Court tosses case against Detroit gas station clerk who locked doors before shooting

The Michigan Court of Appeals said this week there's not enough evidence to support a charge of involuntary manslaughter against a Detroit gas station clerk, who in May 2023 was accused of locking patrons inside the store during an argument with a man who would go on to shoot three people inside, killing one.

The court ruled Wednesday that prosecutors did not present sufficient evidence to prove that the clerk, Al-Hassan Aiyash, was a "proximate cause" of the killing by the suspected gunman Samuel McCray.

Maria Miller, a spokesperson for the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, said the charge against Aiyash is "essentially dismissed" following the court's decision. The office is still determining its next steps in the case, Miller said.

While prosecutors argued McCray's actions could have been reasonably predicted based on his verbal threats and the ways in which Aiyash escalated the situation, the Michigan Court of Appeals found that none of Aiyash's actions "made it reasonably foreseeable" that the gunman would intentionally kill a patron.

Aiyash did not know McCray or that he struggled with mental health issues, the court wrote in its opinion. He also did not know that McCray was armed with a gun, the court wrote.

"While it was certainly foreseeable that defendant’s conduct would anger McCray, it was not reasonably foreseeable that making McCray angry would cause him to intentionally kill another patron, especially considering defendant’s utter lack of knowledge about McCray," the court opined.

"Even McCray’s threats to shoot the other patrons did not make it reasonably foreseeable that he would do so because nothing in the record suggests that defendant knew either that McCray was armed or that McCray’s judgment was so compromised that he would actually shoot innocent bystanders over a dispute."

The court's decision mentioned that it's rare to find someone liable for crimes committed by another person, but acknowledged that did happen in the case of Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley's parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, who were both found guilty of involuntary manslaughter charges.

Prosecutors relied on the Crumbley case to secure Aiyash's conviction, but the court argued the facts of the Crumbley case were "extraordinary," and that Aiyash lacked knowledge similar to what Crumbley's parents had known.

What happed on May 6, 2023?

The incident began about 3 a.m. on May 6, 2023, inside a Mobil gas station on McNichols Road near the Lodge Freeway, after McCray attempted to leave the gas station with about $4 worth of snacks after his card declined.

Aiyash had locked the doors electronically in an attempt to prevent theft. Patrons inside the gas station pleaded to Aiyash to unlock them. The gunman, who had been growing belligerent, warned he would shoot every customer in the store if the doors remained unlocked, a surviving victim previously told the Free Press.

The clerk eventually did unlock the doors, but prosecutors argued he did so too late and without telling anyone. Video footage of the incident from behind the clerk's counter, previously reviewed by the Free Press, shows Aiyash had told patrons in the store to get out after unlocking the door several minutes into the dispute.

"Get the f--- on," Aiyash can be heard repeatedly saying in the video while shooing patrons with his hand.

But an enraged McCray soon shot the three other customers inside, authorities said.

Gregory Karlos Fortner-Kelly, 37, of Detroit, was shot nine times and killed.

Andrea Sahouri covers criminal justice for the Detroit Free Press. She can be contacted at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Case tossed against clerk who locked gas station doors before shooting