Roland Lawrence

In a city obsessed with the fate of the Detroit Lions, it casts a disturbing tell where the sensibilities and priorities of the city’s decision makers lie. It has been several months since Wayne County Procrastinator, I mean, Prosecutor Kym Worthy bailed on her responsibility to determine if Detroit Police Officer Joe Weekly committed murder in the shooting death of 7 year old Aiyana Stanley Jones as she slept in her family’s home on Detroit’s eastside. Worthy “referred” the case to the Michigan State Police citing supposed conflict of interest issues (she’s worried about the appearance of a conflict of interest). Interesting, isn’t it? And thus the case languishes in Lansing -- no doubt in file drawer marked "who cares?" In the meantime Officer Weakley escapes justice and justice for Aiyana escapes official daylight.

For those of you who don’t know – the murder in process was being filmed with the permission of the Detroit Police Department (DPD) for a nationally syndicated cable program, The First 48 Hours, when a group of officers or should we call reality stars with guns in May of 2010 raided Aiyana's home in search, we are told, for a murder suspect. The premise for this all too real reality show is that police have 48 hours to try to solve a homicide case before it goes cold. The suspect could not be found at the home. There are a litany of stories detailing what happened during the police raid including a flash-bang grenade being thrown into a window near where Aiyana slept – (love those special effects). Another story claims that the Detroit Police blamed Aiyana’s grandmother with trying to grab an officer’s gun.

Yet another story reports the murder suspect that DPD was looking for was seen hours earlier that day, but for reasons unknown, DPD did not apprehend him (maybe they can't apprehend with a camera lens). But clearly, the “real” reality story is that DPD acted in wanton disregard for the safety of citizens and residents in the rush to perform for the camera. They blitzgrieged a home, cameras rolling, and trampling over the many toys in the yard, and managed to snuff out the life of an innocent child as she slept.

We may never uncover the precise events of that fatal night. But it's the duty of the County Prosecutor and the Michigan State Police to try. Critics like me surmise that the investigation, having gone cold and getting colder, will not reveal the truth. Instead, as are in the many other cases where Black men are suspiciously killed by police, the investigation will claim that the police in this case, Joe Weekley, was in compliance with his department’s training protocol when Aiyana was killed. Speaking of blitzgrieg, Himmler's SS might have found such training protocols instructive.

Is young Black life in Detroit so cheap? In deed life is cheap when you're not wealthy. GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN RICH, I guess. Image the same scenario occurring in, let's say, the rich Detroit suburb of Birmingham. Would police employ the same paramilitary tactics in a white neighborhood where a Rebecca of Grosse Pointe Farms slept?

Wayne County Medical Examiner Dr. Carl Schmidt, while being studied by a Hollywood actress as she prepared for her role as the medical examiner in the ABC series Detroit 187, said in an interview, "You might say that the homicide of Aiyana is the natural conclusion to the disease from which she suffered,” which is “The psychopathology of growing up in Detroit. Some people are doomed from birth because their environment is so toxic."

There is another disease that appears increasingly epidemic and catching. It’s called evade-your-duty-itis. Kym Worthy and the Michigan State Police should be tested for this virus.

-###-

Roland Lawrence (aka Fige Bornu) is Chairman, Justice for Aiyana Jones Committee which is organizing community action events throughout Detroit on the one-year anniversary of the police shooting death of Aiyana Jones on May 16, 2011. Email – justice4aiyana@hotmail.com