DETROIT — An attorney for the family of a 7-year-old girl who was killed by a police officer’s bullet during a weekend home raid said Monday that a video of the raid contradicts the police department’s version of what happened.
Attorney Geoffrey Fieger said he watched three or four minutes of video that showed police had fired into the home early Sunday after lobbing a flash grenade through the window. He said this contradicts the police department’s story, which was that an officer’s gun discharged during a struggle or collision inside the home with the girl’s grandmother.
“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.
“The gun was fired before anyone goes through the door. There are lights all over, like it’s a television set.”
A camera crew for the cable television crime-reality series “The First 48” was at the raid, although Fieger declined to say whether the video he watched was shot by the crew.
A&E spokesman Dan Silberman said neither he nor anyone else from the network would comment on the case.
Fieger said more than one camera was recording at the scene. “It demonstrates conclusively, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what happened in this case,” he said. “The pictures don’t lie. It’s got sound and everything.”
Michigan State Police detectives have taken charge of the investigation.
Detroit police were trying to obtain any footage of the raid captured by the film crew, which had been shadowing city homicide investigators almost daily since early this year, Assistant Police Chief Ralph Godbee said Monday.
Godbee said Detroit police would not be commenting on the raid tactics but that the department was not concerned the film crew had any effect on how it was conducted.
The target of the search, a 34-year-old man suspected of killing a 17-year-old, was arrested in the upstairs unit of the two-family home.
