A Detroit gas station was forced to shut down after one of its clerks shot at a man he accused of shoplifting, triggering an outcry from the community.
Police say the shooting happened on Dec. 11 at a Mobil gas station on McNichols Road and Lodge Freeway.
Authorities said when 38-year-old Tony Williams visited the store that night around 10 p.m., a clerk accused him of stealing items. The clerk pulled out a gun, chased Williams out of the store, and then fired a gun at him in full view of police officers who were already in the area.
A witness on the scene told local outlet Fox 2 Detroit, “It was just crazy. Kind of like all happening that fast the gunshot and everything.” Adding, “Right as I was done like, paying, he ran out, so the clerk that was checking me out, he ran out from behind. And, he stopped at the door and was like, ‘I’ll chase you down. You better stop.’ The old man looked back, and then he kept running.”
Williams jumped onto the freeway to try to escape but later died of his injuries at a hospital. The clerk was arrested following the shooting. The exact cause of death has not yet been determined. Results of an autopsy is still pending, said Kimberly Harry, a spokesperson for the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Detroit Deputy Police Chief Franklin Hayes called the shooting “reprehensible” after speaking publicly about the incident.
“Earlier last week, we had an incident where the clerk left behind the glass for what appears to be suspecting someone of shoplifting, started shooting indiscriminately outside here on the public streets putting this community in danger. That is not OK,” Deputy Chief Franklin Hayes said.
Adding, “We demand accountability. There is a responsibility for business owners as well as their staff to treat the community with dignity and second of all, firearms and shooting at someone on an open street like this, that is not OK.”
The shooting triggered an outcry from the community and Williams’ family members who called for the city to shut the gas station down. Dozens showed up to a vigil on Dec. 15 at the station where they chanted, “Shut it down!”
“It didn’t have to happen at all,” Tony’s brother Tuan Williams told WXYZ. “We wanted justice to be serve and justice is being served. I’m thankful for that.”
The Mobil station was also the site of another fatal shooting in 2023 that resembled the circumstances surrounding this most recent incident.
Last year, a clerk locked a man inside the store after accusing him of trying to make off with less than $4 worth of merchandise. The suspected thief then pulled out a gun threatened to kill customers unless the clerk unlocked the door. When the clerk did not comply the man opened fire inside the store, injuring two people and killing one.
According to The Detroit News, a civil lawsuit accused the store clerk of gross negligence for locking customers inside, thereby providing them no means of escape.
The city took swift action after Williams’ death to suspend the gas station’s business license while police investigate the shooting.
“At this point, we consider this business very dangerous,” Hayes said. “We are committed to making sure that this does not happen again.”
Community members are hoping that the station’s doors remain shuttered for good.
“The fact that this is this business’s second go-around, we really about to put as much pressure as we possibly can to make sure that this business does not open back up again,” activist Zeek Williams told FOX 2 Detroit.
“If it happened once and it happened a second time, the theory that it’s going to happen again and again and again … the location needs to be shut down,” another community member told CBS News.
City leaders are scheduled to hold an administrative hearing to determine what the business must do to reopen its doors.
Police plan to request a warrant from the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office to charge the clerk accused of shooting Williams. A medical examiner has not released the cause of Williams’ death yet.
