by Rose Hackman, The Guardian. January 31, 2015.
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.
