Fuck the police
Detroit girl, 7, shot and killed by police
Officers were executing search warrant for homicide suspect
BY NIRAJ WARIKOO AND ZLATI MEYER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRIter
Squatting on the stoop outside his Detroit home Sunday afternoon, the father of the 7-year-old girl killed earlier that day gazed at photos of his only daughter at her sixth birthday party.
“She had a lively, free spirit,” Charles Jones murmured.
He then bent over, burying his face in his hands as he wept.
The scene Sunday outside Aiyana Jones’ home on Lillibridge was a mixture of shock, grief and anger as family and friends gathered to try to make sense of a shooting death they said was caused by over-aggressive law enforcement.
Police said they, too, are deeply upset by the second-grader’s death and are conducting a full investigation.
The shooting — which happened during a raid to catch a murder suspect who was found and arrested at the home today — is the latest high-profile death in a city where there is a growing sense that violence is spilling out of control.
Ron Scott, head of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, called Sunday’s shooting the worst he has seen in 14 years of working to stop police abuse.
But some said it’s too early to point fingers.
“Things go wrong, and things happen that you didn’t necessarily plan for,” said retired Detroit Police Sgt. David Malhalab, who frequently monitors Detroit police issues. “All I ask is for the public to wait until a complete and thorough investigation is completed.”
It’s a chain of events triggered at 3 p.m. Friday with the shooting death of Jarean Blake, 17, a student at Southeastern High School in Detroit.
Blake was gunned down “in particularly brutal fashion in front of a store — and in front of his girlfriend,” said Detroit Police Assistant Chief Ralph Godbee in a statement.
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