http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/17/aiyana-stanley-jones-joseph-weekley-trial_n_5824684.html?cps=gravity
A Detroit police officer accused of manslaughter in the death of a 7-year-old girl will go on trial this week, as national attention remains focused on the militarization of U.S. law enforcement and police violence perpetrated against people of color.
Aiyana Stanley-Jones was sleeping in her home on the east side of Detroit on the night of May 16, 2010, when officers barged into the house. They were conducting a police raid in search of a murder suspect who lived at that address -- and being filmed for a reality TV show in the process -- when Officer Joseph Weekley accidentally fired his gun. What exactly caused him to fire is still a matter of dispute. But the shot killed Aiyana.
i wonder how accidental the trigger pull was they are trained to keep thefingeroff the trigger until necessary. with the lure of being on TV and being filmed in play could he have taken that kick the door down guns blazing kill everybody attitude have taken over?
Weekley was first tried in connection with Aiyana's death in 2013, but the jury was unable to reach a verdict. This Monday, jury selection began for Weekley's retrial.
CONFLICTING STORIES
It was a little after midnight when the Detroit Police Special Response Team, a unit similar to a SWAT team, descended on the Stanely-Jones residence in search of murder suspect Chauncey Owens, who lived upstairs. Owens was suspected of having killed a teenager a few days earlier, a charge for which he would eventually be convicted.
Weekley was first through the door, and saw what he thought was an empty room with a man standing in the far doorway, he testified last year.
According to Weekley, a fellow officer threw a flash-bang grenade through the window, temporarily blinding him. When Weekley regained sight, he realized there was a person on the couch instead of what he'd originally thought was a pile of clothes.
He was swinging his weapon to point toward the couch, Weekley testified, when Aiyana's grandmother, Mertilla Jones -- who had been sleeping on the couch with the girl -- smacked his weapon, an MP5 submachine gun, with her hand, causing him to pull the trigger. The bullet struck and killed Aiyana.
At the time, Weekley said, he didn't even realize he had fired his gun, thinking the shot had been fired by someone else. His lawyer later described it as a tragic accident.
the excuses keep getting wilder and wilder and the victims younger and younger, if they the cops were occupying the dwelling why would a cop outside toss a grenade without warning to fellow officers because if true they the would be disoriented and vulnerable to gunfire from the tenants of which i might add were not the ones in the apt where their suspect lived, all around incompetence and malfeasance. and IMO not thought out excuse.
Mertilla Jones, who witnessed Detroit police officer Joe Weekley shoot her granddaughter Aiyana in May 2010, speaks at Grand Circus Park on July 14, 2013 in Detroit. Photo by Paul Warner/Getty Images.
Jones told a different story at Weekley's trial last year. She said she'd initially been asleep on the couch with Aiyana, but that she was on the floor when Weekley shot his weapon, not close enough to touch the gun.
"The guy was just pointing right there and Aiyana [was] hit," Jones testified last year. "I seen the light leave out of her eyes."
Jones had previously said the shot came from outside the house. In 2013, at Weekley's first trial, his lawyer pointed to Jones' inconsistent accounts of the shooting and otherwise attacked her credibility, according to MLive.
different stories but only one was supposedly trained to overcome the moment and respond professionally not for the cameras.
