Charges are pending, but police believe they know who is responsible for shooting and killing a young boy, his mother, and the woman’s boyfriend. Two teenagers committed the crimes, the Detroit Police Department said on Tuesday.
The child victim would have turned 6 years old five days from now, Commander Michael McGinnis said. The victims were previously identified in media reports as Caleb Harris, 5, Lashon Marshall, 28, and Aaron Benson, 32. The victims were found shot and killed in their residence Sunday afternoon on the 15300 block of Evergreen Road after a relative had not heard from them.
“I received the most devastating news of my life, that my grandson had been killed,” Caleb’s paternal grandmother Shalesa Floyd said, speaking before news of the juveniles’ arrests, according to WJBK. She told the outlet that the boy’s father, who lives outside of Michigan, is devastated.
“[Caleb] loved to travel with his dad and with his mom,” she said. “He was her only child. He’s only 5, so he had not much life to live.”
“What mindset can anyone be in that would shoot a baby in the face intentionally?” relative and state representative Sherry Gay-Dagnogo said. “You have to be heartless. There is one thing to even a score or have issues with an adult but a child? A child is off-limits.”
“You could have just left my grandson there alone, I would have come get him,” Floyd said. “He could have grown up to be anything he wanted. He’s our future, he was our future. Why would you take my grandson from me?”
She said Harris was shot twice in the face, according to KPRC in a Monday report.
“To do this — it’s like a monster would do this,” she said.
In an update on Tuesday, Detroit Police Chief James E. White said officers were able to identify the teenagers thanks to tips from the community and took them into custody without incident.
“There is high confidence that the individuals that we have taken into custody are responsible for this heinous act, and we have been in communication with the prosecutor’s office, and we’ll be submitting a warrant request for the review,” he said.
The suspects remain detained at what the chief described as a youth home, pending charges from Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy.
“We have some motive, but we just can’t release it yet, but we’ll try to once the charges are issued from the prosecutor,” the chief told reporters.
Commander McGinnis says they have high confidence the juveniles were involved but still can’t give a motive until after they’ve been charged which police say will happen today.
Chief James White also said the investigation is still fluid & ongoing. @WWJ950 @AfternoonsWWJ
(2/2) pic.twitter.com/aD6Mtfm4Qb
— Ryan H. Marshall (@RyanHMarshall) February 22, 2022
McGinnis only identified the teenagers as 16- and 17-year-old boys who were known to the victims. When asked if they were family, he declined to discuss their connections to Harris, Marshall, and Benson.
“Words can’t explain what it’s like to see a five-year-old child lying deceased from gunshot wounds,” he said.
[Screenshot via WJBK]
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