Police Raided Wrong Appartment, Shot A 7-Year-Old Girl In The Head

The situation occurred on the night of May 16th, 2010, Detroit’s Special Response Team (SRT) was called into execute a raid in order to arrest a wanted suspect. The suspect’s home was the left unit of a Lillibridge Street duplex. 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones lived in the right unit of the duplex, as well as other family members. Aiyana wasn’t the only child who lived at the residence. There were also three other small children who lived at the duplex.




. The officers were only legally able to search 4056 Lilibridge Street, but they decided to raid both units. The officers through a stun grenade through Aiyana Jones’ front window where she slept on the couch.
According to reports, the grenade exploded on the couch where Aiyana and her grandmother, Mertilla Jones slept. Shortly after this occurred, police officers kicked the door open, and in a matter of seconds, 37-year-old Officer Joseph Weekley fired his MP5 into the part of the house where a bullet pierced the head of Aiyana Jones.

During both mistrials each side issued conflicting stories about the events that happened on May 16th, 2010. The police officer claims Aiyana’s grandmother reached for his weapon, which is the reason he decided to blow the little girl’s head off.
Her grandmother stated she fell to the floor during the initial raid and wasn’t near Officer Weekley when he shot her grandchild in the head.

“They blew my granddaughter’s brains out,” said Ms. Jones. “They killed her right before my eyes. I watched the light go out of her eyes.”
Prior to this incident, Officer Weekley was one of the police officers involved in a 2007 federal lawsuit, which alleged that during a no-knock raid huge guns were aimed at small children and two animals were shot.

Through both trials, Attorney Geoffrey Fieger, representing Aiyana’s family, has argued that the SRT unit acted irresponsibly by raiding both units of the duplex. “[Police] were going into both doors,” Mr. Fieger said. “The upstairs flat is on the left. Aiyana’s flat— where I want to stress that Mr. Chauncy Owens did not reside, never resided, never stayed— is on the right.”
Fieger went on to state that the SRT unit didn’t have a legal warrant to raid Aiyana’s apartment unit until hours after the shooting occurred.

“In the video they break into both the upstairs flat and the downstairs flat. The problem is they don’t have a warrant for the upstairs. Assistant Police Chief Ralph Godbee didn’t tell you when he got the second search warrant. After Aiyana was killed and after he broke into the upstairs apartment and arrested the suspect.”
It is uncertain whether or not the prosecutor will seek another retrial after both rulings have left juries undecided