FAMILY DESCRIBES MILITARY RAID ON AIYANA JONES’ HOME; COP SAYS PRESENCE OF KIDS DIDN’T MATTER IN “MISSION”

Posted on 06/09/2013 by Diane Bukowski

Toys in front yard, cousin’s warning ignored
Take-down team did not arrest target of raid when he left house earlier
Testimony raises questions about Blake killing
 June 8, 2013
 By Diane Bukowski

Aiyana Jones and her three little brothers were sleeping at their grandmother’s home when police raided, killing her with a shot to the head from an MP5 machine gun.

DETROIT – Testimony continued June 5 and 6 in the trial of Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley, charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless use of a firearm resulting in the death of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, 7, in 2010. Once again, both Prosecutor Robert Moran and Weekley’s defense attorney Steve Fishman ignored the central issue in the case—the military use of police against poor Black Detroiters, which was bound eventually to result in such a tragedy.
At one point, Special Response Team (SRT) Sgt. Tim “Malibu” Dollinger called the post-midnight raid on the Jones home, where four little children were sleeping, a “mission.” The term recalled civilian killings by U.S. military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Aiyana’s cousins Mark Robinson and Vincent Ellis and her aunt LaKrystal Sanders took the stand to describe the horrific raid. Her grandmother Mertilla Jones, who was sleeping on the couch with Aiyana when Weekley shot the child through the head using an MP5 submachine gun, is set to testify Mon. June 10.

Expert depiction of Aiyana’s killing by Weekley, as presented by family’s attorney Geoffrey Fieger.

It is likely that Fishman will grill her about his primary defense of Weekley,  that she bumped into his gun or otherwise interfered with him. Most raid team members  so far have testified that when they entered the home, Mertilla Jones was on the far end of the couch, a significant distance away from Weekley.
On June 5, Robinson, 22, said he had gone outside to get his two puppies back into their pen after Ellis woke him shortly after midnight June 16, 2010.
“I turned around and I see like a big metal tank truck with lights all over it, and officers get out dressed in black,” Robinson said. “They come up to me and had guns in my face, made me get on the ground, and put a big foot in my back. Next thing I see cops running up to the house. I was yelling to them, ‘There’s kids in the house.’  They ignored me. They continued to bum rush the house. They threw the flash bang through the window and it went off with a boom. Then I heard a sound like a gunshot.”

Aiyana’s family members during Fieger press conference May 18, 2010. L to r, Mark Robinson, Dominika Stanley, Charles Jones, Fieger, Mertilla Jones and LaKrystal Sanders. Photo by Diane Bukowski

 His voice trembling, Robinson continued, “At that moment, I hear my auntie screaming, ‘You killed my baby, you killed Aiyana.’ Then one cop ran out of the house with Aiyana over his arm, carrying her like a rag, with her head slumped one way and her feet the other way.”

SRT raid team member Kata Ante Taylor.

Artell Dickerson, killed by Taylor.

He said afterwards he saw the police bring his aunt, Mertilla Jones, out of the house in handcuffs and take her away in in a police car.
The officer who carried the child out, according to police testimony, was Kata’Ante Taylor. He executed 18-year-old Artrell Dickerson with two gunshots to the back as he lay on the ground in 2008, according to eyewitnesses. Dickerson’s family won a $1.5 million settlement against the City of Detroit in that case.
On cross-exam, Fishman grilled Robinson on his testimony that he heard the gunshot come from the porch. Robinson clarified, “It came from on the porch in the doorway.”

JeRean Blake

Fishman asked whether Robinson knew and told family members that Chauncey Owens, who lived in the upstairs flat with LaKrystal Sanders, was involved in the killing of Je’Rean Blake, 17, on May 14, 2010, the motive for the raid.
Robinson said he suspected Owens or Owens’ brother Sherron Heard, known as “Chinaman,” might have been involved because they had a moped, cited in TV reports as present at the scene of the Motor City Marketplace liquor store where Blake died.
But, he said, he did not know if that was the case and never told others in the family of his thoughts. He said the killing did not fit Owens’ personality.
“It was not my place to ask him,” he said. He testified he had never seen Owens with a gun. Earlier,  police testified that no weapons were found in the house after Aiyana was killed.

