Their daughter, Aiyana Stanley-Jones was killed with one single bullet.  A bullet delivered from a gun of a man who once took an oath to protect and serve our communities.  A bullet that pierced the neck of this Justin Bieber fan, this Hannah Montana lover and this dreamer of one day being a Disney princess.  As the teen sensation’s hit single “Baby” played continuously over the loud speakers of the church as the procession entered, I was reminded just how young Aiyana was.  She would not get the chance to celebrate her 8th birthday.  She would not live to feel her nerves before her date arrived in a stretch limousine to pick her up for her high school prom.  She would not live to see the smiles on her parent’s faces when her name was called at her college graduation.   A girl taken from this earth far too early, before she could understand her own purpose.   A baby we buried today.

Thirty-seven years ago, we waged war on our own people, when President Nixon declared a “War On Drugs.”  We created harsh and unjust laws that targeted people of color in this country and developed police tactics that were on par with our military operations on the enemy’s turf.  I know the Detroit Police were looking for a suspect in the heinous murder ofJerean Blake (join fb group), the 17 year old that was killed two days before Aiyana, just around the corner from her house, but the tactics they used were same tactics developed from the War On Drugs.  This doesn’t happen in the community in which I grew up.  Stunt grenades are not thrown through windows of any home, much less homes where there are children present.  SWAT teams don’t knock down doors with no-knock search warrants and fingers on the trigger.  This does not happen in the community in which I grew up.