Investigators are confirming this ambush double assassination was a “targeted hit.” They want you to look real close at the security camera photos to see if you might be able to give them a clue. All they really know for sure is that it happened “about 8:30 p.m. Monday, October 18, at the Marathon gas station at West Warren and Ashton” on Detroit’s wild west side.
Ambush clearly a ‘hit’
What security cameras filmed was a professional hit. Detroit police are convinced that the 22-year-old couple were whacked but they have no idea why.
“A 9-month-old girl was nestled in her mother’s arms in the passenger seat” when the ambush happened. Two well prepared men “ran up to the vehicle” parked at the pumps. They opened fire in unison, “killing the woman and the driver,” who was also the baby’s father.
Detroit Police Chief James White was joined by Dan DiBardino, who’s the President of Michigan Crime Stoppers. Along with community activist Malik Shabazz and Deputy Chief Todd Bettison, they gathered for a news conference at the scene of the bloody ambush.
Both victims were Detroit residents. “This was not a random act of violence,” Chief White declared. “We’re certain that they were targeted.” They’re thankful “that the child was not injured, but she lost both her parents.”
As soon as the child care workers arrived on the scene they took custody and soon released the infant girl to her grandmother “while police focused on finding the killers,” Commander Michael McGinnis adds. He supervises the Homicide Section.
He relates how the ambush suspects “sprinted through the gas station lot toward the parked Ford 500 brandishing their pistols.” They were clearly ready for action.
Planned and calculated
“The offenders came from the north. Both of them were armed with handguns, guns in hand.” This isn’t some spur of the moment dispute, it was a planned and calculated ambush assassination.
The killers “ran up to the vehicle, and fired shots into the vehicle. Both the subjects then fled northbound on Ashton Street.” Never to be seen again.
The ambush suspects should be easy to pick out of a crowd, Detroit police say. “Both suspects were slender Black men. One wore a black hooded sweatshirt with a red stripe, black sweatpants with a red stripe and dark tennis shoes.”
“The second suspect wore a blue sweatshirt, black sweatpants with a white stripe, and light-colored tennis shoes.”
The child is the one that the police are most worried about. She’s going to have the kind of trauma and nightmares which serial killers are made from. Chief White also happens to be a licensed mental health counselor and says “it’s difficult to tell what long-term effect the violent episode will have.” She didn’t just live through the ambush, she’ll be growing up without parents.
That “in and of itself is going to bring trauma.” He goes on to explain, it’s “just horrific. There are no words for it. I can’t imagine what the families are going through. You’ve got two families that have to bury two 22-year-olds. And you’ve got a 9-month-old who’ll have to be raised by her (grandmother), and who someday will be told the story about what happened.”
