outside the house, and that the police eventually caught the homicide suspect, Chauncey L. Owens, at a different address . 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. City of Detroit Corporation CounselLawrence Garciahas treated the family with utter disrespect and disdain. That was before he canceled a planned press conference to discuss the upcoming case. Jones was born on July 20, 2002, to Charles Jones and Dominika Stanley in Detroit, Michigan. Shoddily equipped firemen face some 500 arsons a month.Detroit has been synonymous with arson since the 80s, when the city burst into flames in a pre-Halloween orgy of fire and destruction known as Devils Night. In Detroit, the official response time of an ambulance to a 911 call is 12 minutes. Chaises mother, Britta McNeal, 39, sat on the porch staring blankly into the distance, smoking no-brand cigarettes. Compounding the tragedy is the fact that the police threw the grenade into the wrong apartment. As Detroit led the nation in median income and homeownership, automation and foreign competition were forcing companies like Packard to shutter their doors. (And that statistic is true; I checked.). Fugitive in $18 million COVID fraud scheme extradited to U.S. ended without verdicts on a charge of reckless use of a gun. 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. "[21][22], Mertilla Jones said she reached for her granddaughter when the grenade came through the window, not for the officer's gun, because the flash grenade had set the child on fire. At the center of this economic dynamo was Detroit. They were looking for a murder suspect. 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. More than 4,000 people attended Officer Huffs funeral at the Greater Grace Temple on the citys Northwest Side. Hes from New York. 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. held a small rally in memory of Jones. 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. There are two elementary schools in the area, both in desperate need of a lawnmower and a can of paint. But in Evans defense, he seemed to understand one thing: After the collapse of the car industry and the implosion of the real estate bubble, there is little else Detroit has to export except its misery. [36] Aiyana's case would be the longest presiding case that Hathaway had in more than 20 years of being on the bench. Over the next 50 years, Detroits East Side would become the worlds machine shop, its factory floor. 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. Evans driver dropped him with a single shot. Wage growth is slowing. Were going to pull people over for traffic violations and were going to take their cars if theyre not legal. In Michigan, the designation for homicide is actually 750.316 (PDF), but thats just a mouthful of detail. 42,200. You dont go into a home around midnight. The story rated three paragraphs in the daily papers, and the media never followed up. After the finale aired, we didn't know whether they're still together or not until the reunion on March 4, but a little social media sleuthing told us they were still . 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. The house next door to his is rubble smelling of burnt pine, pissed on by the spray cans of the East Warren Crips. The family of a 7-year-old girl who was fatally shot during a May 2010 police raid is suing the Detroit officer involved in the incident, Detroit News reports.. 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. On October 10, the second trial ended in another mistrial. The department decided to withdraw him from active duty shortly after the shooting on May 16, 2010. Jones, 25, a slight man with frizzy braids, wore a dingy T-shirt. The Detroit Police Department was in search of a murderer, and mistakenly raided Aiyana's home. PICTURES: Aiyana Jones, 7, Killed by Cop Weekley, who is charged with involuntary manslaughter, said he didn't immediately realize that he had shot Aiyana during the 2010 house raid. Weekley, who retired from the police department in 2019,claimed Mertilla Jones grabbed his rifle, causing it to discharge. His motive, authorities say, was that the teen failed to pay him the proper respect. From all indications it appears that police operation were flawed and heavily influenced by camera crews who were filming the raid for A&E's crime show "The First 48," according to a published report. People are drinking. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. I get no sleep. One man, who wanted to turn himself in for a murder, gave up trying to call the Detroit police; he drove to Ohio and turned himself in there. Go ahead, walk in the Detroit River and disappear. But I cant. While a thousand people mourned the tragic death of Aiyana, the body of JeRean Blake Nobles sat in a refrigerator at a local funeral parlor; his mother was too poor to bury him herself and too respectful to bury him until after the little girls funeral, anyhow. Even the beavers have returned.The daughter of an autoworker and a home nurse, McNeal grew up in the promise of the black middle class that Detroit once offered. On Friday, Hathaway dismissed a lesser second charge, of reckless use of a firearm. "This was an assassination by video," said Roland Lawrence as he and others watched a small plane . He, too, was about to graduate from Southeastern High. But if it wasnt for them, the city population would have sunk further than it did. The flashbacks. The slap caused the gun to fire with the bullets striking young Aiyana in the head and killing her instantly. 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. There are some 10,000 unsolved homicides dating back to 1960. What the fuck do you think? he said. As officer Joseph Weekley walks free, another community is demanding answers about the increasing militarisation of law enforcement. On a hot afternoon around one Mothers Day, I was working in the back greenhouse. Paramedics say it is routinely much longer. 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. 3) Weekley's claims that Mertilla Jones grabbed . A bunch of lazy, uneducated blue-collar incompetents. About 350 people are murdered each year in Detroit. [6][7][8] On October 10, the judge declared a mistrial due to jury deadlock. At the time Owens was the boyfriend of Joness aunt LaKrystal Sanders, who was also living at the house. Danny Wilcox Frazier is a contributing photographer for Mother Jones. The entire botched nighttime raid was captured on camera by crews from the A&E show The First 48. Protestors pleaded for the termination of Officer Weekley as he had been selected to co-chair the Detroit Police Department's Committee on Race and Equality. The posse allegedly included Aiyanas father, Charles C.J. Jones. Her death drew national media attention and led U.S. Representative John Conyers to ask U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for a federal . The Rust Belt. He won't be in the field. A good kid who showed neighborhood children how to work electric clippers, his dream was to open a barbershop. Except there aint no job. Both sons now sit in urns on her mantel.Chaise lived on the other side of the Chrysler complex. ME Schmidt ruled it a homicide; the police decided it was a suicide. 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