Tag: Charles Jones

The fiery writing of JR Valrey began appearing in the Bay View a dozen years ago. JR made our original vision for the Bay View reality: to inspire Black youth to build a powerful Black community. As the Bay View’s associate editor and one of KPFA’s most popular programmers with his provocative Block Report Radio shows, JR and the youth who grew up on his empowering words and pictures are growing in influence, making a difference every day – and they’re just getting started.

Mertilla Jones, grandmother of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, the 7-year-old killed by Detroit police last year in a SWAT-style assault on her home, held Aiyana’s mother Dominika Stanley tightly in her arms as both wept uncontrollably in an elevator at 36th District Court in downtown Detroit.

The City of Detroit, its police department and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s office are apparently conspiring to stonewall a civil lawsuit against Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley. The officer shot 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones to death ...

Mertilla Jones, 46, and her grandaughter, Aiyana Jones, 7, were asleep on a couch in their lower flat’s front room at about 12:30 a.m. when police tossed an incendiary stun grenade through the window directly above the couch. Aiyana was severely burned and then shot in the head and neck by an unidentified police officer standing on the porch.

"Damn Detroit Police Department! You burned, shot and killed Aiyana Jones, a little 7-year-old girl. You threw a stun grenade through the front window and lit the little girl’s blanket on fire! And then you shot off a bullet that landed in her neck!" - Read this account by Kimora Lee Simmons, another by a 12-year-old girl and the full story by veteran Detroit journalist Abayomi Azikiwe.