A Michigan grandfather was stabbed to death at his own grandson’s birthday party after asking a man to stop doing drugs in front of the children.
Authorities were called to Grant Park in Utica after reports came in of a stabbing. The grandfather, Michael Shereda, was at the park for the first birthday when he noticed a man doing drugs on a nearby bench. When he approached the man and asked him to stop, he was stabbed at least 15 times, according to WXYZ-TV.
When police arrived, Shereda was pronounced dead at the scene and the attacker was taken into custody, according to WJBK-TV.
According to witnesses, the man was “enraged” when asked if he would take his activity elsewhere.
“[The suspect] was enraged — he seemed like he had the strength of the Tasmanian devil,” Amanda Pasho, who is a resident across the street from where the incident occurred, told Macomb Daily. “My heart goes out to the family of that poor man. I can’t believe this happened in front of them.”
Pasho described the horrific moment the man attacked Shereda by driving a large knife into his body.
“[The victim] fell to the ground; he had blood all over him,” Pasho said. “He had his arms up to fend off the man from stabbing him. The man put his knee in the guy’s abdomen to hold him down and then put his arm across his face and began stabbing him with a knife, like non-stop, just jabbing at him with the knife.”
A friend of the family, Christopher Kalfas, told WXYZ that “his whole family and grandchildren saw all that in real life today.”
“It was a rotten thing to do,” he said. “Mike was a very good man. Very kind-hearted with a big family.”
“We haven’t really had a chance to even think, I don’t think,” said Angel Shereda, the victim’s daughter, according to Click on Detroit. “It doesn’t seem real. It’s almost like you’re in a movie. How could it happen to us, or anybody, really?”
“He was just amazing,” Shereda said of her father. “He was a family man. everyone that met him loved him.”
Roughly 10 police officers and two ambulances attended the scene. The suspect, 22-year-old Miguel Mansour, was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder.
Michael and his girlfriend of 13 years, Debbie, had seven children between the two of them, along with 17 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Please pray for this family as they deal with such an awful tragedy.