An unnamed gunman was arrested at Romulus Middle School. 

The school was placed on lockdown following reports of shots fired outside the building on the second day of classes in the new year.

Romulus Police responded following reports of an ‘active shooter’ after school employees observed a man with a handgun attempting to enter the school’s main doors. A witness told police they heard shots fired. 

Officers arrested a 44-year-old man near the school’s main entrance. A handgun was recovered at the scene.

Police say the investigation into the suspect’s motives is ongoing and there is no threat to the school or the community at this time. 

Anyone with information related to this incident is asked to contact Detective Sergeant Otter at (734) 942-6857. 

Dearborn’s Department of Public Health has been awarded a $101,000 grant to advance firearm safety. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services funding supports collaborative efforts to educate gun owners on safe handling and storage. 

Dearborn Mayor Abdulllah Hammoud says firearm injury prevention is a public health and safety priority. 

The city’s health department will distribute firearm safety kits, including gun locks, lockboxes, and educational materials.  Dearborn Chief Public Health Officer Ali Abazeed says the grant supports evidence-based education and access to safety tools. 

Additional headlines for Monday, Dec. 22, 2025

Michigan Chief Medical Executive makes Standing Recommendation regarding children’s vaccines 

Michigan’s Chief Medical Executive, Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, made a Standing Recommendation to continue issuing vaccinations on schedule based on recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). 

Bagdasarian shared that public health experts are not in agreement with new federal vaccine recommendations, prompting the announcement. One of the recent changes was dropping the Hepatitis B vaccine at birth and removing the COVID-19 vaccine recommendation for healthy children and pregnant women. 

Bagdasarian’s Standing Recommendation was made with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Immunization. 

She says the recommendation does not supersede clinical judgment. She also asks health care providers to make vaccines accessible by removing barriers for patients. 

Bagdasarian says vaccines keep people safe and potentially save lives. 

EGLE renews license for hazardous waste facility 

The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) has renewed the license for a hazardous waste treatment and storage facility in Detroit for the next 10 years.

Hazardous Waste Management Facility Operating License to EQ Detroit Inc., which does business as US Ecology Detroit South, was issued the license after regulatory review and a public comment process. Several people strongly opposed the facility because it emits strong odors leading to health concerns like asthma. The facility also has a history of clean air violations. 

EGLE renewed the license, adding new requirements, such as expanding air and groundwater monitoring. The facility must replace six tanks beginning in January 2026 and install odor control equipment by the end of Dec 2027.

Tunnel in southwest Detroit 

The Great Lakes Water Authority has started building a sewage relief system near the Rouge River in Southwest Detroit. Crews will spend at least two years digging a tunnel to carry excess stormwater to an underused retention and treatment center. Chief Operating Officer Navid Mehram says the $87 million project should reduce the risk of flooding and sewage backups during heavy rain. 

“So this is an example where we’re making an investment in our existing system by rerouting some flows, so that we can leverage an existing facility that wasn’t receiving all the flow it can treat.”

Mehram says the project will not increase customers’ sewage bills. He says state and federal funding will help pay for the tunnel. 

New tech firm in town 

Detroit is getting a new high-tech security and AI solution firm, Eccalon. The defense tech company will create 800 new jobs ranging from $25-100 per hour. 

The facility will have manufacturing operations, training programs and an innovation center. 

The company’s headquarters is moving from Maryland to become a part of the tech innovation in Detroit. Eccalon will be located at the Bedrock-owned Icon building at 200 Walker Street. 

Eccalon Chairman and CEO André Gudger says the new headquarters will develop cybersecurity and advanced manufacturing and automation. 

The company hopes to open early next year. 

Listen to the latest episode of the “Detroit Evening Report” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

The non-profit gun violence prevention group Brady United estimates about 4.6 million children live in homes with unlocked and loaded firearms.

And guns are now the leading cause of death among children.

Michigan recently took steps to help stop injuries from firearms by enacting a law requiring owners to keep guns safely stored and secured.

