GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- A family is cleaning up but counting their blessings after their home was sprayed with bullets after a shooting broke outside their home on Dickinson Street SE Wednesday afternoon. That shooting was the third involving Grand Rapids Police this year, when officers killed 18-year-old Malik Carey.
"Nothing this close to home ever happened," said Fredericka Mitz-Dorris.
Mitz-Dorris' family was so close to the gunfire that at least two bullets sprayed their home. Her husband told FOX 17 it was like he "was in a drive-by inside his own home."
Holding the frames for where her front glass door stood Wednesday, Mitz-Dorris said "it shattered them," then pointing to a bullet hole that pierced her front door, still lodged in her stairs inside. Yet it's the bullet that shot through their living that continues to shake them.
"I could have lost my husband and my two nephews yesterday," she said.
Gunfire through their front window shot inches from their dog when Mitz-Dorris' husband grabbed him, then he and their two nephews dove to the ground in their living room and kitchen. That bullet struck the couch and a pillow where Mitz-Dorris said her husband usually sits.
"My husband keep telling me he keeps seeing it over and over again, just over and over again," said Mitz-Dorris, "he just keeps seeing that guy, his body flying and see all that. Don’t nobody want to see that, and he just keeps seeing it over and over again."
The shooting happened around 1 p.m. Wednesday when Grand Rapids police officers say they walked to a car where Carey sat inside then started firing at officers. Officers fired back; Carey died later Wednesday.
"[Carey] was right here," Mitz-Dorris said pointing to where his body fell on their front yard. "We had to clean the blood up."'
"I just want to know why did [the police] do it like that though?" asked Mitz-Dorris. "I know [Carey] was a suspect but just to shoot in somebody’s house? My husband had to call 911 and tell them to stop shooting."
Dispatchers told her husband just to go into their basement, she said.
Mitz-Dorris and her family ask what is police policy when they respond to someone firing at officers in a neighborhood with families like hers at home. FOX 17 spoke with GRPD and Michigan State Police officials Thursday who would not comment.
State Police are handling this investigation and said Carey died from two gunshot wounds, and they are looking to speak with more witnesses.
As for Mitz-Dorris' home, officers told her to call the City Attorney's office to file a claim to repair their damage.
