DEARBORN — On Friday, November 28, Detroit Police shot and killed a suspect at Macy’s Dry Cleaners. The suspect was wanted for a murder in Detroit earlier that day.

The suspect, named Sam, is described  as a Hispanic male in his late 50s by eyewitnesses who were at the scene. He had worked for the dry cleaner at one point more than a decade ago and had routinely frequented the place and kept in contact with the owner.

At around 1:00 p.m. Friday, Sam viciously attacked and killed his 64-year-old neighbor on St. Lawrence Street, using a hammer. The neighbor was believed to have been his girlfriend. He fled the scene before his daughter contacted police to report the murder. He had mentioned to her that he was going to pay a visit to the dry cleaner’s. 

Hebah Faraj, 24, who has been working at Macy’s Dry Cleaners for more than seven years, told The Arab American News that she and two fellow female employees were behind the counter when Sam came into the store around 2 p.m. They would later learn that he was armed with two loaded guns.

“He was walking around acting all normal,” Faraj recalled. “He kept going around the back of the dry cleaner and would stand behind the machines, which we thought was a little weird, but we didn’t think much of it because he always seemed a little strange.”

What they now speculate was that Sam had gone into the store to kill the owner for denying him an opportunity to get his job back. Fortunately, the owner had stepped out of the store just minutes earlier. 

Faraj said that a Detroit Police Officer, who was also a longtime customer at the location, entered the store shortly after Sam.  The officer brought along a picture of Sam in order to ask the employees if they had seen him at any point during the day. But before the officer approached the employees, he realized Sam was already in the store. 

The officer quickly attempted to escort the three female employees out of the building while a second officer approached Sam and cornered him. According to Faraj, Sam was trying to grab his weapon to shoot one of the officers.

“We heard the officer shouting ‘put your gun down’ several times and he wasn’t listening,” Faraj said. “We then heard two gun shots get fired and we all ran off. The officer had shot him because he was holding him in a position where he was about to shoot his partner.” 

Following the shooting, employees at Macy’s Dry Cleaners have been left trying to place the pieces of the puzzle together. Usually a heavy frequented location in Dearborn, employees and customers are still recovering from the aftershock of the events that transpired last Friday.

“I could never imagine something like that happening there,” Faraj said. “We’ve never had to deal with anything that serious. That place is pretty big and popular, so a lot of people are coming in and leaving, but I would’ve never thought in a million years I would witness something like that.” 

While Dearborn Police are now handling the case since the shooting happened in the city’s jurisdiction, Faraj wanted to clarify that it was the Detroit Police officer who was the hero that day. 

“Dearborn Police is getting so much credit for this and I can’t stand it,” she said. “Detroit Police saved our lives and I want people to know this. The officer who came into the store wasn’t even on the case, but overhead Macy’s Dry Cleaners over the intercom and he knew exactly where it was and he got right on it. He risked his life for us. It was a Detroit cop who saved our lives.”

The event marked the third shooting in Dearborn in just under two weeks. Earlier in November, police responded to calls of an Oak Park man who had been shot and killed on Ford Road between Oakman and Wyoming. Just two days after that incident, a shooting occurred in the parking lot of Fairlane Town Center. No injuries occurred.