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Pizza Franchise Creates 'Not After Dark' Delivery Rule In Detroit After Driver Shot

DETROIT (Talk Radio 1270) Has it come to this? Yes it has, according to Joan McKenna, whose son Tim McKenna, 19, was shot while delivering pizza in Detroit.

In the wake of the shooting, a Jets Pizza franchise in Dearborn ruled it will no longer deliver to Detroit after dark. Before the shooting, they sent two drivers to every nighttime Detroit delivery, one of whom was armed, Joan McKenna said.

"They usually send somebody with a guy ... who carries a gun," she said. "Usually they have two go into Detroit after dark, if they have a delivery ... One guy has a legal, he can carry a gun.  That night, Timmy was the only one left, they had this one run to do, he said 'yeah, I'll do it.' He's a kid, he doesn't think anything's going to happen to him."

Tim McKenna was shot in the ribs, and the bullet hit a lung, but he survived and plans to return in the fall to Adrian College, where he plays football. Pizza delivery was his summer job.

"He can't play football right now, he's on the team at Adrian, it's really hard ... It went right in the chest, this guy shot him right in the chest," Joan McKenna said, adding, "It was a robbery, the guy wanted his money, he hit the gas and the guy went 'pop pop' and he was shot in the chest."

Her son had about $35 on him, which is what the drivers carry, McKenna said.

"I had no idea he was in this kind of danger, I really didn't," McKenna said. She and her husband returned to the neighborhood to hand out fliers listing a reward for whoever turns in the shooter, but even in daylight they were too afraid they would get shot driving around, McKenna said.

"I realize this is a terrible situation, it is tragic, but some people say it's racist, we're eliminating Detroit, we're sectioning Detroit off from the rest of the world," Langton said during his show on Talk Radio 1270, adding, "Some people will say ' Why should we let the acts of one stupid gun person, make a whole policy that alienates a city?'"

But Joan McKenna thinks any claims of racism are hogwash.

"You want to talk about racism? This has nothing to do with color, it has to do with people who are not willing to get up, plug in the coffee maker, and go to work ... Come on, get a job, we're not talking race here," Joan McKenna said.

The shooter has not been caught and the McKennas are agitating Detroit police to keep searching, worrying it's "awful low on their priority list." "I need help because it's not going to happen with the police," Joan McKenna said.

She said police told her: "We'll never catch this guy, literally, that's what they said."

Langton said the shooter, whoever he is, should face attempted murder charges. "You shoot a gun, nearly point blank at somebody, that's attempted murder," Langton said.

"When you want a pizza, you live in Detroit, you want it delivered after dark, thank the guy who shot my son, thank that guy," McKenna said.

John from Chesterfield called in and said, "This is not racist, this is a high probability risk assessment. I was in the military ... If you're going to go into Detroit after dark the risk assessment is you're going to be robbed, shot or mugged ... There are people in Detroit who don't want to go out after dark either, it's crazy, but that's it."

Ryan, a resident of southwest Detroit where the shooting happened, said he would "never let his wife outside after dark." Would he go outside himself after dark? "Yeah, I would, but I'm armed," Ryan said.

He added that many delivery companies in Detroit won't go to addresses they don't already know.

Mike, a U.S. Post Office manager, said he had a part-time carrier who moonlighted in that area as a pizza delivery man, and he was also attacked. "The guy jumped out of the bushes and basically attacked him, pulled out a gun ... It's very dangerous over there. I'm black, I'm from the city, but that's the highest crime area I staffed. I can't blame the pizza owner for doing that. He has to look at those employees every day."

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