DETROIT – His mother had been trying to get her son, who is in his 30s, inpatient treatment for a week. Relatives say he was in the middle of a mental health crisis and was manic.
He hadn’t been to sleep in a week.
“She kept trying to get him to calm down so he could go to the hospital, but he didn’t want to go,” Keachia Thompson said.
Police say he snapped inside the home on Beaconsfield Street near Morang Avenue and shot his 16-year-old nephew in the head.
His mother called 911. When police arrived, she was giving the teenager CPR, but her son leveled a gun at police, gunfire was exchanged, and he was fatally shot.
Detroit police Chief James White says the teenager was dead when they arrived.
“We keep having to deal with these significant mental health crisis,” said White. “Folks need the services that they need; we need mental health hospitals and not police to handle these situations, but unfortunately, it looks like he may have killed his nephew and ultimately engaged police with a weapon, and this is where we’re at.”