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Detroit Party Store Owner Fatally Shot

DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - Friends, neighbors and police are trying figure why anyone would want to fatally shoot the beloved owner of a westside Detroit business.

Investigators were on the scene Tuesday morning outside the Medicine Chest party store, on Dexter at West Boston, where 63-year-old Faraj "Freddie" Dally was gunned down on the sidewalk as he prepared to open up shop at around 9 a.m.

Onlookers crowded the streets to find out what had happen to Dally who was well-known in the community where he had run the store since the 1970s.

Detroiter Tina Moore told WWJ's Pat Sweeting she was a teenage mother when Dally gave her her first job. She said the shooting just doesn't make sense.

"People do this in the neighborhood when he's the only one who would give you credit, cash their checks and do all this ... everything," Moore said. "If you didn't have no money he would say go on and get some food until you got your check."

Detroit Police Sgt. Daren Barey compared Daley to a couple of other well-loved Detroiters.

"I used to always tease Mr. Dally that he was like the (Focus: HOPE co-founders) Father Cunningham and Eleanor Josaitis of this area right here, the Dexter/Boston area," Barey said. "And he used to always laugh, 'I'm not like that,' and I said, 'Yes you are. You're just like them. You do everything for everybody all the time.'"

"Regardless of what color you are -- black, white, green, yellow -- he didn't care. He did for you," Barey  said.

Michael Kriggler, who moved out of the neighborhood years ago, said he found himself returning often to visit Dally's store.

"He knows my name, you know what I'm sayin'. I grew up in his store. He knows all my brothers and stuff," Kriggler said. "He came to my mom's funeral. He walked into my mom's funeral -- that's how close he is to my family."

Dally, a father of three, was shot in the head.

Martin Manna, president of the Chaldean Chamber of Commerce, said Dally was also robbed. He said video surveillance may have captured the deadly attack.

No arrests have been made.

Dally once led the Associated Food and Petroleum Dealers, an organization representing 4,000 party store and gas station owners in Michigan and surrounding states. The organization is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to arrests and convictions in the slaying.

(TM and © Copyright 2011 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2011 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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