https://youtu.be/KsgHJU7dlhk

I believe the woman’s name is Joan Shepherd. In the video above she claims she purchased a house in Detroit for burger flipping money, an assertion that’s not without credibility. In some abandoned parts of Motown, housing values are all but non-existent. In any case, Ms. Shepherd was none-too-pleased to learn that her family was being evicted from their domicile. Apparently, she bought a condemned structure. Or the structure was condemned after she took possession. Anyway, in retaliation, she shoots the house (1:45).

Which makes no sense. Houses don’t evict people. People evict people. More worrying: Ms. Shepherd’s astounding lack of muzzle and trigger discipline around her children. I suppose we should be thankful that a condemned house was the only victim of this woman’s ballistic ire. And that’s all I’ve got to say about that. Save this: don’t be shooting houses. That’s just irresponsible.

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79 COMMENTS

    • Because TTAG runs a feature highlighting those who misuse their firearms, calling out their bad behavior as a poor representation of humanity generally as well as a poor example of firearm owners specifically.

      Because a firearm was misused by a woman in Detroit.

      Because the latter qualifies as the former.

  2. Charges coming? Will the city/county with jurisdiction even investigate? My guess, if they see this, is yes.

    Now that I re-watch this bitch, if this is the attitude that prevails in urban areas, or with the majority, I really fear for the future, the break-up will be violent.

      • Civilized society what are you talking about man have you been through Detroit lately in the last 10 years it’s a hellhole of abandoned buildings and houses complete neighborhoods boarded up and then they sell her this house for $1,000 and then want to bulldoze it when she’s trying to put money and time into a community that President Obama has completely written off his list and this is happening in every city in the United States that doesn’t have a tourism infrastructure to support the community in general. This is a nightmare that is just starting Louisiana after Katrina is still completely uninhabitable the house is all are boarded up in Louisiana where the flooding was there mold infested rat infested and gang-infested homeless people just walking in the streets going to the bathroom on the side of houses right out in the middle of the daylight it’s a litter hell hole. The same as for Detroit. This all comes down to 8 years of a Democrat that could care less if we ever manufacture anything again in the United States he’d rather send all our work overseas to Malaysia to Mexico to China Indonesia and half a dozen other third world countries instead of making the investment in the United States and its people. If I was an African American living in Detroit or Louisiana I would be at the White House’s front door protesting against President Obama’s choices. This is ridiculous that people are being screwed out of money when they’re trying to put money back into these neighborhoods that are so run down and need people to invest and come in and start communities over. Now I’m not saying waving a handgun around with two small children and shooting a live round at your house is the correct answer it’s clearly not. However this is going on in almost every major city in the United States except for New York Orlando and a few other cities. The unemployment rate is off the charts unless you want to work for $6 an hour President Obama invested millions of dollars to create jobs and all he created was a bunch of minimum wage bull crap jobs that if you are over the age of 18 you cannot even live off of that kind of money. He has no knowledge of being a poor man and having to live at poverty level typical Democrat politician typical politician actually.

        • they sell her this house for $1,000 and then want to bulldoze it when she’s trying to put money and time into a community

          Not quite. She bought the house for $1,000 sight-unseen. It was sold with the stipulation the new owner bring it up to code. She has lived there most of the year and has refused to do so, or even begin to do so. She has been notified four times. So now they are condemning the property.

          She thought she didn’t have to follow the rules. Still, ten months at $100 per month is still cheaper than rent.

        • Danny Griffin,

          Even if her home were free, the core problem is that you can barely afford food, heat, electricity, water, basic clothing, and bus fare when you only make $9 per hour.

          As if living on $9 per hour wasn’t bad enough, government taxes are going to take at least another 10% of that between FICA, state income tax, and state sales tax … which means she is really getting closer to $8 per hour at best after taxes. And that reduces her monthly income to $1408 == $8 /hour x 8 hours per day x 22 days per month. How is a person supposed to pay the thousands of dollars that it will take to rehabilitate a home on that kind of pay?

          • Then why did she buy the house if she couldn’t afford to fix the house up as required by the sale? And what about her husband? Doesn’t he work?

        • Danny, who cares what the agreement was / is at this point. What’s worse, the lady living in the street or in a house that isn’t to code. Given the homelessness problems in the USA, they should just give these houses away and who cares about “code”. Code was great when we didn’t have a huge homeless population.

