It's May of 2020, which means it's the 10th anniversary of the murder that should have changed America forever. During a SWAT raid on the wrong house, a Detroit officer killed 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley Jones. 10 years later, cops still kill innocent people like it's no big deal.

I don't want anyone ever to forget this little girl's story, so I'll tell it here. The truth, though, is that it's already forgotten. At the time, I was naive enough to think that it would be the spark that might really change the way we do things in the U.S., but nope.

In May 2010, Detroit cops were chasing a murder suspect. In tow was a film crew for the show “The First 48.” SWAT had the wrong apartment, but needed to make fireworks for the cameras. So they kicked the doors down in the dead of night, & threw a flash grenade into the front room

Anyone who's been watching SWAT for the last few decades knows this is just business as usual. It's usually not chasing a murder suspect, it's usually just for a bag of drugs or a bottle of pills. Sometimes it's for dangerous dogs or suicide calls.

Regardless of what the alleged "crime" is, SWAT kicks down doors in the middle of the night. The bust in and ransack houses. They shoot family pets. The throw explosives. This is all done as a matter of course, 50,000+ times a year, all over America. And we put up with it.

All that by itself is a testament to how well-trained we all are. We're so desensitized, in fact, that we barely notice when a flash grenade catches a little girl on fire, which is what happened to Aiyana Jones. If we noticed it, we probably don't remember it ten years later.

Anyway, when SWAT raids someone’s home, they typically have their weapons in “low ready” position. That’s the position best suited for killing dogs, but it’s pretty good for killing people, especially if those people are close to the ground, as sleeping 7-year-olds tend to be.

In the commotion over the entry, the armed men yelling, and the child on fire, a uniformed rising star of reality television discharged one bullet that pierced Aiyana’s head, traversed her brain, and exited through her neck. This should have changed the world, but did not.

The cop later said that he was struggling with Aiyana’s grandmother when his submachine gun accidentally fired. Evidence suggests the round was fired from *outside* the house. But the indignities don't end with the little girl's death.

Aiyana's family SAT IN A POOL OF THE CHILD'S BLOOD for hours before police decided to ARREST HER GRANDMOTHER. Again, no angry mob dismantled the Detroit police department over this alone, which I find difficult to understand. But there's more!

The cop was eventually charged with manslaughter, but the jury hung. So the judge dismissed the charges. The only charge left was "reckless discharge of a firearm." The judge dismissed THAT charge at trial too.

So the family got to live through three trials over the next 5 years, only to get no justice at all. The grandmother testified: “She was only a baby, man. She was sleeping and I told you all ‘Let me get my granddaughter’, and you didn’t give me a chance. Why you do this to me?"

(Source for that last quote and more horrible stuff about this case here: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/31/detroit-aiyana-stanley-jones-police-officer-cleared)

The cop who killed that little girl and blamed her grandmother still has his badge. Incidentally, his brother is a cop, too. He was demoted for a 2016 FB post that said "The only racists here are the piece of (expletive) Black Lives Matter terrorists and their supporters."