On July 3, 2026, a man named Cameron Watkins opened fire inside the Fairlane Town Center in Dearborn, Michigan. He shot and killed a man named Keonte Seaborn. Then he shot another person. Then he kept shooting.
A 19-year-old named Martinez Long shot Watkins and ended the terrorizing event.
No prosecutor in Wayne County charged Long for the killing. Both sides agreed in court that Long acted in lawful self-defense or defense of others. The shooting that stopped a rampage was, legally and factually, justified. That part wasn't in dispute.
What was in dispute — apparently — was Long's judgment. Because Chief Judge Sam Salamey, during sentencing on a separate charge of unlawful concealment of a handgun, decided the courtroom needed a lecture.
"Fortunately, you weren't injured, but nonetheless, you had a gun there in the first place, which was poor judgment," Judge Salamey told Long from the bench.
Then he kept going.
"And what do you need a gun for protection in a mall, in the first place?"
Then, just in case the irony hadn't fully landed: "I know there was a gun fight at the Fairlane mall, and the lawyers have agreed...that you were acting in self-defense or the defense of others, so that's a valid legal defense. Why did you walk into the mall with a gun in the first place?"
The answer was the reason Keonte Seaborn was the only person Cameron Watkins killed that day instead of however many rounds he had left. The judge acknowledged the self-defense finding and then asked the question the self-defense finding had already answered.
Michigan law requires a person to be 21 to carry a concealed handgun. Long was 19. So prosecutors charged him, despite his life-saving actions.
Judge Salamey wanted to make a point about why a teenager would bring a firearm to a shopping mall. In a state governed by Gretchen Whitmer. In a city where a man had just committed a public shooting. In the same mall where it happened.
"Why did you walk into the mall with a gun in the first place?"
Because Cameron Watkins walked into the same mall with one too.
A judge using his position of power to lecture a kid after he saved countless lives is what happens when woke liberals go too far. The judge just couldn't resist the sermon.