          Or do we need a nanny state telling people that they have to live on the street because they’re house doesn’t meet “code”??

          • Do you want your house to burn down (and possibly kill you) because your neighbor’s house catches fire due to substandard electrical wiring? We have NFPA 70 for a reason.

        • “Who cares about code?” is part of why these neighborhoods are dying. The whole point is to try and rehabilitate home values. You can’t do that when people buy the place cheap on the basis of fixing it up and just let it deteriorate more. Who would want to live near such a place?

        • Uncommon:

          In Michigan she also has to pay MICA taxes. Michigan is a fucked up state in a lot of ways. Pure Insanity out of Lansing.

    • While she is irresponsible, I don’t see why she shouldn’t be angry. Even if the building is condemned, it’s surely better to let her live there while she finds something else than kicking her out on the street. How would you feel if you were so poor that the only house you could afford was this and even that was being taken from you?

      • Right. And when her house caught fire, causing 1000 houses around it to ignite (San Francisco) and as a result thousands of women and children die, you would be right there to demand the hanging of the people who did not insist that house be repaired. If code and/or contract requirements do not need to be enforced, let’s eliminate them for everyone, not simply the supposed homeless.

      • I know exactly how I would feel. I would feel like i can’t afford to buy a house and need to rent. Been there, done that. When I started in this great country I had $200 to my name and one bag of clothes. In my first job I made $6.50 per hour.

        It just meant that I had to work 12 hours a day instead of 8 and 6 or 7 days a week instead of 5. It also meant that I had to learn a trade while working as helper for building contractor. It meant that I rented a room in basement and walk a lot instead of buying house and car.

        It took me 6 months to get to $8 per hour. It took me 8 months to save $10,000. It took me 5 years to buy a $275,000 house together with my wife. After 10 years we took a vacation in Florida for the first time last spring. Seven more years and our mortgage will be paid off.

        All together it would feel like I have a lots of work ahead of me.

  3. Very sad that she angrily waves her handgun around with a baby on one arm and her small son in the background. She could use an NRA safety course, but it is not likely to happen.

    • You’ll notice the little boy backing away from mom when she was swing that gun around in his direction.

  4. Maybe she thought that she was shooting the White House. The confusion is understandable. Both her house and the White House are infested with rats and should be condemned.

  5. You can thank President Obama for this mess in Detroit. And ex-president Bill Clinton for his trade Act. All the automotive manufacturing plants moved out of Detroit to Mexico for cheaper labor and has left this entire city abandoned neglected and boarded up. I realize by brandishing a firearm with two young children around and shooting at your house is completely unacceptable however when people are emotionally distressed and they have literally lost everything they own and are basically homeless with two children I can definitely understand the rage that she has but she needs to place that anger to the vote she made for Obama and ask him why these people sold her a condemned house and then told her after she paid for it that they were going to demolish it. This is a sad situation when people are driven to the point of emotional breakdown. She should have left the gun in her vehicle or in that dilapidated house. Now she’s arrested Department of Children and Families is going to get involved and she may lose her children. Did you notice how the newscasters didn’t mention anything about the company or the housing department that did this to her they just had a side note. They would have never covered this story had she not fired a handgun during the filming of this. All the media cares about is there coverage of anti-gun propaganda screw the little woman that has lost everything she invested into.

    • I hate to defend Obama for anything, but Detroit was a collapsing shithole before he even started “organizing communities”. This particular municipal disaster has been many decades in the making.

      • Detroit was also infested with more than a few self-serving, criminally corrupt Democratic politicians who helped it become what it is today.

        • Absolutely. And the United Auto Workers get their share of the blame, too, for bleeding the carmakers so badly that moving production to other countries was an attractive option.

    • She apparently pulls the gun and holster together, and fires through the fabric… meaning that trigger isn’t covered…

  10. Gotta say, TTAG, you’re disappointing me here. There’s no reason to put this video up so that others can make fun of this woman’s plight. We know nothing about her other than what’s on this video, and it’s obvious she’s in distress. Why hold her up to ridicule when she’s obviously in pain? There are undoubtedly others who are more deserving.

    This is unseemly behavior on your part. Take the higher road, please.

