Playing to the Cameras? Suit Filed Over Taped Police Raid That Resulted in Child’s Death
High-profile lawyer Geoffrey Fieger has sued the city of Detroit and its police department in state and federal court on behalf of a family whose 7-year-old girl was killed in a police raid that was being taped by the A&E network for a reality show.
The suits claim civil rights violations and a conspiracy to hide the truth, the Detroit Free Press reports. Courthouse News Service posted the federal lawsuit (PDF). It claims that 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones was killed when police tossed a flash-bang grenade into the window and “immediately blindly fired random shots” into the home. The state suit, however, says only one shot was fired, the Free Press says.
Some lawyers have questioned whether police were playing to the cameras when they used a flash grenade, the Washington Post reports. The anonymous lawyers said they aren’t aware of any instances of the grenades being used when children were present.
Fieger said in a news conference that a mystery man showed up at his office a day after the shooting with a videotape that is at odds with the police department’s version of events. He didn’t elaborate, but the child’s grandmother has said police lied when they said a gun went off accidentally after she collided with an officer.
Fieger no longer has the video. He says it was shot by someone with ties to police rather than A&E. The network’s video has been turned over to police, a source told the Washington Post.
A&E was taping the raid for its show The First 48, which shows detectives in the first 48 hours of a murder investigation. Police were raiding the home, part of a duplex, in a search for a suspect in the shooting death of a 17-year-old high school student.
