It started with a horrifying crime scene on Lyndon Street in Detroit. Police responded to find someone shot Dejiza Coleman at least 16 times and shot her 5-year-old daughter Isabella in the head. Police put the little girl in the back of their squad car and rushed her to the hospital, but she did not make it. Her mom is in critical condition fighting for her life.
Detectives went to work to find the people responsible. Police Chief James Craig says they tracked down a suspect’s vehicle at a home on Evergreen near Cathedral. They got a search warrant and went to the house.
“They are announcing, ‘Search warrant! Police,’” said Craig as he described what he saw on police body camera footage.
Craig says when officers go in the dark house they see a man on a couch with a gun. The first officer to enter yells for that man to get down, then starts firing.
Family members say the man killed is 46-year-old Detric Driver, a father of two. They say he was sleeping with a gun because he was terrified over what happened to the mother and daughter. The man shot is the brother of Dejia Coleman’s step-father.
Police say he is not the man they were searching for, but that doesn’t mean the shooting was not justified.
“Whether he is the suspect in the shooting the night prior or not, he is now the suspect in a felonious assault on police,” said Craig.
Police Chief James Craig said the man shot had a felony record and should not have had a gun. Heroin packaged for sale was allegedly found in the house.
They now have two suspects in custody, a man and a woman. The woman is the sister of the mother shot.
“We have information that the mother and her sister were involved in an on-going dispute,” said Craig.
Police say the officer who pulled the trigger is a 20 year veteran. He has been on the Special Response Team for seven years executing high risk search warrants. During that time he has not been involved in any officer-involved shootings. He had one officer involved shooting prior to that, which was deemed justified.
