Rescue by Ferndale Police Ends 'Night of Terror'

A Detroit man who allegedly held his date at gunpoint to prevent her from leaving and threatened to kill her earlier this week faces felony charges, Ferndale police said in a news release.

Jeffrey Tyrone Jackson, 21, is accused of holding a 21-year-old woman he’d been dating for about three weeks at gunpoint for several hours early Tuesday morning after what Ferndale police Lt. William Wilson described to The Oakland News as “a night of terror.”

Police were alerted when they stopped at the Citgo gas station at Eight Mile and Pinecrest about 5:40 a.m. Wednesday. The victim, a 21-year-old Madison Heights woman, silently mouthed to the clerk that Jackson was stealing her car and had a gun, and asked the clerk to call 911.

Jackson reportedly assaulted her at the gas station and she ran to her car and locked the doors. He reportedly began banging on the car windows trying to get in, and the clerk called police.

Earlier in Detroit, the victim had banged on the security glass at a gas station and asked the clerk to call 911, but the clerk refused, according to the police statement.

The two, who met about two months ago, got together Tuesday afternoon and the date quickly went sour, police said.

Jackson was drinking and began “acting irrationally,” the statement said.

They went to a Detroit liquor store and he began arguing with a clerk, then fired a gun as he left the store.

“The gun misfired and he blamed the victim,” police said in the statement. “He then became physically and verbally abusive.”

They were in the victim’s car and he ordered her to drive to his residence in Detroit. She waited outside in the car, thinking he was retrieving her belongings so she could go home.

When he returned to the car, he had a shotgun. Police said that throughout the early morning hours, Jackson refused to let her go home and threatened to kil her.

They then went the Citgo station in Ferndale and Jackson forced the victim to go inside with him to pay. After she alerted the clerk to her predicament and bolted to the car, police rescued her.

When police executed a search warrant at Jackson’s Detroit home, they recovered a .380 semi-automatic pistol that matched the description of the gun she said he exchanged for the shotgun.