Second Jury Still Having Trouble Reaching Verdict In Detroit Police Shooting Of Girl

[garyfisher]

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2014/10/second_jury_still_having_troub.html

 

Cop shoots daughter of homicide suspect in head.

 

DETROIT, MI -- A jury in the trial of Detroit Police Officer Joseph Weekley, charged with reckless discharge of a firearm in the 2010 death of 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones, left the courthouse Thursday still without a verdict.

A third day of deliberations will begin Friday morning, according to the Wayne County Prosecutor's office.

The jury is the second to sit through a trial in the same case.

Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway declared a mistrial the first time around when a jury failed to reach a verdict after three days of deliberation last year.

Weekley was previously accused of involuntary manslaughter, but Hathaway dismissed that charge during the second trial.

The SWAT team officer still faces a misdemeanor with a maximum punishment of two years in prison.

The child was shot in the head during a raid on a Detroit home conducted by police in search of a homicide suspect.

Weekley led Detroit's SWAT team into a home on Lillibidge about 2 a.m. May 16, 2010 in search of homicide suspect Chauncey Owens, who would later be arrested on the second-floor unit of the duplex.

An A&E documentary film crew was on the scene.

Weekley claimed Mertilla Jones, the child's grandmother, tried to snatch his gun, causing his finger to move onto and pull the trigger, firing the bullet that killed Aiyana.

Jones testified at trial, accusing of Weekley of lying about the incident and claiming, though prosecutors never did so, that he killed the child on purpose.

Weekley's defense attorney Steven Fishman sought to challenge Jones' credibility, pointing out to the jury that her home had 14 spent shell casings and two stolen vehicles outside it, and a man eventually convicted of murder, her son Charles Jones -- Aiyana's father -- inside.

And prosecutors pointed the jury to the fact that Jones wasn't handcuffed and arrested until two hours into the raid, not immediately after she allegedly grabbed at Weekley's gun.

Deliberations will resume at 9 a.m Friday, according to the prosecutor's office.

 

[garyfisher]

The Blue Code of Silence (also known as the Blue Shieldor Blue Wall) is the idea of an unwritten rule that exists among police officers not to report on a colleague's errors, misconducts, or crimes. (Wiki)