Dearborn — It’s just before noon outside the Mrs. Field’s cookie booth at Fairlane Town Center, the site of a July 3 shooting that left two people dead, and only a handful of prospective customers walk by.
They don’t stop.
“You can see it’s like a shell,” said Kathy Wallace, who has worked at the booth for six years. “This mall used to be packed, with people walking around everywhere. But they’re afraid to come here now. It’s these kids. They’ve gone crazy.”
A July 3 shooting at Fairlane that killed two men and wounded a third individual has shattered the sense of safety normally associated with malls and is stirring calls for more security, including from Dearborn’s police chief.
Wallace said more security would help solve some of the problems at Fairlane.
“It has gotten to the point where they need more security, even if they have to have metal detectors, because it has gotten out of control,” said Wallace, 70, of Dearborn Heights. “When people get in here and see there’s no security, it leaves them open, (and they think), ‘Okay, I could bring this in, I could do this, I can fight’ or whatever.”
Dearborn Police Chief Issa Shahin agreed. The chief said he recently met with Fairlane management and recommended the officials increase security at the mall that’s owned by the Kohan Retail Investment Group.
“We gave them some input and advice,” Shahin said. “We suggested they shore up security and hire more officers. We’ll also be increasing officer presence around the mall.”
Fairlane is one of several public gathering spots that have been marred by violence in recent years, most of it involving teens and young adults.
Multiple Metro Detroit communities have scrapped festivals because of youth violence, while officials in Detroit and Pontiac are among those who are working with young people to try to steer them toward positive activities, following “teen takeovers” that featured brawls and vandalism.
At Great Lakes Crossing Outlets in Auburn Hills on Saturday, a 20-year-old Pontiac man was killed and a 19-year-old woman injured in the food court after an altercation that occurred in a bathroom rekindled in the food court. Police identified the shooter as a 22-year-old concealed pistol license holder from Detroit who surrendered without incident and cooperated with authorities, claiming he had been jumped by the deceased and an unnamed individual.
Crowds returned to normal at Great Lakes Crossing on Sunday, though shoppers either didn’t know about the shooting there or didn’t want to talk about it.
The Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office had not received a request for charges stemming from Saturday’s shooting on Monday afternoon.
The Dearborn and Auburn Hills police departments called both shootings “isolated” incidents.
But Fairlane was already having problems with youth brawls and other issues before the shooting in which Cameron Watkins and Keonte Seaborn, both 19 and of Detroit, were killed during an altercation that involved three other combatants. Two of them are now facing concealed weapon charges with a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Two people avoided other charges because the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office decided they acted in self-defense.
The Dearborn police chief pointed out that the issues aren’t confined to Fairlane.
“It’s less about location, and more about impulse control, and the way people respond to each other,” Shahin said. “This is a problem everywhere in our country.”
The shooting at Fairlane was the latest instance of violence at the mall. There were two nonfatal shootings outside the mall in May 2024 and December 2020, while a man was charged with a 2015 robbery and shooting at the shopping center.
In January, a Wayne County judge put Fairlane under receivership, following allegations that the owner fell behind on property taxes and other questionable financial practices. The mall’s court-appointed receiver, John Polderman of Southfield-based law firm Stevenson and Bullock, did not return a phone call Monday.
“Fairlane is having some unique challenges right now,” Shahin said.
Fairlane shopper Raschel Harris said she has a method to avoid the youth violence she said is permeating the mall and other public spaces.
“I just come in the morning when the young people aren’t out,” said Harris, a Detroit resident. “It’s a shame you have to do that, but I’m concerned about the violence. I pray for our young people.”
In Detroit, large crowds of teens have caused problems since the first “teen takeover” happened downtown on April 3, coinciding with the Detroit Tigers Opening Day at Comerica Park. Subsequent takeovers resulted in violence and vandalism.
“It’s guns,” said Fairlane shopper Robert Jenkins, 75, of Detroit. “Kids can get them; it’s just guns, guns, guns.”
The firearm death rate among young adults 18-25 rose 37% from 17.7 deaths per 100,000 in 2012 to 24.3 per 100,000 in 2022, according to a report by KFF, formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation, using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Firearm deaths became the leading cause of death for this age group in 2015 and kept the ranking through 2022, the latest information for which data was available.
Jenkins said Fairlane has gotten less safe over the years.
“I used to come here because it was something new; you could eat food, socialize,” he said. “Now, they’ve got people scared to come out here. There’s only a couple people here now. People out there are trying to make a living, but they can’t because people are scared to come spend their money at the mall.”
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This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Fairlane mall shooting spurs police chief to call for more security
Reporting by George Hunter, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By George Hunter, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