    • The comments may fill your disappointment, but her behavior is irresponsible as a gun owner.

      If you are looking for a broader application to justify her feature here (although most of those featured will be mocked even though they may have had their own extenuating circumstances), she has clearly violated safety rules as well as wontonly discharged her firearm around children. As children are prone to unpredictable behavior, she did not take steps to ensure their safety, including providing adequate protection – something younger minds are less likely to consider.

      • Yup, she’s irresponsible. There are lots of irresponsible gun owners out there, some of whom aren’t as clearly in distress as this woman is.

        Just because we *can*, doesn’t always mean we *should*. TTAG should be ashamed of posting this, especially since the comments seem to have devolved into something other than calling attention to an irresponsible use of firearms.

        • I get what you’re saying – some of the comments have left me more than disappointed. But, distress is no excuse for irresponsibility.

          While there are likely several examples on any given day, this specifically placed minors in an at risk situation through active behavior. Contrast this to someone who places a minor in danger through negligent storage – a passive behavior.

          We should focus more on the actions here than questioning other behaviors and choices, but welcome to the internet, where find reasons to mock others so that we can convinces ourselves that we are better than them.

        • She’s irresponsible for sure but that particular gunshot was probably, all around, the safest discharge in Detroit on that day.

  11. A lot of people in this country don’t know the proper way to purchase a piece of Real Estate that’s why most people use Realtors. However there is some fraudulent activity going on in Detroit and in Louisiana with these vacant properties that have been pre condemned. People are buying up the land knowing that the houses are going to be condemned and then are selling these properties at a great price. The people purchasing these pieces of property may not be educated enough to realize all the writing in the contract. Basically they’re selling the house as is and some people consider that a deal on a fixer upper. When in fact all you’re paying the $1,000 for is the actual land. The house has already been condemned and by you paying $1,000 for the land you are also accepting the demolition fees which will occur when the city bulldozes the house. This is a scam to get poor people to pay for the city’s demolition fees I’ve researched this in the past it’s as clear as black and white what they’re doing. Property investors are buying up entire neighborhoods and selling them for $1,000 per lock you may have to 300 houses in these neighborhoods which is 2 $300,000 free and clear and then the people who bought the property have to pay for the demolition fees which could run $15,000 by the time you have anything hazardous or biologically hazardous due to mold rat infestation and on and on it goes. They make a quick chunk of change and the poor people are stuck holding the bag for the demolition because the city is so broke they can’t afford to demolish these buildings like they should. And no home investing agency is going to invest into these properties to rebuild new neighborhoods because there’s no economy to support them it’d be like throwing money into a fire. That’s what really gets me upset. I don’t care if you’re Republican Democrat or independent you should not be ripped off in this country buy this property and land Developers that are trying to make a fortune off the little guy and then screwing real good in the end to boot.

    • so there should be rules as to a housing code of safe and clean structure that might affect ones neighbors structure or value? The real culprit here are the unions and those who support such – they made it un-profitable to maintain auto industry into the 21st century, and the city employee unions (including police) bankrupt the municipality with demands of non-sustainable benefits and retirement.

    • I have to confess, I have never read all the way through a contract for the purchase of a house, although I have bought 3, and sold 2. If I ever got into that again I probably would try, but I can’t blame this woman for being surprised.

      My current home is a good example of how screwed you can get. At the last minute, like, closing in a week or so, I was prevailed upon to have the family lawyer look over the contract, which was for the house and an adjoining piece of property on the waterfront. Lawyer called back to give me shit for signing anything like that without taking it to him first, not after. Seems, through a mistake, I was set to buy the adjoining property, but not the house, at the price agreed upon for both. Caused no problem, as the contract was rewritten correctly, but if it had been a scam as opposed to a mistake I could have been screwed. Also, if the house stays in my family for 100 years before my descendants try to sell it, who even knows what shit they could run into when there are no documents showing we ever bought it?

  13. At 1:55 she sweeps the firearm across her terrified son before discharging it without eye or ear protection for herself or her children.

    Also, who travels into her area of Detroit to buy hamburgers and fried chicken? Once you answer that question, how will increasing the federally mandated minimum wage make a closed-community more wealthy?

    • Yup. Freeze frame at 2:43 and she is literally pointing to the muzzle of the gun (that she just fired) directly at her child’s head during an out of control emotional outburst. It doesn’t get any more dangerous than that.

