A 13-year-old girl in Michigan survived being shot four times in a shooting spree that left six people dead – including the suspected attacker – and called emergency help herself shortly before investigators identified the gunman, according to a state police official and her family.
Those actions made the teen a “hero”, said a relative of hers as well as two of the dead victims.
First responders took the girl to a hospital while she was in critical condition, but she was stable by Saturday, police said.
She “called 911 to report that she had been shot” at one of three scenes where the rampage unfolded on Friday, state police spokesperson Lt Ashley Miller said, as reported by NBC News. The shooter had fled before police arrived to the scene, but Miller said investigators were aware of the suspected shooter’s identity.
“We were able to identify him right away,” Miller added, without providing details on how.
Chad Hickman, 39, was identified as the suspected shooter. He is alleged to have killed five people across three locations in Michigan’s Missaukee county and was later found dead next to a shooting victim in a wooded area after police launched a manhunt.
Police did not release the victims’ names or their relationship to the shooter as of Saturday. They described Hickman’s slain victims as a teenage boy and four adults.
A relative, in a Facebook post, identified two of the victims killed as 40-year-old Amanda Everitt and her son, Eric, age 16.
David Everitt, Amanda’s father and Eric’s grandfather, wrote that “this world just lost two beautiful people and one is clinging to life”.
Everitt asked for prayers for the 13-year-old victim, his granddaughter, “who while shot 4 times still managed to call 911 and identify the shooter”.
“She is a hero,” he said.
At the first of the three scenes, police said they found the bodies of a 16-year-old boy, a 45-year-old man, a 40-year-old woman and the 13-year-old girl in critical condition. A 53-year-old deceased victim was found at a second home. And a 29-year-old woman as well as Hickman were both found dead next to each other in the woods.
Investigators said they could not immediately determine whether Hickman died by suicide, with an autopsy pending at the time. All had died of gunshot wounds, police said.
The suspected shooter had been convicted in 2024 of misdemeanor fourth-degree child abuse, according to court records, and sentenced to one year in prison. The charges stemmed from a complaint filed by his ex-wife, Katie, who had initiated divorce in September 2023.
“This situation is heartbreaking for the community and challenging for the investigators involved,” Miller added in a statement on Friday.
“It obviously has rocked and crushed [the Missaukee] community at this point,” Miller said. “They’re looking for answers, and they want to know why.”
As of Sunday, there had been at least 15 mass murders in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Mass murders are cases in which four or more victims are killed.
The vast majority of mass murders in the US are carried out with firearms, prompting calls from some quarters for more substantial federal gun control. But Congress over the years has not enacted such restrictions.
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The Associated Press contributed
