Family stands by accused cousin

There was hope in the early days after Tiffany Ross was shot in the head a month ago.

At first, her family saw small signs of improvement, but then doctors said the 30-year-old mother's condition had deteriorated. She wouldn't be getting better.

Tiffany Ross died about 4 a.m. Thursday. She left two sons, Tyshawn Ross, 11, and Jakai Howard, 3.

When she was shot Feb. 10, Tiffany Ross was sitting in a parked vehicle near 33rd Avenue and Erskine Street. She had been helping a friend move out of a house. She was nine weeks pregnant, and lost the baby about a week after the shooting.

News of her death hit hard at the Douglas County Jail, where her cousin, Michael Ross Jr., 26, is being held. He is charged in the shooting but says he didn't even have a gun.

“I'm very upset,” Ross said during an interview at the jail, looking down at the floor and trying to stay composed just minutes after being told of Tiffany's death. “We were real close.”

He said he wants his family to know he's been praying for them and for Tiffany.

The Douglas County Attorney's Office will review the charges against him now that Tiffany Ross has died. Michael Ross was arrested the day of the shooting and has been charged with first-degree assault, use of a weapon to commit a felony and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Another cousin, Rhonita Andrews, said Thursday morning that she will remember Tiffany as a quiet woman, a good mother and a wonderful person. She asked that people pray for their family as they try to work through Tiffany's death and what is yet to come in the case against Michael Ross.

“We are still holding on,” she said. “We don't have all the facts. We still love Mike, he is still part of the family and are praying for him. We want to find out what really happened. We are waiting to see what happens after the investigation is all done.”

Andrews said she was struggling with the loss.

“A young mother ... my cousin’s life cut short by something so senseless.”

Michael Ross said it was coincidence that he pulled up near 33rd Avenue and Erskine Street to pick up his girlfriend from an apartment that morning. He didn’t even know that Tiffany Ross was sitting in a car parked a couple of cars ahead of him.

His girlfriend, Takema Franklin, got into his car just as a small silver car pulled alongside and opened fire. He said he saw a person in a parked car get hit. He didn’t know it was Tiffany.

He remembers yelling to people outside a house who had been moving a couch that someone was hit. Then he put his car in reverse and fled.

Police have described what followed as a rolling gunbattle between Michael Ross’ car and the silver car across 10 blocks from Erskine to Pinkney.

Michael Ross said he thought he lost the silver car, and he drove to his grandfather’s home to check on him and then planned to go shopping for birthday presents for two of his five children.

When he and Franklin went back outside to his car, the silver car appeared again, and someone started shooting at them.

Ross said he again lost the silver car and stopped at a house near 14th and Pinkney or Emmet Streets to ask for help.

Police arrived, and he and Franklin were arrested.

A charge against Franklin, 24, of being an accessory to felony was dismissed last month, though officials with the County Attorney’s Office said at the time that the charge would be re-filed. As of Thursday morning, Franklin had not been re-charged.

Ross said police rushed to judgment to get a quick arrest based on his prior criminal record, which includes a 4½-year stint in prison for robbery, attempted robbery and use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony. He was released from prison in May 2008.

Since then, Michael Ross said he had been working to stay out of trouble, avoid his past gang ties and take care of his children. He had been working as a vehicle detailer. Things were going OK, he said, until the morning of Feb. 10.

The movers, the people outside the house when the shooting started, could corroborate his story that he wasn’t shooting, Ross said.

“I’m being held for this, my cousin is dead ... her baby is dead,” Michael Ross said. “They rushed to judgment. I’m being held for this because police didn’t do their job.”

Prosecutor Shelly Stratman said police have gathered sufficient evidence from different scenes to support the charges against Michael Ross Jr.

Ross said police waited too long to put out information about the second car.

On the day of the shooting, police said two vehicles were involved, but a description of the other car wasn’t released until two days later.

That other car is believed to be a silver Pontiac G6, possibly with a black car bra.

Ross said too much time had passed by then for police to find the other vehicle. Now his family has been torn apart.

Tiffany’s father has said that if Michael fired the shot that hit Tiffany, it happened inadvertently while Michael was running for his life.

The family still loves him and would work through the situation, Chris Taylor has said.

Andrews, whose husband is pastor of Kingdom Conquerors Worship Center, where Tiffany Ross attended, said family members have set up a fund to help pay the medical bills and now funeral expenses for Tiffany at all Security National Bank branches.

In addition to her sons, Tiffany Ross is survived by her parents, Chris and Izetta Taylor; a sister, Kanesha Taylor; and a brother, Chris Taylor Jr.A 30-year-old woman critically injured in a shooting last month has died.