Deadly Bay City shooting leaves business community in disbelief

By TREVOR SOCHOCKI and RAYVIN BLEU

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    BAY CITY, Michgan (WNEM) — A shooting on Columbus Avenue in Bay City on Sunday has left the business community in disbelief.

“I was shocked and I was worried for everyone around here,” said Amy Arnold, bartender at Bell Bar.

The shooting, which killed 34-year-old Cortez Owens, happened in the D’Angelo’s Pizza parking lot, according to the Bay City Department of Public Safety.

Owens was found lying inside the door of the restaurant.

“It’s just scary. It’s getting bad, you know. It’s, things are happening everywhere,” Arnold said.

The suspect in the shooting is still at large.

“That’s the whole thing of everyone being scared and everything. Don’t know who it was or where they went,” Arnold said.

One of the owners of JB Men’s Apparel Shop said he has been at his location for 46 years and has never seen anything like this.

“I kind of was in disbelief that there would be a shooting in broad daylight,” said Phil Keipert, co-owner of JB Men’s Apparel Shop.

Keipert said Columbus is usually very calm.

“Every area is safe until something happens, an isolated incident,” Keipart said.

The Bay City Department of Public Safety believes that sentiment as well.

“This is a very random incident for Bay City. I mean, we don’t, this is our first homicide this year. We haven’t had, we only had one last year. So this is not a common occurrence by any stretch,” said Caleb Rowell, deputy public safety director the Bay City Department of Public Safety.

Rowell said there is no threat to the community since the shooting was targeted.

“Whoever killed him knew he was there and was following him or whatever. But it was obviously a targeted incident,” Rowell said.

Rowell said a light-colored Ford Explorer was seen quickly leaving the scene and is a vehicle of interest.

Police are still investigating a motive.

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