Posted on 05/17/2010 10:43:31 PM PDT by OldDeckHand
DETROIT -- Police who carried out a raid on a family home that left a 7-year-old girl dead over the weekend were accompanied by a camera crew for a reality television show, and an attorney says video of the siege contradicts the police account of what happened.
Geoffrey Fieger, an attorney for the family of young Aiyana Jones, said he has seen three or four minutes of video of the raid, although he declined to say whether it was shot by the crew for the A&E series "The First 48," which has been shadowing Detroit homicide detectives for months.
Police have said officers threw a flash grenade through the first-floor window of the two-family home, and that an officer's gun discharged, killing the girl, during a struggle or after colliding with the girl's grandmother inside the home.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Flash-bangs and hot entries should be reserved for war zones - not by use of our civilian law enforcement agencies except in the most extreme circumstances.
Policing is a dangerous job. There are a lot of dangerous jobs. If it's too much danger, find another job. What shouldn't be a dangerous job - being a 7-year old girl.
That little girl is innocent. The camera footage will be interesting to see.
If this is true Detroit will be burning by the weekend.
Actually, according to the department of Labor, neither in terms of absolute values, nor per capita, is being a police officer a dangerous job. That’s simply a myth. Now a carpenter, there’s a dangerous job.
It doesn’t require bravery these day, except in the inner cities, and then, they generally stay out of the dangerous areas. It’s far more dangerous to be a civilian in one of those cities anyway.
If they need to arrest a bad guy, can’t they stake out the house? Is it so expensive?
Can’t they spend some time figuring out who is in there before they go in like that?
I don’t feel sorry for the bad guys, but bad guys are sometimes surrounded by innocent people, obviously.
I just don’t understand the use of this tactic except in the most unusual of circumstances.
“Doing those things mean they don’t get their adrenaline rush “
I am afraid that is how it appears, in most cases at least. I can’t support it, at least not without extreme circumstances. And I tend to think highly of police.
I don’t like that people can bust into your house in the middle of the night, yelling “Police!” and you are supposed to just take their word for it and drop, and avoid reaching for your gun or running.
How am I supposed to know, when shocked out of a sound sleep, that some group of jokers didn’t just bust in their yelling “police!” in order to get the drop on me? I have no way of knowing that.
If this is true, Detroit SHOULD burn by the weekend.
it’s a simple use it or lose it situation. SWAT teams cost money, and they always have to justify their existence. If they sit around the coffee pot waiting for the one or two incidents a month (or maybe even fewer) when their skills are needed, the next budget won’t have any money for their shiny toys. So they’re out serving no-knock warrants, and 7 year olds get killed. It’s basically the same thing that happened at Waco.
Bottom line: if you give law enforcement officers military equipment and training, don’t be surprised when they start acting like a military force.
It’s interesting how SWAT just kept developing and holding out the hand for more money. Every community with twenty thousand folks...has a SWAT capability. In most rural counties...the Sheriff and his deputies will claim a SWAT capability even if it’s not totally true.
Flash-bangs and hot entries should be reserved for war zones - not by use of our civilian law enforcement agencies except in the most extreme circumstances.
Most inner city $hit Holes are war zones.
They were aware the guy was in the home and found him in there.
Agree, it shouldn’t be a dangerous job being a 7 year old but unfortunately she’s a victim of the scum that’s bringing her up and it’s a lifestyle they chose to live, they are not the victims of unfortunate circumstances.
Last but not least if the cops are lying then they need to get exactly what they deserve.
I certainly agree with you on that. They little girl did not choose those unfortunate circumstances, but the adults in her short life most certainly made exceedingly poor decisions.
How will anyone be able to tell the difference from how the place looks now???
I agree with you.
Well - at the risk of being over general - this story has all the elements for a poor outcome - no local knowledge (it was the swat team not the local cops), over hyped weapons and tactics for cameras, the city of Detroit, idiot last minute decisions, and now Fieger.....
I just have to shake my head - this is exactly what is wrong with government running things - the only thing that could make it worse is if the TSA was somehow involved.
Even our military attempts to avoid civilian casualties at all times. If this tape shows the cop firing from the outside in it won't be good.
“Police who carried out a raid on a family home that left a 7-year-old girl dead over the weekend were accompanied by a camera crew for a reality television show....”
Well, well, well. That should be quite interesting for all involved. Probably shook up the TV crew a good deal.
I think the cops need to find a better way to handle these situations. There seem to be quite a few too many grievous errors being made.
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