Two people were killed and a third wounded in a shooting at an after-hours restaurant in Southfield, Michigan, over the weekend, in a case that police say remains an active and difficult investigation. Southfield's police chief, addressing reporters at a briefing alongside his deputy, stressed that only preliminary information could be shared and that a great deal of work still lay ahead. He also acknowledged the help of the Detroit Police Department, which he said had reached out to his officers and detectives from the outset and passed on information that had already proved beneficial to the case.
According to the account given by investigators, the first sign of the bloodshed reached the department when Southfield Dispatch received a call from Providence Henry Ford Hospital, advising that a gunshot victim had been privately transported there. Officers who responded to the hospital then located a second gunshot victim at the same location, and that person was pronounced dead by hospital staff. The chaotic, scattered way in which the wounded turned up at different hospitals, rather than at a single crime scene, became one of the defining features of the early stages of the inquiry.
The victim pronounced dead at Providence Henry Ford Hospital was identified as 28-year-old Johnny Jackson, a resident of Harper Woods, who had suffered multiple gunshot wounds to his legs, back and abdomen. Separately, the Detroit Police Department passed on information that another gunshot victim had been privately taken to Sinai Grace Hospital several minutes after the shooting. Detectives who went there spoke with a 31-year-old man from New Haven who had a non-life-threatening wound to his leg and was listed in stable condition, but who, investigators said, was uncooperative and refused to provide any further details about how he had been hurt.
The recovery of weapons quickly became a central strand of the investigation. Detectives collected firearms from three armed security guards who had been working at the venue, and a Glock nine-millimetre handgun was recovered from the man who had been killed. From the security personnel, officers seized a Glock ten-millimetre, a Glock .380, a Heckler and Koch nine-millimetre and a Springfield nine-millimetre handgun. All of the weapons, the chief said, would be run through the department's ballistic system to determine what part, if any, each of them may have played in the shooting.
Attention also turned to the premises itself. Detectives established that the Hidden Gems restaurant had been operating as an after-hours establishment at the time of the shooting, and a check of city records showed that the location had opened in 2019 under a different name and did not hold a liquor license in Southfield. The restaurant, the chief explained, sits in the basement of an office building, reached by heading downstairs on entering, an arrangement he suggested may be the reason for its name. He made clear that, while management had so far been cooperative, there would be further scrutiny of whether the business had followed the rules attached to its approvals.
As the inquiry continued, officers said they had recovered video evidence from inside the establishment and had carried out a canvass of nearby businesses, with shell casings recovered from the parking lot pointing to activity outside as well. The chief indicated that detectives were also examining information, still to be properly vetted, about possible conflicts between groups. He was candid about the difficulty posed by witnesses who had been present amid the gunfire yet were unwilling to talk, describing it as a significant obstacle, and he appealed to anyone with information to come forward as the department worked, he said, to bring justice for the families of those killed.