Funeral Held For Inkster Toddler Killed On Porch

INKSTER (AP) — Mourners sang "Happy Birthday" on Saturday to a toddler who was laid to rest on what would have been her third birthday, a victim of a fatal shooting outside her Detroit-area home.

Hundreds of people attended KaMiya Gross' funeral in Inkster before she was buried in a cemetery in Wayne. Police say she was intentionally shot in the head in front of her father, who was shot and wounded, in a retaliatory attack on July 1.

"There's not much you can say in a situation like this, but thank God anyway," KaMiya's great-aunt, Natalie Dixon, told the congregation. "There is no earthly hurt that heaven cannot heal. I know it hurts like a knife. I feel it, too."

KaMiya's mother, Erica Gross, was overwhelmed by grief at one point and escorted out of Pentecostal Temple Church of God in Christ, The Detroit News reported.

Two people have been charged with first-degree murder in KaMiya's death.

Inkster Police Chief Hilton Napoleon resigned Friday, partly because of the shooting. He said the department is short of money, officers and other necessities. State police help investigate homicides in the city, population 25,000.

The "lack of resources and adverse working conditions has taken its toll," Napoleon said in a letter.

Pastor Isaac King said he's "thoroughly disgusted" with the shooting.

"I think I know where the devil's house is," he said. "If he doesn't live in Inkster, he's got to have a cottage here."

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