“I was afraid to go out, I always felt paranoid like I was in the open and vulnerable. I went out only if I was with friends or in a tightly packed area.”

The year was 1992. Martine Sullivan and her friends April Kincaid and Timothy McGee went to a  party in Midtown Detroit. She had just come back from a trip from New Orleans for Mardi Gras so she was excited, happy, and felt great to be back with her friends.

Martine was having a good time. The DJ was playing Reggae music with cool sound effects and flashing lights. Then her favorite song came on, “Check the Rhyme” by A Tribe Called Quest. The crowd was hyped and everyone was dancing. They were doing a popular dance called  “East Coast Rump”.  Almost everyone at the party was friends so it was escalating into a very cool evening.

Then suddenly her friend Magnolia grabbed her arm tightly digging her nails into her arm Martine jerked her arm away.

She saw orange sparks and heard sharp, crisp noises. She quickly went into a panic knowing it was gunshots. Everyone was laughing because they thought it was just sound effects from the song. Then someone yelled out, “He has a gun!”

Then Martine felt like she was in slow motion, everyone scattered and was in a panic. In disbelief, she just stood there and then she felt a sharp pain in her right knee but because of her adrenaline, she wasn’t really focused on it.

Suddenly everything was back to normal, chaos was happening and everyone was panicking so she pulled her friends down to the floor and just laid quietly while hearing cries, screams,  and whimpers.

Then a quick pain came in her knee. In our interview, her exact words were, “It felt like a giant marble going straight through my knee”.

She tried to stay calm and stay quiet so that the shooter didn’t come back in and finish the job.

After 10 minutes they all got up and noticed they were the only people.  Their friends called ambulances for Martine and Tim who also got shot but in the thigh. Their recovery was slow.  After a short hospital stay,  Martine and Tim both had physical therapy. Martine struggled more because the bullet went through her knee.

During her recovery from the shooting, Martine remembers was also being affected mentally too. When I asked her about it she responded with, “I was afraid to go out at night.  I always felt paranoid like I was out in the open and vulnerable. I only went out if I was with friends or in a tightly packed area. Thankfully both survived and are now still to this day all friends.

By: Hassan Abboud