Michigan Man Gets Four Years for Shooting at Black Teen Who Asked for Directions
JUSTICE
Suburban Detroit 14-year-old knocked on his door after missing school bus.
Jonathan Bachman/Reuters
A Michigan man who opened fire on a black teenager who came to his front door to ask for directions was sentenced Tuesday to four to 10 years in prison. Last spring, Jeffrey Zeigler, a retired firefighter who is white, burst out of his suburban Detroit home and fired a shotgun at Brennan Walker, a 14-year-old who had knocked on his door after missing his school bus and becoming lost. Walker was not physically injured from the shooting. At trial, Zeigler said he woke up to his wife screaming and saying that someone was trying to break into their home, and claimed he slipped and accidentally fired the gun. “I wish I could change something,” Zeigler, 53, told the judge. Footage from a home-security camera showed the boy patiently standing at the door before running away as Zeigler fired a shotgun. “He almost took the life of another human being,” Assistant Prosecutor Kelly Collins said. “That will forever stay with Brennan—forever. His perception of strangers, his perception of other people, his perception of the world.”
