Five people were wounded, among them the suspected gunman, when gunfire broke out at a funeral outside the Greater Love Tabernacle Church in Detroit on Friday evening. The bloodshed unfolded in front of mourners who had gathered for the service, and it ended only after a police officer who was already at the scene confronted the shooter and opened fire, striking him.
Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison laid out the sequence of events. According to the chief, officers from the 6th Precinct were giving special attention to the funeral, stationed at a funeral home directly across the street, in the area of Plymouth and Longacre, at around 5:48 p.m. It was there, at the church, that a fight suddenly broke out among a group of people who had come for the service.
The confrontation quickly turned deadly serious. During the fight, the chief said, one of those involved pulled out a handgun and fired into the crowd, striking several people at once. The presence of so many mourners in a confined space outside the church raised the risk of far greater casualties as the shots rang out.
An officer stationed nearby reacted within seconds. Bettison said the officer saw the threat and took action, opening fire on the gunman and hitting him in the lower body. The chief was unequivocal in his praise, saying that no one comes to work expecting to face such a moment and calling the officer, who had spotted the danger and moved to stop it, an absolute hero.
The toll, while serious, could have been much worse. Police said a total of five people were struck, including the suspect, and that every one of them had been hit in the lower extremities. All five were taken to a hospital for treatment, and officials said they expected everyone to recover, with no injuries described as life-threatening at that stage.
The response afterward was swift. According to the chief, the suspect was immediately taken into custody at the church and the handgun used in the shooting was recovered at the scene. Investigators believed, based on preliminary information, that the gunman had himself been attending the funeral, though the exact cause of the fight that set off the violence was not yet clear.
The heavy police presence was no accident. The Detroit mayor said threats had been made ahead of the service, which was why officers were already posted at the funeral in the first place. Authorities stressed that the shooting appeared to be an isolated incident with no wider threat to the public, and said the suspect and most of those wounded were in their 20s, with one of the victims in his mid-30s.