Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights. Compounding the tragedy is the fact that the police threw the grenade into the wrong apartment. 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. We're a nonprofit (so it's tax-deductible), and reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget. Some people are doomed from birth because their environment is so toxic.. 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 forgive him, but I don't forget what he did.". I need help. Nor is corruption a black or liberal thing. Go ahead, walk in the Detroit River and disappear. But I cant. The raid took place at about 12:30 a.m. In Detroit, only 1 in 3 kids will graduate from high school. She had already cleared a space on the other end of the mantel for Chaises urn. 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. In Detroit, a new car costs more than the average house. On October 4, 2011, a Wayne County grand jury indicted Officer Joseph Weekley for involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment with a gun. The frightened black man attempted to save himself. People taking advanage of my benevolence. He gave her $800 for funeral costs. [5] Wayne County Circuit Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway presided over the case. . A fresh trial was scheduled for December 2013,[29] but actually began in September 2014. I am sick. The day I visited, a Hollywood starlet (PDF) was tailing the doctor, studying for her role as the medical examiner in ABCs new Detroit-based murder drama Detroit 1-8-7. You can blame it on the John Deere mechanical cotton-picker of 1950, which uprooted the sharecropper and sent him north looking for a livingwhere he found he was locked out of the factories by the unions. 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. A small donation would help us keep this available to all. In this way, what happened to J Cole's daughter? Not to worry: The city had its own welfare system, decades before Lyndon Johnsons Great Society. Thats a hell of a pair of bookends, I offered. [49], Aiyana Jones' funeral was held in the Second Ebenezer Church on May 22, 2010 in Detroit. Weekley claimed his gun accidentally went off as he struggled with the girls grandmother, Mertilla Jones. 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. Defense attorney Steve Fishman said prosecutors were courageous by closing the case. Danny Wilcox Frazier is a contributing photographer for Mother Jones. They were looking for a murder suspect. On a hot afternoon around one Mothers Day, I was working in the back greenhouse. In the end, Gibson was charged with Huffs murder and the attempted murders of four more officers. A small crowd of agitated black people was gathered on the sidewalk. Copyright 2023 Mother Jones and the Foundation for National Progress. The car made Detroit, and the car unmade Detroit. A reality TV crew recorded the scene from the street. Huff entered with his gun still holstered. McNeal wondered how she was going to pay the $3,000 for her sons funeral. February 24, 2023. Jones pleaded guilty tosecond-degree murder and was sentenced to40-60 years, although in 2017 the Michigan Court of Appeals granted him a new trial. If he didn't give him the gun, they feel like their brother would still be alive, and Aiyana would still be alive.". I lingered a moment, backing out while taking it in: the bracelet, the liquor, the blood, the gun, the Ho-Hos, the cheapness of it all. In 2019, Jones' family agreed to an $8.5 million wrongful death lawsuit settlement against the city of Detroit in connection with the raid. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter and "negligent firing of a weapon causing death". The lawsuit charges Rowe[who?] I went to see Fieger to ask him to show me the tape. Thats one less knucklehead driving around looking to do a drive-by., His approach was successful, with murder dropping more than 20 percent in his first year. Bobb did uncover graft and fraud and waste, however. [54][55], Attorney Fieger claimed that footage, from an undisclosed source, showed that the lethal bullet came from outside the home, rather than inside, as police said. Its going to stop, he promised. 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. I can accept the shooting was a mistake, Jones said about his daughters death as a bleary-eyed Stanley sat motionless next to him. [12][17][18] Officer Weekley claimed that the flash grenade subsequently blinded his view of the person on the couch in the living room. The beavers disappeared from the river around 1930. The Rev. 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. Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley in court in Detroit, Mich. on June 18, 2013 during his first trial. The bullet struck Aiyana killing her. She got pregnant at 15. Mertilla Jones, 46, and her grandaughter, Aiyana Jones, 7, were asleep on a couch in their lower flat's front room at about 12:30 a.m. when police tossed an incendiary stun grenade through the window directly above the couch. But according to a witness, he said nothing. [11], The jury claimed that race did not affect the decision of their verdict. Robert Bobb was hired in 2009 as the emergency financial manager and given sweeping powers to balance the books. This is not about policing, he said. Al Sharpton spoke her eulogy. The ones pictured here are all found on one block. Aiyana Joness funeral was held on May 22, 2010, at the Second Ebenezer BaptistChurch in Detroit where Alfred (Al) Charles Sharpton Jr. gave the eulogy. Weekley insisted he accidentally pulled the trigger during a struggle with Aiyana's grandmother. Add in the fact that half the police precincts were closed in 2005 for budgetary reasons, and the crime lab was closed two years ago due to ineptitude, and it might explain why five of the nine members of the city council carry a firearm. Weekley was transferred from the Special Response Team to the Criminal Investigations Bureau. JeReans mother drove as he gurgled in the backseat. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Not all of us are blessed.. (And that statistic is true; I checked.). [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". 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.". [19], Police officers, bystanders, and residents of the home disagreed about the events that followed. Weekley shot Aiyana Stanley-Jones as she slept on a couch in a Detroit home in 2010. I get no sleep. Even in Detroit, a predominantly black city. The madness has to stop, he said. There are at least 50 corpses on hold in his morgue cooler, some unidentified, others whose next of kin are too poor to bury them. Aiyana Jones was killed nine years ago during a police raid gone wrong and no convictions were made. Blame the Federal Reserve. . First, it was six cops who responded to the 911 call. "[27] His trial was scheduled for October[28] and finally took place in June 2013 but resulted in a deadlocked jury. Weekley's first trial ended in a mistrial in June 2013. Both trials ended with hung juries. [31] In June 2013, Howard pleaded "no contest" to the obstruction of justice charge, and the perjury charge was dismissed. Rayshard Brooks was a 27-year-old African American restaurant worker who lived in Atlanta. It feels like there aint no love no more.. He became a horrifying statisticone of 103 kids and teens murdered between January 2009 and July 2010. The individual being sought at the multi-family dwelling was a suspect in a murder that took place at about 3:00 p.m. the previous Friday. Forget about it. His body was transferred to Dr. Schmidt and the Wayne County morgue. The civil rights lawsuit was filed in federal court Wednesday by attorney Geoffrey Fieger over the death of Aiyana Stanley-Jones. The Detroit Police Department was in search of a murderer, and mistakenly raided Aiyana's home. Juries twice failed to reach a verdict in Weekleys case, first in June 2013 and then in October 2014. I went to visit Cargill, who lived just around the way. While other American metropolises have gotten control of their murder rate, Detroits remains where it was during the crack epidemic. They were wondering if the Rust Belt cancer had metastasized and was creeping to Los Angeles and London and Barcelona. 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. Take for instance the death of 7-year-old Aiyana Jones, who was shot and killed during a police raid at their Detroit home. Evans brought a refreshing honesty to a department plagued by ineptitude and secrecy. The raid took place at about 12:30 a.m. She arrived too late. When I called the head of the homicide bureau and explained the situation, he told me, Oh yeah? Police Chief James Craig stated, "He'll be in a limited duty capacity. [12], According to press reports, police were on the scene by 12:40a.m. on Sunday, May 16, 2010. [38] 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. The silent suffering.. Its about state-sanctioned violence., US police departments are increasingly militarised, finds report, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. 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 environment got nothing to do with kids.. Murder suspect Chauncey Louis Owens, the target of the raid, will be charged. It's hurting me. But police officials have refused to discuss how one got shot in the foot. 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