Madison Heights

Madison board member brandishes bat in fight, gets shot

By Andy Kozlowski
C & G Staff Writer

Melvin Rose, a trustee on the Madison Board of Education, received a gunshot wound to the arm when he showed up at someone’s house with a baseball bat and got into a fight with a man wielding a handgun.

Rose is in stable condition and recovering. The other man had only minor injuries.

According to a police report, the incident occurred after midnight in the early hours of Sunday, Aug. 12. Police were notified around 3 a.m. of a shooting in the 28000 block of Edward Avenue.

The police report was heavily redacted in the interest of privacy, and it’s unclear from the summary of eyewitness statements which man was the aggressor in the fight. Police provided a copy of the report but declined to comment much further.

“At this time, the prosecutor’s office will not be issuing warrants against either party,” was all Madison Heights Police Lt. Corey Haines could say.

The police report does describe what the responding officer found at the scene, though, and when the Madison-Park News interviewed Rose the following Tuesday, as well as one of the witnesses at the scene, it was claimed he acted in defense of himself and another person.

At the yard where the skirmish took place, police found four individuals: a married woman Rose had been dating for several months, and whom Rose said he thought was in the process of divorcing her husband; the woman’s husband, who shot Rose, and who the report says smelled of liquor; the woman’s friend, Tammy Craft of Rochester Hills, who also spoke to the Madison-Park News; and Craft’s fiancée.

Earlier that night, Rose had gone to a bar with the married woman, Craft and her fiancée. Afterward, they all went home. It was at this point Rose claims he received a phone call from Craft; she was calling from the woman’s house, and he heard the woman and her husband fighting in the background.

Allegedly fearing for her safety, since he believed her husband to be abusive, Rose drove off to the scene. He claims that when he arrived, he saw the four individuals in the yard of the married couple’s house and thought they were fighting. Rose stepped out of his vehicle, a Ford Expedition, to intervene, brandishing a baseball bat.

The husband was furious, Rose said, and came at him with a .40-caliber handgun. Rose said he threw the bat away when he saw the man cock the gun and point it at him.

Craft and Rose both claimed that at one point the wife talked her husband down and he holstered the gun, only to smash her head into the back of a minivan. However, there was no mention of this in the police report, nor any mention of any injury to the woman.

Rose claimed the husband did it out of anger, the sort of abuse he claimed the woman had told him about. Craft said she thought the husband might have been pushing his wife out of the way so she wouldn’t get shot.

Whatever the case, Rose claims that when he saw the man reach for his gun again, he saw an opening and lunged at him.

In the ensuing skirmish, the gun went off.

“We scuffled; I heard a pop — didn’t know I was hit,” Rose said. “When I was on the ground, I felt the barrel in my hand, I took it, and slung it toward the sidewalk area. We scuffled a bit more, and once I had him pinned down, I looked down and realized I had a hole in my arm. That’s when I took off in my truck and drove myself off to the hospital.”

Rose hopped in his Expedition and sped off. The police report said that as soon as the officer arrived, Craft told them the man they were looking for had left the scene. In the interview, Craft clarified she thought Rose had been critically wounded.

“I gave the description of the truck and told him he was shot, so please go find him,” Craft said. “It looked like he had been shot in the stomach.”

Police found Rose in his vehicle in the parking lot of St. John Oakland Hospital. The bullet had hit his left forearm and exited the left tricep area. He also had a scratch on his abdomen, according to the report, and another scratch on the left clavicle area. He was admitted to the hospital and treated. Rose said he’s fine now, feeling only a dull throb.

The police report says a trail of blood was found heading northbound on the sidewalk from the house on Edward Avenue, with some blood on the South Venoy sidewalk and another in the street on Venoy.

Police confiscated the firearm; it had a loaded magazine with seven live rounds. Blood was found on the grip, slide, barrel and frame of the gun near the barrel end. A shirt was found on the sidewalk portion of the driveway at location, and a bandage clasp was found on the sidewalk in front of the residence. Rose had his right wrist wrapped in an ace bandage from a previous injury.

As for the husband’s injuries, the police report says he had what appeared to be bite marks on his chest and right arm, and lacerations to both legs. There was blood on his shorts and his shirt.

The Police Department did not specify whether investigations would continue.

You can reach C & G Staff Writer Andy Kozlowski at akozlowski@candgnews.com or at (586)279-1104.