But the president of Brady United, Kris Brown, says gun owners must use extra caution during the holidays when large numbers of family members often gather together.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Kris Brown, Brady United: If you look at all of the different causes of gun violence in this country, unintentional shootings in a home kill or injure eight kids a day. About 76% of school shooters get their gun from a home where it’s not safely stored. And two-thirds of gun deaths are from suicide. The hugest risk factor for suicide in the home is the presence of a loaded and unsecured firearm.

Taken together, those statistics show us that preventing “family fire,” the unintentional injury or death of a loved one with an unsecured fire in a home, has to be a top priority if we’re really going to lessen the rate of gun violence in this country in a material way. It starts in everyone’s home and it starts with safe storage.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: In Michigan, there was a tragic school shooting a few years ago at Oxford High School. It was one of the many that have happened across the country, sadly. A law was passed around the time of the Oxford shooting mandating safe storage of firearms. And in that case they also held the parents liable for the gun crimes committed by their son because they said that it wasn’t stored safely. From what your group has seen, are those kinds of laws widespread across the country? And do they seem to have any effect on limiting unintended shootings?

KB: They’re not widespread yet. There are a number of states that, after the Oxford shooting and others like it that have, unfortunately, occurred in states like Georgia, has created more of a groundswell to seek support for those kinds of laws. Child access prevention laws and similar laws of that ilk.

Brady United has mixed feelings about it. We believe the critical thing is to prevent these kinds of shootings from happening in the first place. Throwing parents in jail after the fact because they’ve been grossly negligent, that’s what the law we do believe should require. But it doesn’t bring back the innocent victims. It doesn’t stop the harm from happening in the first place.

That’s why we think child access prevention laws that ensure if you choose to have a firearm in the home it is safely stored are important compliments to public safety laws. They should be adopted across the country.

QK: In your view, does it seem that “threatening” parents, for lack of a better word, actually makes an impact? Or is it something where they just need to have this top of mind to begin with? There’s been shootings where people had a gun stuck in a shoe box that they seemed to think was fine because it stored away. And still a kid was able to get to it.

KB: I think there needs to be a complement of effort, sort of in the same way that getting a ticket when you’re speeding is a way to remind you that you shouldn’t have a lead foot. It compliments education in driver’s ed about why speeding is potentially very dangerous. The same sort of approach should apply here. This isn’t a unique area of human experience, though it’s a uniquely deadly area of human experience.

We at Brady have done a lot on our website so that families can find absolutely crystal clear guidance on safe storage options. And even how to talk to family members when you’re at the dining table over the holidays about the kinds of things that they can be doing, if they choose to have firearms in the home, to protect those who live there and those who visit the home.

We at Brady believe that it’s on each of us to have these conversations and to normalize something that’s as old as our nation, older than the Second Amendment, which is safe storage of firearms. Back in the colonial times it was mandated and enforced in terms of muskets. Why should it be different today, when eight kids a day are killed or injured by guns that those parents and most gun owners brought in with the idea that they should protect their families? And unless they’re safely stored, it’s tragic that that is exactly the opposite of what’s happening.

QK: I’ve heard some firearm owners and people that say they’re fighting for the Second Amendment who mention some of the recent mass shootings, the tragedy in Australia, for example. They’ll say that country had some of the toughest gun laws around and still that tragedy occurred. They argue restrictions on firearms really don’t make any huge difference, whether it’s children in the home or people out and about. What is your reaction to those kinds of comments?

KB: There was a mass shooting in Australia at Port Arthur. Immediately following that, I think it was a matter of days or weeks, not months, Australia banned various assault style weapons. And they greatly strengthened the regulation of the sale and ownership of firearms in their country. There was a significant reduction in mass shootings.

If you look at U.S. history, we have a distinguishing feature. Here guns are the number one killer of our kids. We experience 26 times the gun violence of every other industrialized country. The five states with the strongest gun laws in this country have a 70% or more reduced experience of gun death and injury compared to the states with the five weakest laws.

Will they prevent every gun death and injury? No, just like speeding limits didn’t stop every automobile fatality. But they reduced them a lot. This is in our hands. This is in the hands of gun owners across this country. That means guns locked, unloaded, and stored separately from ammunition. Doesn’t need a vote at the ballot box. It doesn’t need a better enforcement agency. It needs an individual taking an action that will ensure that a firearm is not used unintentionally to harm someone in their home.