Residents upset over stray police bullets

Officers shot fleeing suspect; neighboring mobile homes struck

Two Madison Heights residents who live next to a motel where Warren police shot a suspect last week said they’re upset two bullets struck their mobile homes.

Amanda Freeland and Raquel Delinski’s homes next to the Knight’s Inn were each struck by a bullet about 2 a.m. Friday when Warren police shot suspect Jason Shepherd, who was fleeing in a car and appeared to try to run over two officers, according to police.

Both women said they are traumatized by the incident and question how the shots could have reached their homes in the adjacent Madison Oaks Manufactured

Home Community off Dequindre just north of Interstate 696. The park is west of the motel’s parking lot.

Freeland, 31, who has three young daughters, said if the bullet had gone 3 feet the other way, her 8-yearold daughter could have been hit.

“Thinking of that one thing terrifies me the most,” Freeland said. “I can’t sleep. Every time I hear a loud bang, it makes me cry. I’ve just been so jumpy and randomly cry.”

Freeland, who works at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, was asleep when the bullet hit.

“I heard shouting. It woke me up,” she said. “It sounded really close. I went and checked on the kids. I went to go back to my bedroom. By the time I went past the Christmas tree, I heard a loud crack to my house.”

She found the bullet hole and called her live-in boyfriend, Jerry Dials, who normally would be sitting in the living room near where the bullet landed but was at a friend’s house. He came home. Delinski, 47, described similar issues about how the incident has affected her and is angry at Warren police for their apparent lack of concern about the situation.

“I have been traumatized ever since,” she said. “I have had trouble sleeping. Whenever I hear a garbage can bang I jump up.”

She said she and Freeland should be compensated “for what we went through.”

Delinski was awake in her bedroom when she “heard shots hit my house.” She called 911 but an officer did not respond until she called back that afternoon after finding the bullet in a kitchen cabinet. It entered below the kitchen window.

“I could have been in the kitchen or putting bowls away in the cabinet,” she said.

The bullet in Freeland’s home took a strange trajectory, she said. It entered through a wall about 2 to 3 feet from the floor, struck a baby changer in the living room, went through the changer’s cushion, hit the ceiling and landed on the carpet near a Christmas tree.

“It make like a C in my house,” she said.

Warren police found the bullet in Freeland’s house the next day after searching for over an hour, she said. Police confiscated it.

Shepard, 35, who was staying at the Knight’s Inn, was shot multiple times by police as he attempted to flee and struck two police vehicles. Warren police had been conducting surveillance on him and had followed him to Auburn Hills, where he broke into a restaurant and stole items. They attempted to arrest him in his car in the Knight’s Inn lot. A woman and two children were in his room.

Shepard was charged with the break-in and potentially faces additional charges. Both women also questioned the logistics of how the bullets ended up in their residences, which are a few hundred feet away from each on Ann Terrace street.

“I don’t understand why forensics are not out finding where theses bullets were fired from,” Delinski said.

They said the officers possibly should have been firing in the opposite direction. The bullets also had to go over a 6 foot wall and, to hit Freeland’s home, past cars in a parking strip, they said.

Freeland said the motel is often the scene of police or ambulance response and believes it should be closed down.

“If you can’t control what’s going on at your motel maybe you shouldn’t be running it,” she said.

The incident inspired her and Dials to try to move sooner than planned.

“I put in an offer for a house today,” she said. “Instead of waiting for the perfect house to come along, this motivated me to do it a heck of a lot faster. We’re looking for a safer place for the kids.”

She said she wishes Warren police would offer an apology and doesn’t blame them for responding to a quickly situation while performing their job.

“They’re doing their jobs, but I wish I had more reassurance from the police,” she said. “I don’t blame them. They protect us every day. I would never disrespect the police.”

She said she has had to be careful explaining the incident to her 6- and 8-year-old daughters. She doesn’t want them to fear police officers. She also has a 3-year-old.

“I definitely had to reassure them the last couple of days, that the cops didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. “That’s just how it happened.”

Police Commissioner William Dwyer could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.