Boy shot at after asking directions
A black 14-year-old boy who got lost in a Detroit suburban neighbourhood while trying to get to school was shot at by a white homeowner after knocking on his door to ask directions, prosecutors say, citing home security video and the teenager’s account.
Jeffery Zeigler, a retired Detroit firefighter, was arraigned yesterday on charges including assault with intent to murder.
Oakland County sheriff’s deputies were called to Zeigler’s Rochester Hills home on Friday after a woman called 911 and said her husband had chased a black male who had tried to break in. Deputies learned that a shot had been fired and found the boy, Brennan Walker, unharmed further down the street.
Assistant prosecutor Kelly Collins said Zeigler’s account of what happened was not borne out by the video from his home security system.
‘‘There’s a lot more to the story than what’s being told, and I believe that will come out in court,’’ Zeigler told the court yesterday.
Walker said he woke up late, missed his school bus and became lost in the Christian Hills subdivision while trying to walk the bus route to Rochester High School.
He said that when he knocked on the door of Zeigler’s home, a woman inside began yelling: ‘‘Why are you trying to break into my house?’’
‘‘I was trying to explain to her that I was trying to get directions to Rochester High, and she kept yelling at me. Then the guy came downstairs and he grabbed the gun. I saw it and started to run. And that’s when I heard the gunshot.’’
Walker’s mother, Lisa Wright, said it was clear to her what was behind the shooting after investigators showed her the security video.
‘‘After watching the video and hearing the wife say, ‘Why did these people choose my house?’, I knew it was racially motivated,’’ Wright said. ‘‘I don’t know what other ‘these people’ she could possibly have been talking about. He was by himself.’’
She said people in the neighbourhood should not be afraid of a child, ‘‘let alone a skin tone’’.
‘‘If I have a question, I should be able to turn to my village and knock on a door and ask a question.’’
Zeigler has been ordered to have no contact with Walker or the teen’s family, to wear a GPS tether, and to turn over any weapons to the sheriff’s office.
A Dearborn Heights, Michigan man is serving at least 17 years in prison after being convicted of murder in the 2013 fatal shooting of a black woman who knocked on his door after crashing her car. Police have said that Renisha McBride, 19, was drunk when Ted Wafer shot her through the screen door of his home, just west of Detroit. Wafer, who is white, has said he believed his home was being broken into.