A Detroit family has been left to mourn the loss of a devoted father of two who was gunned down for doing the right thing. On Nov. 27, Ariel Harris was fatally shot by another man at the International Banquet Center in Greektown while holding an elevator door to allow a group of women to board before him.
“On the video, [the gunman] steps back out of the elevator to see what he did and then got back on the elevator and went about his business like he hadn’t done anything at all. Like, you have no conscience; you don’t have a heart,” Rosalind Hearst, Harris’ mother, told WJBK-TV. Hearst said the reality of her son’s death feels like an inescapable nightmare.
Hearst said her daughter-in-law was frantic and overcome with emotion when she called her after witnessing the shooting of the 29-year-old. Harris’ younger brother was also present during the tragedy. “They were panicking and in shock, and she just kept screaming, ‘And he’s been shot. He’s been shot,'” Hearst recalled to CBS Detroit.
The beloved husband was transported to Detroit Receiving Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Police say Harris and the man exchanged words before a weapon was fired. Detectives used surveillance footage to identify the suspected gunman as Gayelon Spencer. He has yet to be arrested.
The grief-stricken mother pleaded: “Mother to mother, I know you’ve seen your son’s face on the news, on social media. Please have your son turn himself in.”
In a Nov. 28 Facebook post, Hearst expressed just how heartbroken she’s been since her son’s passing. “I’m in so much pain, y’all, my back [and] neck [are] killing me. Y’all, this coward has taken my son away from his [two] sons, brothers, sisters, grandma, [two] baby mamas, father, [and] a host of family [and] friends. This is just not real, y’all. My son didn’t deserve to go this way,” she wrote.
Heart accompanied the post with numerous photos, including those with him alongside his sons and loved ones. Anyone with information on Spencer’s whereabouts should contact the Detroit Police Department’s homicide investigators at 313-596-2260 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-SPEAK-UP.
View the latest report below.