Bouncer Charged...

[complexity]

Mario Etheridge, the 28-year-old bouncer at Detroit's CCC Club and the suspected gunman in Tuesday morning's shooting death of D12's Proof, was charged Friday afternoon (April 14) by the Wayne County, Michigan, prosecutor's office with carrying a

concealed weapon and discharge of a firearm in a dwelling or occupied structure ? both felonies. He has not been charged with Proof's murder. If convicted, Etheridge could face a maximum of nine years behind bars.

"Our investigation in this case is far from over," prosecutor Kym Worthy said in a statement. "As Ghandi said: 'An eye for an eye for an eye would make the whole world blind.' I am making a personal plea to the public to let the legal process take course. We do not want people taking the law into their own hands. The worst thing that could happen now would be to compound this situation by having any more senseless deaths"

Etheridge, who turned himself in to police on Wednesday afternoon, will be arraigned Saturday in Detroit's 36th District Court.

According to police, evidence indicates 32-year-old Proof (born DeShaun Holton) fired the first round in Tuesday's fatal shootout inside the CCC Club, located along East Eight Mile Road in Detroit's East Side. But before he pulled the trigger, eyewitnesses claim, Proof pistol-whipped Keith Bender, Jr.; he fell to the club's floor, at which point police claim Proof shot him in the face. Proof was then fatally shot by another man ? once in the back of the head, and twice in the chest.

Police believe the two men had been fighting inside the club. Proof was pronounced dead on arrival at St. John Holy Cross Hospital; Bender remains in critical condition, and on life support, at St. John Hospital and Medical Center. Bender and Etheridge are cousins, according to police.

On Wednesday, Etheridge's lawyer, Randall Upshaw, told reporters his client "has done nothing wrong, and I'm confident the facts will come out." A police spokesperson told the Detroit Free Press that if Proof was shot by someone trying to protect himself or another individual, the person who pulled that trigger may not be charged with murder. Upshaw maintains Bender was unarmed at the time of the shooting.

Late Thursday night, Eminem released a statement regarding Proof's killing, breaking his silence for the first time Proof had served as Em's best man in January, when the rapper remarried his high-school sweetheart, Kimberly Mathers.

On Thursday, Proof's lawyer, David Gorosh, chided Detroit's police department for suggesting his client fired first "To indicate that Proof pulled the trigger first is reckless and quite frankly it will be proved to be untrue," he said. "This is a sad ending to a great career that was just getting started. He will be missed."