DETROIT – It’s been more than a year since a 3-year-old boy was shot inside his family’s home in southwest Detroit.
The home was full of children on Sept. 9, 2018, when a shooter opened fire. The family hopes someone with information about what happened will come forward and the shooter will be caught.
READ: 3-year-old boy wounded in drive-by shooting on Detroit’s southwest side
“You know when you’re trying to wake someone up you tap. That’s what it sounded like,” Marcia Barnett said. “It sounded like somebody was literally taking keys and knocking on the window. It didn’t even sound like gunshots or anything so I didn’t even think anything about it.”
Esteban Ramirez, 3, was sleeping in a bed at the family’s home in the 3300 block of Annabelle Street on Detroit’s southwest side around 3:30 a.m. His mother heard commotion coming from outside their window and when she went to check on the children she realized Esteban had been shot.
She saw bullet holes in her bedroom and noticed that the mirror in his room had been shattered.
“It was blood on his foot, the bed. And I just grabbed him and I just ran to the kitchen and I was sitting on the floor trying to figure out how to call 911,” Barnett said. “Honestly, I was in a daze and his foot was on the top was bleeding the side was bleeding there was literally blood droplets through the hallway where I ran with him into the kitchen. It’s everybody’s worst nightmare, honestly.”
While Esteban was in the hospital the family moved their stuff out of the home that same night. Esteban had two gunshot wounds and a fractured foot. He was able to heal.
“He didn’t walk for two and a half months, almost three months, but they said that he’s healing fine and growing back together and back to this everyday self,” Barnett said.
Barnett, a mother of four, said she still lives in fear -- haunted by what happened that night.
“Yeah, I mean that’s my baby. You don’t expect something like that," she said.
“It could’ve been worse, because my girls, that was their room. They loved the mirrors and I don’t know how many nights I woke up in the middle of the night and they’re sitting in the front of the mirror playing,” she said.
Barnett said family members rushed to the window that night, trying to get a good look at the shooter or a possible getaway car. They couldn’t get a good look at anyone.
Crime Stoppers is offering a reward for any information that leads police to the shooters. You can report a tip to Crime Stoppers anonymously by calling 1-800-SPEAK-UP.