'She was only a baby': last charge dropped in police raid that killed sleeping Detroit child

Aiyana Stanley-Jones was 7 years old when she was killed by a single bullet to the
head. As officer Joseph Weekley walks free, another community is demanding
answers about the increasing militarisation of law enforcement

Rose Hackman in Detroit
Saturday 31 January 2015 17.33 GMT

Final charges against Joseph Weekley, a police officer who shot dead a 7-year-old girl, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, in Detroit in May 2010, were dismissed on Friday, leaving a family bereft and raising serious concern among national groups over an increasingly militarized –police force.

In an echo of deaths at police hands that rocked the US last year, including those of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York, Officer Weekley is white and Aiyana Stanley-Jones was black.

Juries twice failed to reach a verdict in Weekley’s case, first in June 2013 and then in October 2014. In October, judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway dismissed a charge of involuntary manslaughter, citing a lack of evidence.

On Friday, Hathaway dismissed a lesser second charge, of reckless use of a firearm. The dismissal was at the request of Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy, who called the decision, which by law cannot be appealed, “unfortunate”.

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