Family denounces Detroit police murder of seven-year-old child

[Hannah Bell]

On Monday, an attorney for the family said a videotape of the incident revealed that Aiyana had been shot from outside the house before the grenade was tossed inside. Police officials have claimed an officer accidently discharged his weapon inside the house after a “physical confrontation” with the child’s 47-year-old grandmother, Mertilla Jones.

Jones, a retired school worker, has strenuously refuted the allegations that she had a struggle with the cops. Police officials are now saying the police officer may have “simply collided” with her before the gun discharged. Police say they were conducting a “no knock” search for a homicide suspect. However, the suspect, a 34-year-old male who was arrested by police, did not live in Aiyana’s apartment but in a separate, upstairs unit in the three-story home.

It has now been revealed that the police raid was being videotaped for a reality crime show on the Arts & Entertainment Network called “The First 48.” A plug for the show on the A&E website, says, “For homicide detectives, the clock starts ticking the moment they are called. Their chance of solving a case is cut in half if they don’t get a lead in ‘The First 48...' In the twisted minds of the media executives, police raids in Detroit’s neighborhoods, like military sweeps through Iraqi and Afghan homes, are “entertainment.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/may2010/detr-m18.shtml

[truedelphi]

1. This little girl died in part for a TV show?

That is even worse than thinking she died over the eternal War on Drugs.

[Hannah Bell]

2. maybe they should pay all the people they film in cop shows these days.

might help the unemployment rate.

some days the sickness is just too much to stand.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. They were there filming

She wasn't killed FOR the show. :eyes:

[truedelphi]

5. Oh I understood that part. It's just that the cops

Should not have the distractions of being on film for TV.

One of my big peeves is the endless car chases. I have had situations where the home I lived in was burglarized - and it stood nine hundred feet from the San Rafael Calif. police station.

$ 1200 bucks worth of stuff stolen. Neither myself nor the landlord could get the cops to walk across the street and file a report - even though we KNEW who did it. (I had made contact with the pero, and gotten my bioke back out of his thieving arms.)

Meanwhile, let some poor person from Oakland come over to Marin and steal $ 600 bucks worth of crap from Target, and the police cars are speeding along the road, so happy to be in pursuit of criminals.
They say they have no choice - they have to get the bad guys. And if someone dies while they are in pursuit, they figure that the crime was big enough to warrant the chase and the death.

Difference between the two scenarios - one will be on the news (the car chase) or at least mentioned in news papers, and the other one would be destined for obscurity.

[Mojeoux]

4. The upper duplex was where they were supposed to raid! n/t