SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (WXYZ) — When it comes to investigating the homicide of 15-year-old Tyler Johnson, Southfield police have the gun used to shoot him and surveillance video to show who was in the hotel room with him. But what investigators don't have are any revealing statements from the four teenagers who were with Tyler when he was shot in the head.
"I'm disappointed in the Southfield Police Department," Tyler's mother Tomika Alexander said. "They have failed me tremendously."
Watch our May 2024 coverage when we spoke with Tomika Alexander:
In the early morning hours of Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024, Tyler was shot and killed in a room at The Westin Hotel in Southfield.
Police said four of Tyler's friends, also teenagers, were in the room when one of them pulled the trigger, but none of the teenagers are trying to help investigators determine who shot Tyler or why.
"I have been left to fight for justice alone," Alexander said ahead of the one-year mark that her son died after being removed from life support.
Alexander told 7 News Detroit this week that as the victim's mother, she doesn't feel police are doing all they can to charge someone in her son's death.
"They definitely know who shot Tyler and furthermore, it's a year now and I haven't even heard from the Southfield police. If I don't contact them, they don't contact me," she said. "You have a body, you have witnesses and you have a murder weapon, but you have no arrest."
A spokesperson for the Southfield Police Department declined an on-camera interview but told 7 News Detroit reporter Carli Petrus that the teenagers who were with Tyler for the weekend slumber party are not talking and their parents have hired attorneys.
The department spokesperson added that there is no video of the shooting that took place inside a hotel room so they have no idea who pulled the trigger.
The day of the deadly shooting, one teen was arrested for being in possession of two firearms, a 9mm handgun and a 40-caliber handgun that police say is the weapon that killed Tyler. One of the weapons had been stolen out of the Flint area months earlier and, at the time, police said there was no record of the second firearm.
Watch our February 2024 report when a relative of one of the teens in the hotel room told us 'an adult dropped the ball'
Prosecutors said they are still waiting on detectives from the Southfield Police Department to present them with a warrant request in Tyler's death.
"It feels like it's being covered up," Tyler's mother said. "It's like the parents and the kids are being protected by the police. Nothing is being done. I'm the one that's not being protected."
Anyone with information that could help investigators is urged to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-SPEAK-UP where all callers remain anonymous.
Alexander vowing to never stop seeking justice.
"Whether I'm alive or dead, justice will be served for my son and I'm not going to stop," she said.
