Image via NBC News
Six people who chained themselves to a Detroit Police building in protest of the death of a seven-year-old African-American girl who was shot in her bed during a botched 2010 police raid were released from jail this morning. The six protestors were part of a larger Black Lives Matter group, estimated atabout 100 people, that demanded that the officer involved in the young girl's death be fired.The officer, Joseph Weekley, was originally charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless use of a fireman. Weekley was leading police—and a film crew that was recording an episode for the reality series "The First 48"—into the house of a murder suspect. Once inside, Weekley claims, he accidentally fired his gun and fatally wounded young Aiyana Stanley-Jones.Weekley underwent trials in 2013 and 2014 that both resulted in mistrials. The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office has said it does not plan to try Weekley again.The Black Lives Matter protest took place on what would have been Aiyana Stanley-Jones' 14th birthday, July 20.If Weekley's name sounds familiar, it's because his brother, Detroit Police Detective Nate Weekley, was recently in the news. Nate Weekley was demoted after posting comments on Facebook describing Black Lives Matters supporters as "racists" and "terrorists.""If there isn't a protest, we forget," said Pastor David Alexander Bullock, a national spokesperson for the Change Agent Consortium, which participated in the protest.Bullock encourages those who are tired of seeing police kill unarmed black people to do more than just protest."We have to move from protests to politics," he told Broadly. "Prosecutors are elected officials. If they get the sense they won't get re-elected if they don't take Black lives seriously, that's what's going to change their policy."
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