Hours before the Ford Fireworks last month, a Detroit police officer shot 18-year-old Alonzo Lee-Perkins several times during a foot chase. Police say officers were trying to stop him over a suspected gun, that the officer feared for his safety, and that a gun was recovered.

His family doesn’t dispute that he was carrying one — they say he’d been shot before and was afraid for his life. What they dispute is what he did with it. His grandmother says he never took it out, that it was found only after he was shot and fell, wounded in the back.

He survived and was later charged with carrying a concealed weapon, resisting police, and felony firearm, and was released on bond.

Much of what happened is still contested, and the body-camera footage that might settle it has not been released. A city law is supposed to guarantee that footage, but it is frozen by a police union lawsuit. 

Violet Ikonomova, an investigative reporter at the Detroit Free Press, has been following this story. She also spent last year documenting a pattern of police shootings. She sat down with Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss whether this case fits that pattern and what we still do not know.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand. Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have thoughts? Email the show at metro@wdet.org.

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Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow suspended her campaign for U.S. Senate three days after earning an endorsement from the Detroit Free Press.  

Nancy Kaffer, the editorial page editor of the Freep, said they will not be endorsing another candidate in this race. 

“We said what we said, and we just have to sit with it,” Kaffer said.  

Now that only Congresswoman Haley Stevens and Dr. Abdul El-Sayed remain, Kaffer said it seems likely that former McMorrow voters will split between the candidates and that neither of them will “clean up.” 

“If you valued prior elected experience as a McMorrow voter, you might gravitate to Stevens,” Kaffer said. “If you prized pushback against the status quo and a more ambitious agenda around health care or a more firm stance against Israel, you might gravitate to El-Sayed.” 

The future of the Democratic primary 

Kaffer said that although she has been covering Michigan politics for 26 years, she is unsure about what will happen next.  

One thing that muddies the waters, she said, is unreliable polling.  

“We’re seeing polls come out from outlets that I’ve never heard of that don’t operate in this state,” Kaffer said. 

When she is wary of an unfamiliar poll, Kaffer said she always looks at their methodology. One form of polling Kaffer avoids is those conducted via text, which can be skewed by simply sharing the link to others.  

“People are creating narratives based on some really questionable polling, and that’s unfortunate because a big part of campaigning is narrative, and sometimes people are winning because they seem to be winning,” Kaffer said. 

Kaffer described Michigan as a “fascinating” and “complex” state and warned against anyone who says they have all the answers. 

“This whole thing is really a test case, and anyone who says that they know what’s happening here, they are selling you something,” Kaffer said.  

One concern Kaffer said she sees is the growing divide in the Democratic party. She described it as “risky” for the Democratic primary nominees to make strong accusations against one another because they will end up alienating themselves from the other side of their own party.  

Although Kaffer is uncertain about the outcome of this race, she has a prediction about its general direction. 

“I think it’s going to get even weirder,” Kaffer said.