DETROIT - Police who carried out a raid on a family home that left a 7-year-old girl dead over the weekend were accompanied by a camera crew for a reality television show, and an attorney says video of the siege contradicts the police account of what happened.
Geoffrey Fieger, an attorney for the family of young Aiyana Jones, said he has seen three or four minutes of video of the raid, although he declined to say whether it was shot by the crew for the A&E series "The First 48," which has been shadowing Detroit homicide detectives for months.
Police have said that officers threw a flash grenade through the first-floor window of the two-family home, and that an officer's gun discharged, killing the girl, during a struggle or after colliding with the girl's grandmother inside the home.
But Fieger said the video shows an officer lobbing the grenade and then shooting into the home from the porch.
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"There is no question about what happened because it's in the videotape," Fieger said. "It's not an accident. It's not a mistake. There was no altercation."
"Aiyana Jones was shot from outside on the porch. The videotape shows clearly the officer throwing through the window a stun-grenade-type explosive and then, within milliseconds of throwing that, firing a shot from outside the home," he said.
A&E spokesman Dan Silberman said neither he nor anyone else from the network would comment about the case, and he denied a request by The Associated Press for the footage.
Detroit police were trying to obtain the film crew's footage, Assistant Chief Ralph Godbee said Monday.
Fieger said the investigation into what happened during the raid "needed to go no further than the videotape."
"The videotape shows clearly that the assistant police chief and the officers on the scene are engaging in an intentional cover-up of the events," Fieger said. He said more than one camera was recording at the scene, and the footage includes sound.
Police arrested the target of the raid, a 34-year-old man suspected of killing a 17-year-old boy, in the upstairs unit in the two-family home. Police had warrants to search both properties, and family members of the slain girl were seen going in and out of both on Monday. The suspect has not been charged, and it was not immediately clear what relationship he had to the slain girl.
The family was left searching for answers. They retained Fieger, a high-powered attorney who also represented assisted-suicide advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian, but the girl's father said he wants to know what led to his daughter's death.
"They killed my baby, and I want someone to tell the truth," he said Sunday.
Police have not identified the officer whose gun fired the shot that killed Aiyana. Godbee said he is a 14-year veteran with six to seven years on the Special Response Team. He also said the officer has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.
The department declined to say whether it was being paid by the television show.
