One dead, one injured in domestic dispute

By Justin Tiemeyer - Contributing writer

20 Feb. 2025

Tuesday, Feb. 11. West Main Street was closed to traffic for several hours due to a situation in the nearby neighborhood. According to statements from both the Lowell Police Department and the Kent County Sheriff’s Office, what started as a domestic dispute, left one Lowell resident dead and another seriously injured.

It began on Monday, Feb. 10 at 10:23 p.m., when LPD officers responded to a domestic assault call, in the 800 block of West Main Street. A female resident’s cell phone had been destroyed in an altercation with her significant other, identified as Adam Charron. The victim drove to a business on West Main Street to contact the police.

She told officers she intended to spend the night with a relative in Cedar Springs, and the officers witnessed her drive out of town in that direction. The LPD had responded to domestic violence calls at the same residence in April and June of 2024.

Per the victim’s statement to LPD, Charron was intoxicated, alone and in possession of weapons. Officers did not enter the residence at that time because, according to LPD the “department standard protocol is to not make entry into a home when someone is alone, intoxicated, and has weapons.” 

Public Information Officer Scott Dietrich confirmed that the KCSO has a similar protocol. “It depends on many factors, with those being some of them,” Dietrich said, “and it’s case by case.”

It is unclear whether or not the victim made it to Cedar Springs, but at 3:55 a.m. a passing ambulance crew found a Honda CR-V, presumably the same vehicle that the victim left town in, off the roadway near the residence. A neighbor, coming home from work at about this time, reported seeing the same vehicle in the parking lot of a nearby business, believing it to have struck a tree. The crew noted “a significant amount of blood” and glass inside the vehicle but no occupant.

Using the CR-V’s registration, investigators were able to match the vehicle with the victim’s domestic violence report from hours earlier. The police interviewed witnesses, who claimed to have heard gunfire overnight at about 12:30 a.m. The KCSO’s tactical team, detective bureau, drone team and an armored vehicle were called in, and neighbors described a stand-off, requiring those in the immediate vicinity to be evacuated.

Neither the KCSO nor LPD have confirmed the details of the alleged stand-off, but when deputies entered the premises, Charron was confirmed deceased, “with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.” The victim had been shot, as well, and was brought to a local hospital, “where she remains in serious but stable condition.”

The incident took place near several area schools, prompting parental concern. Lowell Area School Superintendent Nate Fowler sent a message to families on Feb. 11 explaining that he was working closely with law enforcement to ensure student safety. “Out of an abundance of caution,” Fowler wrote, “we implemented safety protocols by keeping students indoors at the schools in the City of Lowell.” Parents of children attending these schools described it as a “soft lockdown” and reported police presence at schools in the general vicinity of the unfolding incident.

As residents encountered the traffic reroute during their morning commute on Feb. 11, some reported an additional vehicle, surrounded by police and ambulance, on the shoulder of M-21, heading West from Lowell to Ada. Sergeant Dietrich confirmed that this was a separate, unrelated incident.

The LPD statement released on Wednesday, Feb. 12, included guidance surrounding the topic of domestic violence from Chief Hurst. “We strongly encourage the community to call 911 if they suspect domestic violence,” Hurst stated. “In this most recent incident, we are aware of three witnesses who could have called police. Please, if you see something, say something - so that law enforcement can step in and do something.”

The KCSO and LPD encourage anyone, experiencing or aware of domestic violence, to seek help via Michigan’s Domestic Violence Hotline, a free and confidential resource that people can call or text at any time at 1-866-VOICEDV. Other resources are available through the Kent County Domestic Violence Community Coordinated Response Team website at stopkentviolence.org.