DETROIT—A young man suspected of randomly killing three people on Detroit streets fled when an armed bystander saw him shoot a fourth person and responded with his own gunfire, witnesses told a TV station.
“He scattered like a jack rabbit,” Wallace Pleasant told WXYZ-TV.
Three people were killed over roughly two hours early Sunday. The 19-year-old suspect remained in custody Tuesday while police and prosecutors prepared to file charges Wednesday.
The suspect shot a fourth person, an 80-year-old man who was walking his dog, according to police. He survived.
Kaia Maxey-Gholson told the TV station that she witnessed another man fire shots in an attempt to stop the suspect.
She said she believes the suspect would have kept shooting the elderly man “like he did the other victims that morning.”
Police spokesman Rudy Harper confirmed the account Tuesday.
WXYZ didn’t identify the man who intervened but quoted him as saying the suspect “saw my weapon and he went from predator to prey.”
The suspect was arrested hours later at his home.
Two of the three people who were killed Sunday were identified as Jesse James Hawkins, 28, and Lari Brisco, 43, according to friends and the medical examiner’s office.
