Originally posted by D308cat:
Detroit JBT's do it again! Bust in a door and shoot an innocent 7 yr old girl to death! Way to go you NAZI JBT's, BURN IN HELL but first go through HELL. Another innocent life taken by incompetent butchers. Nothing less than a prison sentence is acceptable. SEMPER FI

A 7-year-old Detroit girl was shot and killed this morning after a Detroit Police officer’s weapon went off while executing a search warrant for a homicide suspect on the city’s east side, police said this morning.

The officer involved is on paid leave pending the investigation, said Assistant Police Chief Ralph Godbee.

The shooting occurred while officers from the police department’s Special Response Team were looking for a suspect connected to the Friday shooting death of 17-year-old Jarean Blake, a Southeastern High School student.

And it comes at a time when the city is reeling from two weeks of tragic shooting deaths — including that of Detroit Police Officer Brian Huff on May 3.

In today’s incident, officers threw a flash bang device — which causes a bright flash and noise — into a home at 4054 Lillibridge on the city’s east side at about 12:45 a.m., and immediately entered, guns drawn, said Godbee.

“I heard Boom! Detroit Police! Pop! It happened so fast,” said Krystal Sanders, 30, an aunt of the girl who said she was in the home at the time of the incident.

The 47-year-old grandmother of the girl shot was in the front room of the house and had a physical tussle with the first officer when his gun discharged, hitting Aiyana Stanley Jones in the head and neck area, police said. She was sleeping on a couch in the room.

"I seen the light go out of her eyes," said grandmother Mertilla Jones, 47, who was questioned by police and released today. “Blood was running down her mouth…They killed my grandbaby.”

Family members said the girl was outgoing, friendly, and loved to sing and dance. She was fond of entertainer Hannah Montana.

Medics with the team took the girl to St. John Hospital & Medical Center in Detroit, where she was pronounced dead, police said. The department’s chaplains have been in contact with the family, Godbee said.

The shooting is still under investigation, he said. And the department offers its condolences to Aiyana’s family. Today family members looked through photographs of the girl, one of her 6th birthday last year blowing out candles on a cake iced with an image of Hannah Montana.

“We have executed countless high risk warrants where children have been present,” Godbee told the Free Press this morning. “This was a perfect storm for tragedy.”

The woman involved in the tussle has been taken into custody, as is the suspect sought in Blake’s death, although no charges have been issued yet.

Police did not release names of either the woman or the suspect.

The Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality will host a candlelight vigil at the home where Jones died today: 8 p.m. at 4054 Lillibridge, Detroit.