Aiyana Jones

Aiyana Mo'Nay Stanley-Jones (July 20, 2002 – May 16, 2010) was a seven-year-old African-American girl from Detroit's East Side who was shot in the neck and killed by police officer Joseph Weekley during a raid conducted by the Detroit Police Department's Special Response Team.

The Team was targeting a suspect in the apartment a floor above Jones' on May 16, 2010.

Her death drew national media attention and led U.S. Representative John Conyers to ask U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for a federal investigation into the incident.

Officer Joseph Weekley was charged in connection with Jones' killing.

On May 14, 2010, Southeastern High School senior Je'Rean Blake was shot and killed near the intersection of Mack and Beniteau streets on Detroit's east side.

By the end of the following day, police had identified Chauncey Owens as a suspect in Blake's death and obtained a warrant to search 4054 Lillibridge St, where Owens was believed to be hiding.

The building was a duplex; Owens's girlfriend LaKrysta Sanders lived in the upstairs apartment, while her mother and Aiyana Jones' grandmother, Mertilla Jones, lived in the downstairs apartment.

At the time of the incident Aiyana Jones was asleep on the couch in the front room of the downstairs apartment.

Owens was in the upstairs apartment.

An A&E reality TV television crew was accompanying the police Special Response Team gathering footage for The First 48.

Weekley had been featured on another A&E police reality show, Detroit SWAT.

Two weeks prior to the incident, a Detroit police officer had been killed in the line of duty while attempting to arrest a suspect.

Owens was later found guilty of Blake's murder.

Aiyana Jones was the daughter of Charles Jones and Dominika Stanley.

She was one of three children of the couple and had four halfsiblings.

According to press reports, police were on the scene by 12:40 a.m. on Sunday, May 16, 2010.

In an attempt to distract the occupants, police fired a flash grenade through the front window of the lower apartment, where Aiyana Jones was sleeping.

Officer Weekley claimed that the flash grenade subsequently blinded his view of the person on the couch in the living room.

Police officers, bystanders, and residents of the home disagreed about the events that followed.

According to reports, seconds after entering the house, Weekley fired the fatal shot.

He pushed his way inside, protected by a ballistic shield.

Weekley claimed Aiyana Jones' paternal grandmother, Mertilla Jones, attempted to slap his MP5 submachine gun, causing it to fire.

The bullet struck Aiyana killing her.

Weekley stated, "A woman inside grabbed my gun. It fired. The bullet hit a child."

Mertilla Jones said she reached for her granddaughter when the grenade came through the window, not for the officer's gun, because the flash grenade had set the child on fire.

She said she made no contact with any officers.

After the shot was fired, Weekley reported to his sergeant that a woman inside had grabbed for his gun.

Police arrested Mertilla, administered tests for drugs and gunpowder, and released her Sunday morning.

In October 2011, he was charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment with a gun.

After a one-year internal and federal investigation, on October 4, 2011, a grand jury indicted Weekley on involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment with a gun.

He admitted in his first trial that, "It's my gun that shot and killed a 7-year-old girl."

Weekley's first trial ended in a mistrial in June 2013.

His retrial began in September 2014.

On October 3, the judge, Cynthia Gray Hathaway, dismissed the involuntary manslaughter charge against Weekley, leaving him on trial for only one charge: recklessly discharging a firearm.

On October 10, the second trial ended in another mistrial.

At Weekley's retrial in 2014, it was disclosed that Mertilla's fingerprints were not found on Weekley's gun.

Geoffrey Fieger, the family's lawyer, said the police fired the shot that struck Aiyana from outside the home, possibly through the open front door.

Weekley was a member of Detroit's SWAT team and a frequent subject on the A&E Network (A&E), whose film crews were also filming the investigation for the documentary TV series The First 48.

Chauncey Owens, the suspect who the raid was intended to apprehend and boyfriend of Aiyana's aunt LaKrystal Sanders, was found in the upper-floor apartment of the duplex and surrendered without incident.

On January 28, 2015, a prosecutor dropped the last remaining charge against Weekley, ensuring there would not be a third trial.