Family attorney: Detroit man killed by immigration enforcement agent was shot in back

DETROIT – An attorney for the family of a 20-year-old Detroit man fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent said Friday that at least one of the bullets struck him in the back.

Karri Mitchell told reporters at a news conference that he viewed Terrance Kellom's body at a funeral home.

Kellom's death on April 27 came amid a national debate over police conduct — particularly toward black men — following last summer's fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.

Rioting erupted in Baltimore following Freddie Gray's death last month. Gray, a black man, was injured and died in police custody.

Kellom was black, as is the agent who shot him. Kellom was wanted on armed robbery and weapons charges.

Groups have protested his slaying, but the demonstrations have been peaceful.

Police have said Kellom lunged at ICE agent Mitchell Quinn with a hammer before he was shot in his father's west side home. His father, Kevin Kellom, has disputed the police account.

An autopsy determined he had been shot multiple times, but Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy ordered the autopsy report not be made public. Her office is conducting a separate investigation into the shooting.

Maria Miller, spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, cited the pending investigation Friday and declined to comment.

Mitchell said the release of the autopsy report "would create outrage" ... "because of how many times" Kellom was shot "and where he was shot."

Also on Friday, U.S. Sen. Gary Peters pointed to the Brown and Gray cases — and the January beating of a black motorist by a white Inkster police officer — as he called for a review of the nation's criminal justice systems.

Peters, speaking at Wayne State University, said the last comprehensive federal review of criminal justice systems in the United States was in 1965.

In April, the Michigan Democrat helped introduce legislation to create the National Criminal Justice Commission which would complete the comprehensive review. The board would propose reforms to address the most pressing issues.

"Whether we are talking about Inkster, Ferguson or Baltimore, the relationship between law enforcement and our communities is strained," Peters said, "and we face serious issues in our criminal justice system from unsustainable costs to overcrowded prisons to disparities in the grand jury process."