ST. JOSEPH TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A family and neighborhood in shock after a series of events that left a home destroyed, and a semi truck driver dead in a police-involved shooting in St. Joseph Township.
It happened Monday night— Police say they responded to a welfare check for a semi driver at Caronde Park.
When the officer got there, a semi-truck crashed into a patrol vehicle and then drove away.
The 42-year-old driver didn’t get far-- crashing into a house just over a half mile from the park.
The Tennessee man then got out of the truck and tried to run away.
"Yeah, I mean it was just a really loud rumble," neighbor Rex Hartwig told reporters. "We thought it was an earthquake, but it shut the whole house. It was really, really bad."
The house that was hit is on a curve on Riverbend Road. The homeowners planted trees in the yard to stop vehicles if they were unable to make the curve but the trees were cut down a little over a year ago after being struck by lightning.
The stumps remain, slowing the behemoth vehicle and likely saving the homeowners' lives.
"A few inches more without that stump and this could be a very different story," Cari Coleman Godin, the homeowners' daughter said.
Godin was in Maryland last nigh, but when she heard the news she flew home to be with her devastated parents.
The house sustained significant damage and the owners beloved 2016 Corvette was destroyed, but they were physically unharmed.
"I am extremely thankful to God I pray every day for them, but I'm so thankful that those prayers like they are answered because my mother was that window right there in that corner that's where she has her desk and she was sitting there when that happened," Godin said.
The officer who fired the shots suffered minor injuries during the incident and is on paid administrative leave while Michigan State police investigate.
