DETROIT (WXYZ) — "I just want justice for my son," said Barbara Jackson whose only son was shot and killed just after midnight Friday on Steel Street near Eight Mile Road on Detroit's west side.
Cory Jackson, 38, was shot and killed by his girlfriend's 14-year-old son. According to relatives of the woman, the teen thought Jackson was going to kill his mom.
Jackson and his 34-year-old girlfriend had a volatile relationship. His family accuses her of assaults on him and her family accused Jackson of firing shots in her house recently when he became jealous of her interactions with the father of one of her children.
"The whole relationship was just terrible," said Yamisha Jackson, Cory Jackson's sister. "I just wish he would have left."
But Jackson and his girlfriend remained in their troubled and violent relationship.
neighbors had seen and heard enough of it, describing a lot of arguing and fights not just between Jackson and the teen's mother, but also between the woman and her own teenage children. One neighbor who did not want to be identified said the teen who ended up fatally shooting Jackson early Friday morning had brandished a firearm during a relatively minor dispute in the neighborhood recently.
Thursday night, Jackson's relatives say he and his girlfriend were at his mother's house on Braile Street when his girlfriend thought he had been flirting with another woman.
"She was jealous," said Amber Parker, one of Jackson's cousins who was at the party to celebrate his sister's 40th birthday.
His relatives say he decided to take her home and told them he'd be back in 20 minutes. But Jackson never made it back.
On the way to his girlfriend's house, the woman claims Jackson began to hit and choke her. She said she jumped out of his vehicle to escape and a Good Samaritan picked her up and drove her home.
But Detroit Police say Jackson was waiting for her outside.
Police say Jackson assaulted his girlfriend again, pulled out a gun, and made threats to kill her.
That's when one of the woman's 14-year-old twins retrieved a handgun and opened fire on Jackson. Jackson's relatives say he was shot in the back of the head.
Yamisha Jackson said the woman's sons call her "auntie" and one of them called her to say that his twin shot her brother Cory.
Police recovered the gun the teen said he used. And witnesses say another firearm was found next to Jackson's body.
But Jackson's family doesn't believe he was the aggressor.
"I just want justice for my brother because he didn't deserve that," his sister said.
Detroit police detained the teen but then released him to his mother's custody pending further investigation and a decision from prosecutors on whether to charge the teen.