      She also directly muzzled her young boy on at least 2 occasions, including 3:15.

      I can understand Ms. Shepherd being very upset, but her behavior is abhorrent, extremely irresponsible, outright dangerous and illegal.

  16. Personally I though this was hilarious.

    Reminds me of the “At least we’re not Detroit” video out of Cleveland.

  18. WOW. That was truly fascinating. That’s some serious weapons grade crazy right there. Those poor kids. My heart aches for them.

  19. I for one do not feel sorry for this so-called human. She shouldve stayed in school, kept her legs close, tried harder in life, and she may of made it somewhere. Everyone in the u.s. has an opourtunity to make it if they are determined enough. The sense of entitlement is sickening. She deserves a garden, so, bitch go buy some seed packets. Lol.

  20. Maybe she is crazy, uneducated, Clinton voter, demanding $15/hr, etc, type. Big government and bureaucracy meddling in someones life is also a problem here, if the gov wants it up to their codes then they need to get down there and do it themselves without using tax dollars to do it. Otherwise, they need to shove off, its the owners problem.

    • Those codes exist for a reason. They are really not that strenuous and only come into play when your house becomes a death trap. Would you be ok for the fire department to let that fucker burn to the ground rather than sending firefighters in to die to pull her dumb ass out?

      • They may not have even gotten to that point if she was at least *trying* to to fix it.

        A local case down here in point:

        Someone began construction on a home down here. Pad was poured, framing started to go up, and then the ’08 economy tanked.

        The permit was good for a set length of time, I can’t recall exactly what that was. Anyways, work stopped. Months passed. Finally, the county dragged him into court. He explained the situation, and the judge asked him if he was abandoning the property. The judge told him as long as he was making progress on it he wouldn’t condemn the property.

        Sure enough, the owner plugged away at it on nights and weekends. It took the guy 6 years or so, but he did eventually finish the home, with most of the work done by the owner himself.

        The point being, (most) localities don’t want to condemn peoples homes. They can, and often will, work with the homeowner as long as progress is being made. Detroit woman wasn’t acting in good faith.

        I bet Detroit would have worked with her, considering the condition of Detroit’s tax base. They *want* homeowners in that city.

        I have been wondering for more than a few years now as to why more folks haven’t been moving back, with the government essentially giving houses away for free. (Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s Detroit.). When’s the tipping point?

        When will Detroit start moving forward? When will a group of people take a city block, fence it off from the thugs, and build lives?

      • Her taxes go to pay those firemen’s bloated salaries and platinum benefits. If they don’t want to go in and save her, then she should get a refund from them.

        If the firemen are becoming as cowardly as the typical cop, then they should quit and find honest work.

        • Somehow I doubt this cunt pays taxes.

          … and being a fireman is a job, not a suicide pact. If your ass is retarded enough to live in a pile of kindling, it’s not their job to get killed trying to save you from your own stupidity.

        • What taxes? There would be nothing on a $1,000 house, and in her income bracket she’s getting the earned income tax credit and has two kids as exemptions.

          In other words, she is still a parasite, despite flipping burgers.

        • As for taxes, I would say she is getting back money she never paid in. Probably gets around $12,000.00 back from taxes with the EIC and her kids. Now, are you going to say flipping burgers she makes enough to pay much more than $12,000.00 in taxes alone?

    • Maybe in grade school before people drop out, they should teach children some very simple economics like how to pay your bills, what kind of common bill’s you have, example price of a home, example burger flipping wages, why one would not want to purchase homes for skeptical prices from unscrupulous characters.

  22. I don’t think she hit the house. Suspect flipping burgers is the only job she could get with that temperament, and perhaps even that employment is tenuous. We’ll be supporting her and her children 100% soon. It’s sad that she wasted her money, sad that she is in the position she is in, sad that she obviously did not understand the rules and regulations of buying a condemned property.

  23. “Anyway, in retaliation, she shoots the house (1:45)… Which makes no sense. Houses don’t evict people. People evict people.”

    Um, I’m happy the shoots the house myself, instead of shooting the people involving in evicting her… probably with good reason.

  26. Come on.

    It’s Detroit. Just go to the next house that is abandoned. There’s probably one right next door.

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