SOUTH HAVEN, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – Monday, the Van Buren County Prosecutor’s Office made a statement regarding a recent shooting in South Haven over the weekend.
Previously, police reported that a 19-year-old gunman, identified as 19-year-old Aiden Ingalls of Bangor, shot two victims on the South Pier around 2:15 p.m. Friday before turning the weapon on himself.
A male victim died at the scene, while a woman was airlifted to Bronson Hospital in Kalamazoo. Police say she remains in critical condition at this time. Both were confirmed to be a couple.
Those victims have not been identified, but police said family members will be releasing a statement later this week.
The shooting was thought to be a random occurrence, as there was no relationship between Ingalls and the victims.
Ingalls had been at a juvenile detention center until November 2019 related to a 2018 threat to Paw Paw High School, during which he had planned a mass shooting.
Officials said he also had plans to utilize explosives in that shooting, along with separate plans for a shooting during the Fourth of July fireworks display in South Haven.
All of these details were logged by Ingalls in a journal he owned. That journal also included a list of intended targets and details of animal mutilation, officials said.
The plan was thwarted when his grandfather realized that he was missing some of his firearms, and that some of the barrels had been sawed off. He was turned in to police by his mother on the day the shooting would have taken place.
On Monday, Van Buren County Prosecutor Susan Zuiderveen and other law enforcement officials provided the public with a statement on the matter.
Zuiderveen said efforts to try Ingalls as an adult in that case were unsuccessful, and he was placed on probation instead.
He was released from probation on July 20, 2021, just weeks before the shooting, Zuiderveen said.
Had he been tried as an adult, officials said Ingalls would likely still be in custody.
“I felt like we did everything we could with law enforcement, and as a prosecuting attorney’s office, to make everyone aware of this threat,” Zuiderveen said. “The evidence was so overwhelming, and the journal was so disturbing that I really can’t even equate it to any other case, especially a juvenile, that we have even had in this office.”
She said an actual motive in that case was hard to pinpoint.
Van Buren County Sheriff Daniel Abbott said he hopes this case will bring awareness to mental health to help prevent similar incidents in the future, as Ingalls is said to have suffered from issues like depression and anxiety.
“It’s no secret mental health awareness is a big part of this case, and it needs to be on the forefront,” Sheriff Abbott said. “You gotta take out people’s ages in cases like this, you gotta look at the facts in cases like this, and you gotta address it in cases like this. Unfortunately, what took place Friday was not a shock to a lot of us. It’s a sad situation, we can only hope that this case goes nationwide, and the fact that everything comes to the forefront, law enforcement in the future, families and community in the future, don’t have to deal with something like this. We can only hope and pray that this case prevents tragedies in the future.”
Paw Paw Police Chief Eric Marshall added that had Ingalls been tried as an adult, it was his understanding that he would have faced at least 57 months in prison.
“The reality is, this was one of those cases that could have been preventable, and it wasn’t,” Chief Marshall said. “Now it’s up for the people of this county to decide who made the wrong decision.”
This is an ongoing story and will be updated as more details become available.
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