Detroit Police Officer Charged in Shooting Death of Aiyana Stanley-Jones

Joseph Weekley has been charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones.

By Jorge Rivas Oct 04, 2011

Detroit Police Officer Joseph Weekley has been arraigned on charges of involuntary manslaughter and careless and reckless discharge of a firearm in the death of Aiyana Stanley Jones. The 7-year-old girl was shot and killed during a police raid in May of 2010.

The shooting made national headlines because police were accompanied by a camera crew filming the A&E reality cop drama "First 48."

Weekley is a 14-year veteran who had been a member of the department’s Special Response Team (SRT) since 2004. He reportedly told his sergeant moments after the shooting, "A woman inside grabbed my gun. It fired. The bullet hit a child."

But the Stanley-Jones family lawyer Geoffrey Fieger told the Detroit Free Press he was shown a video immediately after the shooting that shows police as the aggressors. The video in question has not been found was reportedly not investigated by police.

"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 is arguing 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.The Detroit police department has also been federally sanctioned twice in less than a decade for excessive force and inhumane conditions at the city’s county jail.