Arheel's Uncle
Senior Reporter
‘He took me for a beautiful ride,’ father says of son slain near Western’s campus
Bryce Salter, 21, was shot and killed early Friday morning after a disagreement outside of a nightclub near Western Michigan University.
www.mlive.com
‘He took me for a beautiful ride,’ father says of son slain near Western’s campus
- Updated: Dec. 08, 2022, 5:04 p.m.|
- Published: Nov. 14, 2022, 6:12 p.m.
KALAMAZOO, MI — Hours before 21-year-old Bryce Salter was shot and killed over a disagreement near Western Michigan University, he had been out for a meal, enjoying chicken wings and nachos with his dad.
“I was able to give him a hug and tell him I loved him before I left,” Brandon Salter recounted for the Kalamazoo Gazette/MLive. “I’m just so thankful I was able to have that last meal with him, especially doing something we enjoyed doing together, having wings and just talking.”
Bryce Salter, of Kalamazoo, was shot in the early morning hours on Friday, Nov. 11, on West Michigan Avenue, near the intersection of Howard Street and West Michigan, Kalamazoo police confirmed previously. Salter arrived later at a Kalamazoo hospital, where he died from his injuries.
Related: Lansing police arrest suspect in fatal Kalamazoo shooting
Kalamazoo police announced Monday morning that a suspect was arrested by Lansing police and is being held in the Ingham County Jail on unrelated charges. The Kalamazoo County Prosecutor’s Office is expected to receive the case for review on Tuesday, Nov. 15 and will make a decision on possible charges.
At 3:27 a.m. that Friday morning, not long after the shooting occurred, Salter’s grandmother, received a phone call from the hospital.
“There’s no words,” Brenda Miles said. “When the phone call came from the hospital, I just knew it.”
Miles told the Kalamazoo Gazette/MLive that she asked if her grandson was still alive. She was asked to come down to the hospital immediately. She and her husband Doug were greeted by a chaplain and social worker and her worst fears were realized.
“You always see people on TV (going through it) and say ‘oh my gosh, I feel so bad for them,’ and then it’s you,” Miles said. “You never expect it to be you.”
While working on funeral arrangements Monday, Doug and Brenda Miles spent their time remembering the good about their grandson, while also staring reality in its face and speaking out angrily about gun violence and the suspect apprehended in the case.
“The cops said he showed no remorse,” said Doug Miles of the suspect. “When they slam the door and lock it behind him, then he’ll care.”
Doug Miles was Bryce Salter’s fishing buddy.
He has many fond memories of being on the boat with his grandson and framed pictures on his walls at home that show his grandson driving the boat and holding up a prize catch.
“There’s so many good memories,” Brenda Miles said. “Doug and I raised him for about eight years, from the time he was 6 until 14 and went back to live with his dad. He always loved sports, especially football and baseball, and fishing. He loved friends and family. He was very family-oriented.”
As he got older, Bryce started running with the wrong crowd and made some choices his grandparents didn’t agree with, but they said he never stopped being the type of person who put family first.
“I always fought all the time to try to keep him on the right path,” his grandmother said. “I didn’t always know what all he was doing, but he never not one time was disrespectful to us in his life. He was always kind and sweet. I just couldn’t have asked for a better grandchild for either of us. We’re devastated.”
According to Brenda Miles and her son Brandon Salter, the person who killed Bryce Salter had accused Bryce of standing too close to his vehicle, which was parked in the Campus Pointe parking lot outside the Y Bar. There was a verbal altercation and Bryce was pushed to the ground, his family said.
Bryce’s father and grandmother both stated that Bryce fought back, getting the better of him, but then the man reached for a gun and shot Bryce Salter twice in the chest. Police have yet to release a detailed report.
“It was an absolute senseless act,” Brandon Salter said. “There was no reason for it to happen. I don’t want to go off on a political tangent. This wasn’t the gun’s fault, this wasn’t anybody else’s fault. This is the responsibility of one human being taking another human being’s life.
“Obviously, the gun problem is out of control in our society, and I feel passionately about that as well. It happens every day all over America, but when it hits this close to home you just don’t know what to say.”
Brenda Miles echoed her son’s sentiments on how frequently guns are used to solve differences.
“It used to be back in the day, when we were kids, in the 70s, you’d have a fight and you’d work it out, and no one would think about getting a gun and shooting someone because they’re mad,” Miles said. “We need to get back to the basics and get some control back. Something has got to change because we can’t have this kind of stuff going on.
“Now, we have to live with this for the rest of our lives because this b***ard just takes out a gun and kills our grandson. It’s just so senseless, you can’t even imagine. You can’t wrap your mind around it, it’s just terrible.”
Bryce Salter had his issues, his father and grandmother said, but they never pertained to violence or stealing from another. At the time of his death, he was working two jobs, one at a factory and another as a restaurant cook. He had attended Kalamazoo Loy Norrix High School when he was younger.
“I had my son when I was 18 years old,” Brandon Salter said of Bryce. “We kind of grew up together. As he got older, especially now as an adult, we had gotten so much tighter, we were like best friends. We would go places together and have fun. ... He wasn’t perfect by any means, but he would never hurt anybody.”
Bryce Salter leaves behind five siblings. One of them, his step-sister Analyse Bombich, turns 22 on Nov. 15.
“We were very close in age,” Bombich said. “So, I just have the best memories of us playing board games and talking about our futures. He just had these big old dreams and so did I.”
Like others, she talked about Bryce’s love for sports and how he would always put others in his family first.
“As his big sister I couldn’t have been more proud of the person who he was,” Bombich said. “He took care of everybody and always put himself last. He had the biggest, kindest heart out of everyone I had ever met. He was my baby brother. We just grew up attached to the hip.”
Bombich and her mother Lisa Goff both talked about how Bryce Salter continued to spend holidays with them even though Goff and Brandon Salter were no longer together.
“I just can’t wrap my head around it,” said Lisa Goff, one of many parental figures in Bryce’s life. “Bryce was just the sweetest kid. Him and Analyse would always stick up for the underdog when they were getting picked on. He always had a smile, even when he would get knocked down. Nothing could get him down.
“He would just lift your spirits with that smile of his. He could make you feel better so easily. He had such a gift. I just can’t believe this happened to him,” she said,
Never in a million years did any of them think they would lose Bryce, Bombich said.
“It just makes me sick to my stomach that my little brother, he was just standing too close to an unfamiliar car. It’s just this town that we live in,” she said. “It just feels like a nightmare. It hasn’t even totally set in yet that I will never see his face again and it just really hurts.
“He always wanted to make sure his big sister was OK and I love him for that forever.”
Aside from his personality, smile and character, his father wanted people to remember him as someone who liked to bring people together.
“He was biracial, and that was something he was proud of,” Salter said. “He always taught people that no matter what race, what class you are from, we’re all in it together. He was always about being in it for the common regular everyday people. He just changed my life.
“I had it rough coming up and I just wanted it better for my son. I tried to do everything I could to make his life better than mine. He helped me grow so much. I wanted to be the best dad I could. I was always there for him. I never missed a game. He took me for a beautiful ride. He was such a good boy, I promise you.”
Salter also is survived by his mother, Vanessa Rouse. Friends of Rouse’s said how much she loved her son.
A GoFundMe has been organized by Salter’s cousin to help with funeral expenses. The funeral will be at 2 p.m., Friday, Nov. 18, at Stones Church, 1225 W. Patterson St. in Kalamazoo. A gathering for friends and family will take place after the service from 4-7 p.m. at the Eagles Lodge, 1332 Branch St.