Another shooting in southside Jackson

By ELIZABETH FERSZT

Contributing Writer

In the early morning hours of Sunday June 15, two masked men drove up in a car to the corner of the 300 block of E. Robinson and Adrian Streets in Jackson; they got out and opened fire on a small group of people who had gathered quietly outside to talk and share music.

According to a resident who wished to be unnamed, the shooting was random. He said he did not know the shooters nor did any of his family members or guests.

After it was over, bullets had hit a house in two places; demolished the back window of a Hemi car parked in front of it, and hit a young woman in the leg.

According to the homeowner, who also wished to remain unnamed, she was  in the hospital due to a heart attack from the night before. Her disabled husband, who was at home in the basement of their house (that was hit by bullets), immediately called and texted her at Henry Ford Hospital about what had happened.

Jackson Police arrived shortly after the shooting, but they were too late to apprehend the men in the car. JPD put police tape around the scene, including the front lawn of the house and the damaged car. They proceeded to knock on the door of the house for a welfare check. The disabled man answered the door, not in the best mood because he had been awakened by gunfire. He denied that he was in need of help and did not allow JPD to enter the premises.

He said they came back a few hours later with a warrant, instructing the man to remain on his front porch and not reenter the house, saying, “If we find a gun inside, will it have your DNA on it?”

While the warrant was signed by a judge and cited probable cause, allegedly it did not particularly describe what they were searching for – not guns, drugs, cash, or other contraband was named in the warrant. It did however mention electronics, and the police seized the cellphone of the disabled man and that of his 25-year-old grandson, who had been handcuffed, detained, and questioned in the back of a police squad car for about an hour, according to the resident.

In trying to figure out what had happened, the homeowner who was at HFH said that she asked her kids, if there was someone here that night who wasn’t normally here, that they were shooting at. The kids, who are grown adults, told her no. Her house normally hosts her adult grandchildren and sometimes their friends come over.

But she stated that her adult children and grandchildren “don’t live that lifestyle [of street guns]” but sometimes she “feels that they may have to get guns to defend themselves” – she herself did the CPL training but never ended up buying a handgun. She stated there were no guns in the house.

The homeowner also stated that her grandchildren went to Trinity Lutheran and Lumen Christi and that they are not involved in gangs, and that they work.

The search warrant executed by JPD resulted in “the house being ransacked and left in complete shambles,” said the resident. He stated that it seemed like the police were “in riot gear, with a battering ram, and head lamps; they knocked the door off its jam.” He also said that the Jackson County Sheriff was involved or on site.

The young woman who was treated at the hospital for non-life-threatening gunshot wounds was Faith Ryan. Her boyfriend drove her to the hospital, but was arrested there as a suspect, although according to the homeowner, he was not one of the shooters. “They have the wrong man,” she said.

The resident said he moved from Ypsilanti to Jackson around five years ago, thinking it would be safer, but “this shit still happens.”

The homeowner said she feels that instead of being seen as crime victims of this shooting incident, the police are treating her and her family like suspects.

Chief Christopher Simpson said in an email, “[the] story is inaccurate, you can FIOA request the search warrant and see the actual probable cause and what actually was recovered in the search warrant.”

As of press time the Morning Star did not hear back from our FOIA request regarding the warrant.