HOPE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — The widow of a man who was shot and killed by a Barry County sheriff’s deputy Monday said that she witnessed the shooting and that it never should have happened.
Her husband, U.S. Army veteran Jeremiah J. Johnson, 37, was shot and killed at their home near Delton after a domestic violence call.
His wife, Siphiwe Johnson, said she wants him to be remembered as her husband, her kids’ stepfather and a military veteran.
She doesn’t want to talk about what happened that night, at least not yet.
“It shouldn’t have happened this way,” she said on Friday.
Barry County dispatches show it started at about 7:30 p.m. at the couple’s home atop a hill along Kingsbury Road near M-43.
Deputies weren’t sure where the call was coming from at first.
“Are we able to determine where she lives based on her number?” a deputy asked dispatchers.
Sixteen minutes later, this dispatch:
“We just took a call from that residence along the line that her husband was burning things in the house and trying to kick her out, possibly holding a gun to her head. Then she disconnected.”
Then, two minutes after that: “Shots fired.”
There was no indication that Jeremiah Johnson fired any shots or that deputies were injured.
A short time later, Aero Med was preparing to head that way from Grand Rapids.
“Barry Central, you cancel the bird,” dispatch was told.
Siphiwe Johnson said her husband didn’t deserve to die.
“I do not want to talk about what happened right now, but I will talk about it when the time is right,” she said. “But I would just like everybody to think of Jeremiah as somebody who fought for his country, somebody who deserves the dignity that this country can give him, even in his death, and everybody to not focus on whatever is put out there unnecessarily. Yes, he might have this and that, but he’s still a person, and he still deserved the law on his side.”
She said he served in Iraq and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. He was most recently working in a factory, she said.
They met two years ago and married last year.
“Just celebrated our first year anniversary,” she said.
He was helping her raise her sons.
“He was a giving guy. He would give you the shirt off his back. He was a people person. He cared about people. That’s why I fell in love with him.”
The Barry County Sheriff’s Office has not said what led up to the shooting. It denied a Freedom of Information Act request by Target 8 for dashboard camera video.
Michigan State Police are investigating the shooting.
A spokesman for MSP’s Fifth District said it could take several weeks before they turn over the results of the investigation to the Barry County prosecutor to determine if the shooting was justified. Deputies involved in the shooting were placed on paid leave.
Records show Jeremiah Johnson had no history of violent crimes, though he served 18 months probation for convictions in 2019 of driving intoxicated and felony carrying a concealed weapon.
“I would like my husband to be remembered in a good light,” his widow said. “Somebody who fought for his country, somebody who would give the shirt off his back for anyone. And he’s done that for me and my children.”
