Brandon Johnson, 37, was fatally shot in the early morning hours while sitting in an SUV with a female companion outside the Martin Luther King Apartments on Lafayette and Chene on Detroit’s east side. Police described the incident as an attempted carjacking; the woman in the vehicle was unharmed. Johnson’s grandmother, who lived nearby, said she heard two gunshots at about 3:20 a.m. and footsteps shortly afterward. Relatives arriving at the scene were emotional as officers cordoned off the area.

Johnson’s family remembered him as a devoted father to a 7-year-old daughter, a church-going man and a hard worker employed at Henry Ford Hospital. Homicide detectives opened an investigation, and no arrests had been announced and no suspect had been publicly identified at the time of these reports.

If anyone saw activity near Lafayette and Chene around 3:20 a.m. or has information about the shooting, please come forward to help investigators.