May 24, 2010 3:30PM 

# Grenades and Paramilitary Policing 

By [Tim Lynch](https://www.cato.org/people/tim-lynch) 

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![]()Aiyana Stanley-Jones, seven years old, was shot during a police raid on her home in Detroit.

The police threw a [grenade through a window](http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/2304930,aiyana-stanley-jones-funeral-shooting-052210.article) and then entered as they sought a murder suspect. Paramilitary weapons and tactics too often lead to unnecessary deaths and injuries. Rep. John Conyers wrote a letter to the Attorney General, asking him to monitor the case. In that [letter](http://www.freep.com/article/20100520/NEWS01/100520041/1318/Feds-Were-keeping-tabs-on-probe-of-Aiyanas-death), Conyers cites the Cato work, *[Overkill](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476)*. That’s a start, but Conyers should go to work in the Congress and stop the Pentagon practice of selling surplus military equipment to local police departments. More [here](https://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp50.pdf) \[pdf\].

**Update**: Radley Balko has more on this incident [here](http://reason.com/archives/2010/05/24/lessons-from-the-death-of-aiya/singlepage).

##### Related Tags 

[Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) 

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