Today 24-year-old Jerry McKinney was back in court in connection with the shooting death of a 7-Year-old girl back in July of 2010.
McKinney pleaded guilty to manslaughter today, in exchange 4 other charges including 1st degree murder were dropped.@
But Amaia's family is still struggling to come to terms with what happened.
Standing before the judge, Jerry McKinney admitted he knew he was taking part in an armed robbery that summer day.@
Ken DeBoer, Defense Attorney: "He didn't know what the outcome was going be but certainly that possibility was there and it happened unfortunately."
Unfortunately 7-year-old Amaia Edmond lost her life that day when her step-father returned fire, accidentally hitting her.
While the family sat in the same row in court on Monday, after McKinney was lead into one room and the family gathered in another, things heated up.@
An argument over who's to blame, the step-father who has admitted to dealing drugs in the past or the people who broke in.
The argument continued, forcing police to step in.
Brad St. Aubin, Lansing Police Detective: "My partner and I just tried to get the people separated, get the people are far away from each other."
St. Aubin says they weren't prepared for this.
St. Aubin: "We didn't expect this to happen today as I said, more of the time when they're together its very civil. If we would have known this was going to happen we would have had more cops here."
But after seeing what unfolded Monday, St. Aubin says things will be different when McKinney is back in court next month.
St. Aubin: "You can rest assured that when sentencing happens there's gonna be a lot of cops here to avoid this again."
More cops and likely more emotions as family members struggle with the loss of their little girl.
McKinney is scheduled to be back in court for sentencing on June 13th.
