DETROIT (WXYZ) — A Pontiac family is mourning the loss of a young father after what loved ones say started as an act of kindness turned deadly.
Antwon Herring, 23, was shot and killed during a block party last Saturday. His family says he was there supporting his fiancée, Adrianna Brown, as she sold baked goods to raise money for her cousin — the same cousin whose boyfriend was arrested for pulling the trigger.
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"It was for someone else. An act of kindness end up with him losing his life," his mother, Lachen Herring, said.
Brown says Antwon Herring got into an argument with her cousin — the very person they were trying to help after her car was repossessed. That dispute quickly escalated when the cousin's boyfriend got involved.
"She started screaming her children's father's name: Marquan, Marquan, Marquan," Brown said. "You still proceed to come over there with this hostile energy ready to pounce... trigger-happy."
Antwon Herring's family says he was struck twice — once in the chest and once in the neck.
"It's so agitating knowing that the person that I loved the most was taken by someone I call family, someone he called a friend, someone who shook his hand that same day," Brown said.
Oakland County sheriff's deputies arrested Marquan Henderson at the scene. He was charged with second-degree murder on Wednesday. Lachen Herring says her son and Henderson grew up playing football together.
"Tragically, we see this more and more where there's an interpersonal conflict and it goes quickly to violence, and then that violence escalates dramatically," Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said.
Antwon Herring's family remembers him as a man who devoted himself to others.
"He was about family, football, coaching," Lachen Herring said. "Getting everybody together. That's what he loved to do. That was his acts of kindness."
He leaves behind two young children, with a third on the way.
"Antwon told me he had father figures in his life, but he never had his own dad in his life. So he was like, 'I'm gonna be the best that I can be. I'm gonna make sure my kids got everything they need,'" Brown said. "Damir, Antwon, Roman, they would all go outside and do drills and play basketball and that was their personal own bond... that was something of theirs and my baby, he don't understand that his dad isn't coming back because he's only 1. I got another baby who never gonna meet his daddy."
Henderson is being held in the Oakland County Jail without bond. If convicted as charged, he faces up to life in prison.
The Herring family is asking for donations, which can be made at Cobbs Funeral Home in Pontiac.
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