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By Sikivu Hutchinson
Editor of blackfemlens.org

The L.A. Times news item was buried at the bottom of the page in the bloodlessly tiny print reserved for marginalia. A 7-year-old black girl named Aiyanna Jones had been murdered in her sleep by the Detroit police after a military-style raid on her home. In the wake of the shooting, neighbors and loved ones placed stuffed animals in front of the house in memoriam. Rows of stuffed animals stared out from Associated Press photographs of the crime scene in dark-eyed innocence. In black communities across the nation, Aiyanna’s death elicited a firestorm of outrage from activists critical of police misconduct and excessive force. Recalling New York, Los Angeles, Oakland, and scores of other cities where black lives have been cut down by trigger-happy police officers, many condemned the murder as yet another instance of law enforcement’s criminal devaluation of black lives and “inner city” communities.