Prosecutor Robert Moran (seated) at preliminary exam of Aiyana’s father Charles Jones as Jones’ attorney Leon Weiss speaks, Jan. 26, 2012. Photo by Diane Bukowski

Moran is also prosecuting Owens and Aiyana’s father Charles Jones in the Blake case in what many have called a conflict of interest. Both he and Fishman elicited testimony from police officers that they “heard” Owens had a handgun and an AK 47. However, the officers never specified who gave them the information or whether they had seen the weapons.
Neither Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway, who is hearing the case, nor the prosecution has objected to such presentation of “facts not in evidence,” although Hathaway at one point objected to “hearsay” but did not rule it out.
Police on the stand and in an A & E videotape have said but not substantiated that Lillibridge, the street where the Jones family lived, was a hot-bed of drug dealing, and that Owens dealt drugs. They appear to be playing to the sentiments of the jury, which is all-white except for one Black member.
Owens has no drug-related convictions on his record.

Toys in front yard of Aiyana’s home in photo taken May 16, 2010 are the same ones seen in evidence photo shown to police and jury in Weekley trial. Photo by Diane Bukowski.

Likewise, Judge Hathaway has not challenged Moran and Fishman’s continued characterization of Owens as a “murderer,” although he has not yet been tried in Blake’s death, and has no other murder-related convictions on his record.
No arrest warrant was issued for Owens until May 19, 2010, three days after the raid, according to court records.  Instead, officers testified, they obtained a “search warrant” for the two-family flat where the Jones family lived downstairs, running it to 36^th District Court Magistrate Sidney Barthwell’s home for a signature just prior to the raid. 
Barthwell arraigned Maryanne Godboldo nearly a year after Aiyana’s death, after she stood off a similar SRT raid by police who were trying to take her daughter Ariana to medicate her with a dangerous drug in March, 2011. He ordered Godboldo held on a half-million dollar bond, until an outpouring of national support forced her release on personal bond. Later, 36^th District Court Judge Ronald Giles dismissed all charges against Godboldo.

Maryanne Godboldo

Sidney Barthwell

An SRT officer testified he led a trio of officers in a “take-down team,” which was supposed to arrest Owens if he left the house. He said they were parked on Montclair near Mack, three streets west of Lillibridge, when surveillance officers Raymond Trammell radioed he saw Owens leave the home twice, three hours before the raid, and walk with another man north to the end of the block at E. Canfield, then back to the house. He said his team did not arrest him during what amounted to two four-minute walks because he had not crossed E. Canfield and they could not “cut him off.”
Many community members have contended the SRT team wanted to put on a show with their military gear for the A & E TV cameras, which had been following the investigation all day, by raiding the house instead.

Sgt. Timothy Dollinger headed raid team.

After ignoring them during the first days of testimony, Moran finally pointed out the numerous brightly-colored toys in the family’s front yard, which are clearly visible in an evidence technician’s photo of the home, shown repeatedly to officers and the jury.  All the officers denied seeing the toys during extensive surveillance before the raid.
SRT Sergeant Tim “Malibu” Dollinger, who along with Weekley, nicknamed “Brain,” is featured as a star on A & E’s “Detroit SWAT” website, was in charge of the raid team.
After testifying extensively about the line-up of the SRT raid team as it entered the house, and the gear they wore, Dollinger said he was the third or fourth officer inside the home, and immediately saw an entry bullet wound in Aiyana’s head.

Steve Fishman

He said he directed Officer Taylor to take her out, and continued to search the home on all three levels.
He testified that he drove by the house beforehand with Weekley and another SRT officer. He denied seeing the toys, and said knowing that children were present would not have changed the team’s plan.
“Is the fact there are children in the house, does that mean a murder suspect can sit around with children for the next 10 years and the police will never come get them?” Fishman asked.
“If someone says, ‘Hey be careful there’s kids in there,’ I’m not going to stop and not execute the search warrant,” Dollinger said. “Not that you wouldn’t be careful, it’s important to know so no one gets hurt.  You’re already giving them a lot of trauma because there’s a lot going on.”
He testified that he and Weekley had participated in at least 250 search warrant raids and about 50 “barricaded gunman” raids. He said SRT officers get a “patch” for their uniforms for each raid.

