While appearing in court Monday, June 3, a Michigan man accused of shooting his wife to death was nearly attacked by the woman’s son.
The Murder
According to Muskegon Heights Police Chief Joseph E. Thomas Jr., the suspect kicked in the door and shot his wife several times around 6:30 a.m. on the morning of May 19, MLive reported.Approximately four hours before the incident occurred, police were called to the home to mitigate an argument the couple was having over cigarette smoking. At that time the husband agreed to leave, but later returned.
The victim, Jamie Thomas-Flowers, was reportedly on the phone with police at the time of the shooting. Police say she was shot four times in the torso with a handgun. The suspect then fled on foot but later turned himself in to Muskegon Heights police.
The Attempted Attack in the Courtroom
The video from MLive shows the victim’s son, London Thomas, jumping up from his seat and leaping over a courtroom barrier, at which point he ran towards the suspect, who at the time was seated in a jurors box, in an attempt to attack him.Thomas was quickly apprehended by courtroom police and then arrested.
According to police, Thomas was later brought before Muskegon County District Judge Raymond Kostrzewa where he was held in civil contempt of court and barred from any future proceedings in the courtroom.
Prior Arrests
The suspect was charged as a habitual offender, earlier convictions include carrying a concealed weapon, possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, and assault with a dangerous weapon.Facts About Crime in the United States
Violent crime in the United States has fallen sharply over the past 25 years, according to both the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) (pdf).- Researcher Questions Hate-Crime Increase Under Trump, Points to Hoaxes, Flawed Data Analysis
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While the overall rate of violent crime has seen a steady downward drop since its peak in the 1990s, there have been several upticks that bucked the trend.
Between 2014 and 2016, the murder rate increased by more than 20 percent, to 5.4 per 100,000 residents, from 4.4, according to an Epoch Times analysis of FBI data. The last two-year period that the rate soared so quickly was between 1966 and 1968.