ICE Agent Who Shot Suspect Goes Into Hiding

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A federal agent who shot and killed a robbery suspect, sparking protests outside the residence where last month’s controversial raid by a fugitive task force occurred, has gone into hiding with his family after his address was publicized.

Mitchell Quinn, a U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement Officer currently assigned to the Detroit Fugitive Apprehension Team, went into hiding out of concern for his and his family’s safety amid a hostile environment for police officers, his attorney told The Detroit News.

“It’s tough enough right now to be a police officer but someone disclosed (Quinn’s) address. He already felt he had a target on his back, and then to have people disclose where he lives was just too much,” said David Griem, the attorney retained by a federal agency to represent Quinn.

Quinn fired multiple shots at Terrance Kellom, 20, on April 27 after Kellom allegedly lunged at him with a claw hammer. Kellom’s father has said his son wasn’t armed. The task force was at the residence on Evergreen to arrest Kellom, who allegedly held up a pizza delivery driver, on four-count armed robbery warrant.

Related:

• ICE Agent’s Attorney Defends Shooting; County Withholds Autopsy Report
• ICE Officer Who Shot Suspect in Raid Criminally Charged in 2008
• Police: ICE Agent Fired Multiple Shots in Killing of Man Armed with Hammer

Quinn has three children ages 1, 2 and 12.

“So he and his wife came to the very difficult decision that their family would be safer in a different location,” Griem said. “It’s sad, but that’s the climate of the times.”

Quinn and his family moved last Wednesday, two days after the shooting on Griem’s advice.

“I told him to get out of that house,” the attorney told the Detroit Free Press. “... We’ve got people out there who are saying that this was an execution.”

The shooting is under investigation by the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Michigan State Police. Because multiple shots were fired, Kellom’s death has been ruled a homicide, but that doesn’t automatically translate to charges against Quinn, whose attorney has said the shooting was “by the book.”

Kellom’s family has called for peace as they prepare for the victim’s funeral at 11 a.m Wednesday.

“We just want a nice, quiet funeral,” Karri Mitchell, the Kellom family’s attorney, told the Free Press.

The autopsy report has been sealed, an unusual move the Detroit Free Press is contesting with a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the records.

Prosecutors claim that releasing the documents could impede the investigation. Kellom’s family told the Free Press that if withholding the autopsy report helps investigators, they have no objections.