Rally for Justice for Aiyana held March 8, 2013. Aunt LaKrystal Sanders is in center.

Dollinger said he was born and raised in Detroit by his grandparents, and that he and his grandfather were both victims of robberies. He said that motivated him to become a policeman. Dollinger currently lives in New Baltimore, Michigan, according to an on-line records search.
Aiyana’s aunt LaKrystal Sanders, who lived with Chauncey Owens for 17 years at various residences, also testified June 6. Sanders said she and Owens heard the loud noises and came down from the upper flat as police were breaking down their door. Police arrested Owens, who was in his boxer shorts, and took him into the lower flat, she said.

Chauncey Owens

That action further contaminated what officers earlier testified had become a homicide scene, which needed to be investigated by the unit that deals with officer-related shootings. Owens’ court records in the case show that officers forced him to sit on the bloody couch where Aiyana had been shot, prior to taking him to jail and then making her mother, father and grandmother sit there as well, “for hours.”
“I heard my mother screaming, ‘They killed Aiyana,’ Sanders said. “She was screaming my name. . . .I asked a sergeant did they let my brother go to hospital. I heard on the police radio different things, including that she was doing all right, or going into surgery, or had an asthma attack, or got burned. . . After a few hours, someone told me ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’”
Her testimony cast doubt on the prosecution’s case against Owens.
Fishman quoted testimony she gave to a grand jury regarding the day Blake was killed.
“You told the grand jury, all of you were sitting outside on the front porch that day and saw Chinaman [nickname for Owens’ brother] fly by. He told you I gotta get rid of this bike and gun. You said Shannon, Lebron, all the kids, you, Charles Jones, Dominique Simpson, McKenzie Robinson, were there.”

Mertilla Jones with her grandchildren after second police raid on her home in 2012, late the night of a hearing in Weekley’s case.

Sanders said “Chinaman” had only relayed that information to his brother.
Earlier, Fishman blamed Aiyana’s mother for letting her children stay in the same house with Owens after allegedly hearing of his involvement in the Blake killing.  However, the transcript Fishman read clarified that it was not Dominika Stanley, but Dominique Simpson, the mother of Jones’ other children, allegedly on the porch. Simpson and her children were not in the house during the raid.
Aiyana’s cousin Vincent Ellis also testified June 6. He said he was in a front befroom when he heard commotion and noise, and started to go into the front room, but fell back into his room when he saw the flash of the grenade.
He said he heard another loud noise.
“The next thing I knew I was getting handcuffed,” Ellis said. “They asked where the guns are at.” He said the officers left him in the room. Fishman quizzed him about whether the officers said “guns” or “gun,” saying he told the grand jury they asked him, “Where’s the gun at?”
Fishman also asked about Ellis’ testimony to the grand  jury that Mertilla Jones told him she was on the couch when Aiyana was shot.

Aiyana would have been 10 last year. Photo from family’s Facebook page.

Fishman had made an issue of that several times, since Jones on has said she fell to the floor when the grenade, which was found under the cushions of the couch by the evidence unit, went off.
He likely will grill her June 10 on her differing testimony. Jones was held for several days by police after watching her grandchild shot to death in front of her eyes, has been in poor health, and is likely still suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Members of Aiyana’s large extended family from both her mother’s and father’s side have attended the trial every day and expressed anger about evident attempts to blame the child’s death on people in the family.
“We want justice and we are going to get justice, and we want peace,” Dominika Stanley’s father Jimmie Stanley said during a break. “Aiyana was our loved one, and she has a very large family. She was my heart. I have her photos all over my house. When she would see me, even if she was with her grandma, she would come running to me.”

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/06/09/family-describes-military-raid-on-aiyana-jones-home-cop-says-presence-of-kids-didnt-matter-in-mission/