Detroit Police Officer Indicted For “Accidental” Shooting Death of 7-Year-Old Aiyana Jones
With all this “justice” being handed out lately, the following comes as good news. Many people including myself, was outraged at the police shooting death of 7-year-old Aitanna Jones over a year ago. Recently I thought the case was all but forgotten, but today, there is some welcoming news in the interest of justice:
Detroit Police Officer Joseph Weekley has been arraigned on an indictment on charges of involuntary manslaughter and careless and reckless discharge of a firearm causing death in the May 2010 slaying of Aiyana Stanley-Jones during a raid.
Also charged on an indictment is Allison Howard, 42, of Boston, with charged with perjury investigative subpoena and obstruction of justice. Wayne County prosecutors said Howard was a principal photographer with “The First 48,” which had crew following the Special Response Team the night of the raid.
Weekley and Howard will be back in court Friday for a pretrial hearing before Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway.
Assistant prosecutor Robert Moran told the court that she lied during the investigative subpoena, adding seven months onto the investigation into the shooting by Michigan State Police.
But her lawyer, Robert Harrison, said she will be cleared.
[…] Weekley fatally shot Aiyana on May 16, 2010, when police entered the home searching for a shooting suspect. The police were accompanied by the camera crew filming a reality-style cable TV show.
Police sources previously told the Free Press that, during the raid, Weekley was first through the door and that the girl’s grandmother, Mertilla Jones, tried to grab his gun, which fired and hit Aiyana. Jones has denied this accusation.
Steve Fishman, Weekley’s attorney, said Weekley didn’t do anything criminal.
7-year-old Aiyana Jones
“He knows he didn’t do anything wrong,” Fishman said. “He knows he was acting as a police officer on a dangerous mission.”
In March, the prosecutor’s office received a warrant request from the Michigan State police, which investigated the shooting.
The Stanley-Jones family lawyer Geoffrey Fieger said he is still concerned about a recording of the shooting that he was shown that is different than one made by a camera crew from television reality show “The First 48.” That second video has not been located since it was privately shown to Fieger.
“All I know is that the (missing) video is pretty dramatic,” he said. “You can see the gunman shooting into the house from the outside.”
The video that police have “is very different,” he said. “It doesn’t show a thing.”
Fieger contends the shot came from outside of the house and struck Aiyana while she was sleeping with her grandmother on a living room couch.
The Michigan State Police conducted a 10-month investigation into Aiyana’s killing, and in March submitted a warrant request to prosecutors.
An independent autopsy contradicted initial reports that Aiyana was shot through the neck. Macomb County Medical Examiner Daniel Spitz determined that the shot struck Aiyana in the top of the head and the bullet exited through her neck. (source)
As you can see, there has been some shadiness on the part of the police investigators, as well as the camera woman who captured the incident live for “The First 48″. This is one story that I intend to follow closely as the case advances. Personally, I’ll be watching for the okie-doke as I hope you will be as well. Sadly however, the above linked story also mentions that Aiyana’s father, Charles Jones, was arrested today and is facing at least 5 charges, one of them being first-degree-murder. Pretty ironic, isn’t it? Yep, especially since many said that the “alleged” criminality of her relatives wee responsible for her death. I’m sorry, but I still contend that it is the actions of this officer in question, that is responsible for her death. That said, it’s good to know that he’ll be brought to justice.
