DETROIT — The house where Aiyana Stanley-Jones lived on the East Side here is quiet now, a makeshift memorial of teddy bears and balloons on the porch where the police lobbed a stun grenade through the front window last Sunday. They were looking for a 34-year-old homicide suspect.

But Aiyana, 7, asleep for the night on a sofa under the window, died from a bullet to the neck.

“Soon as they hit the window, I hit the floor and went to reach for my granddaughter,” said a distraught Mertilla Jones at a news conference after Aiyana’s death. “I seen the light leave out her eyes. I knew she was dead. She had blood coming out of her mouth. Lord Jesus, I ain’t never seen nothing like that in my life.”

But there is a good possibility that others eventually will see it: On that chaotic night, the Detroit police were being shadowed by a camera crew from a reality television show, “The First 48,” on the A&E cable network. And even if the night’s macabre events are never shown on television, they will almost certainly be viewed in a courtroom, since Aiyana’s family has filed suit against the Detroit Police Department, alleging gross negligence.

Even in Detroit, where deadly violence can seem routine, Aiyana’s killing has transfixed the city, leaving many questioning what they see as heavy-handed tactics by the police — particularly the use of the so-called flash-bang grenade on a Sunday night in a residence where children were known to live.