Expand / Collapse search
☰

Inkster house full of kids mistakenly targeted in driveby shooting

By and FOX 2 Staff
Published  January 16, 2024 5:39pm EST
Crime and Public Safety
FOX 2 Detroit

Gunshots narrowly miss Inkster family in wrong house drive-by

A drive-by in Inkster could have ended in tragedy for an Inkster family of 6 after police said the wrong house was targeted. Bullets narrowly avoided hurting or killing many of the family members.

INKSTER, Mich. (FOX 2) - An Inkster family is lucky that nobody was hurt when their home was wrongly targeted in a drive-by shooting late last week.

Tamara Pope said she and her family are traumatized after a drive-by shooter hit the wrong house on Friday morning in Inkster. She and her partner and their six children were getting ready for their day when more than a dozen gunshots were fired into their home.

"Nobody should ever have to go through that with their kids - it was like a warzone in this house," she said. "The detective said that they found 13 shell casings. These people shot up my house 13 times - and for a bullet not to have struck none of us - it's only by the grace of God."

Inkster police said they believe the intended target were actually neighbors – a group of teenage boys who have been in trouble in the past: they're suspected of leading police on a chase in a stolen car last February and there was also a drive-by shooting next door in October.

"I jumped up - I'm like Ronnell, who's shooting at us? He's like 'I don't know. Get down.' The first thing I kept thinking was my kids, let me get to my kids," Tamara said.

Tamara and Ronnell wanted to move in October but they were about to have another baby. With five other children and Christmas coming, they stayed in their home of eight years. 

The Pope family are lucky to all be alive after they were targeted in a wrong-house drivey-by shooting.

But Friday morning, any semblance of peace they had was shattered. 

"Literally as soon as I stepped out of the shower, I heard the shot but before I can process it. OMG, these are gunshots. There was a bullet that grazed - I literally thought I was shot," Tamara said.

Just before that bullet grazed her head, it hit her daughter's backpack in her bedroom.

Bullet holes are visible in the front of the house. They tore through the bedroom – where her 14-year-old daughter was sitting on the bed, through the door – through a wall, door, and into the bathroom right by Tamara and through the window.

"My life just kind of flashed before my eyes," she said. "I just started screaming, 'Where's my kids!'" 

She was, of course, worried about her children.

"Somebody go get my baby - my baby," Tamara said. "My 14-year-old daughter, she ran in that room and she grabbed him. And I'm like ya'll come in here - get in the bathroom - get on the floor."

They're looking to rent another home – perhaps in Romulus or Belleville – as soon as possible. They've started a GoFundMe to ask for help in the move. Inkster police are asking anyone with information on the drive-by shooting to contact them.

"I cannot live here. I fear for my life. I fear for my kids' lives. This has happened twice. I'm not going to let it happen a third time. We gotta go," Tamara said.