Detroit-area man shoots at black teen who asked for help

ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. – A suburban Detroit homeowner faces charges after shooting at — and missing — a black 14-year-old boy who police say knocked at the man's door to get directions to school.

Deputies were called to the Rochester Hills' home, north of Detroit, about 8:20 a.m. Thursday after a woman told 911 that her husband had chased a black male who tried to break in, the Oakland County sheriff's office said in a release.

Brennan Walker said he woke up late, missed his school bus and became lost in the Christian Hills subdivision while trying to walk the bus route to Rochester High School.

"I got to the house, and I knocked on the lady's door," he told WJBK-TV for a story Friday .

The woman began yelling "why are you trying to break into my house?" Walker said. "I was trying to explain to her that I was trying to get directions to Rochester High and she kept yelling at me. Then the guy came downstairs and he grabbed the gun. I saw it and started to run. And that's when I heard the gunshot."

Deputies found Walker down the street. He was not injured.

The 53-year-old homeowner was being held Friday in the Oakland County Jail pending charges.

"We are going to ask for every charge permissible for this guy, who stepped up and fired a shotgun because someone knocked on his door," Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard told the television station. "I feel terrible for the young man. I feel terrible for the mom and the anxiety that they had to go through."

Walker's mother said investigators showed her a recording of the encounter captured by the home's doorbell monitor.

"After watching the video and hearing the wife say 'why did these people choose my house?' I knew it was racially motivated," Lisa Wright told WXYZ-TV . "I don't know what other 'these people' she could possibly have been talking about. He was by himself."

Police have not released the race of the homeowner, but Wright said people in the neighborhood shouldn't be afraid of a child, "let alone a skin tone."

"We should not have to live in a society where we have to fend for ourselves," she added. "If I have a question, I should be able to turn to my village and knock on a door and ask a question."

A Dearborn Heights man is serving at least 17 years in prison after being convicted of murder in the 2013 fatal shooting of a black woman who pounded on his door after crashing her car. Police have said that Renisha McBride, 19, was drunk when Ted Wafer shot her through the screen door of his home, just west of Detroit.

Wafer, who is white, has said he believed his home was being broken into.