In the turbulent summer of 1967, amidst the chaos of the Detroit Uprising, a 30-year-old African American man named John LeRoy lost his life in a hail of gunfire. On the night of July 24th, LeRoy was a passenger in a station wagon with four other men, including the driver Charles Dunson and his step-brother Ronald Powell. They were trying to get Powell home to his pregnant wife, who was due to give birth at any moment.
Their journey took them through a city under curfew and teeming with
police and National Guardsmen. After being stopped at a checkpoint and rerouted due to reported sniper fire, the men followed the directions given to them. As they drove down Lycaste Street, just a block and a half from Powell's home, they slowed down near a parked military jeep. Without warning, the car was ambushed by concealed police and troops who opened fire from the front and both sides of the vehicle. The shooting was relentless, lasting for nearly ten minutes.
Inside the car, the five men were all wounded. John LeRoy was struck in the chest, stomach, and arm. Despite his grievous injuries, he urged the others to remain calm. It would be over an hour before they received any medical attention, left to lie in their own blood on the street as residents who tried to help were warned away. LeRoy was eventually transported to a hospital, but he succumbed to his injuries two days later, on July 26, 1967. His wife was not permitted to see him in the hospital and was only notified of his death by a call from the Wayne County Morgue.
In the aftermath of the shooting, no arrests were made, and no charges were ever filed against the police officers or National Guardsmen involved in the incident. The official justification provided by the prosecutor was that the men were considered 'fleeing felons,' a designation that, under Michigan law at the time, permitted the use of deadly force. This justification was heavily disputed, as the men were unarmed and eyewitness accounts contradicted the official narrative. The investigation into John LeRoy's death was criticized for its lack of thoroughness and impartiality, reflecting a broader pattern of violence and alleged cover-ups during the tumultuous events of the 1967 Detroit Uprising.
