59-year-old Eddie Jawad was shot outside his $1.9 million mansion in Michigan on Tuesday morning (US time), according to a Daily Mail exclusive. The well-known top businessman, an Arab American, targeted in the non-fatal shooting owns over 20 Pit Stop gas stations across Metro Detroit.

Detective believe that the shooting incident was a targeted attack. Officials from the Macomb County Sheriff’s Office reportedly responded to gunfire reports around 10:15 am at the entrepreneur’s 7,000-square-foot lavish abode in Macomb Township. Upon arriving at the scene, officers found Eddie Jawad with gunshot wounds. He was ultimately taken to a local hospital, and has since been in stable condition.

Detectives looking for a dark SUV after US businessman’s shooting in Michigan

Aerial footage retrieved by investigators indicated that a black SUV was parked on the grass beside Jawad’s home. Consequently, they are now on the lookout for a vehicle spotted fleeing east on 24 Mile Road from Wellington Valley Drive right after the shooting incident. ABC’s local news outlet WXYZ Detroit shared that authorities were seen inspecting a black Range Rover, which had a bullet hole in the passenger seat window.

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What do we know about Michigan businessman Eddie Jawad shooting suspects

Neighbours are said to have heard two gunshots at around 10:15 am on Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, Jawad’s wife Khadjie told the Daily Mail that the suspected shooter jumped out from behind the bushes to attack her husband. As per her account of the incident, it was not a robbery instance.

Although firm details surrounding a suspect’s identity have yet to be revealed, Sheriff Anthony Wickerham has since divulged that more than one person could have been involved in the shooting, according to Fox 2 Detroit. Jawad reportedly does not know them.

What do we know about Eddie Jawad?

As a longtime Macomb resident, Jawad is behind a sprawling network of fuel outlet under crucial operators like 7-Eleven, Kroger, Circle K, Speedway and Meijer. Also emerging as an advocated for small businesses and a critic of large corporations’ local market intervention, he recently argued against a Sheetz gas station being built on 23 Mile.

“You have a thousand residents that are refusing this,” he said at a Macomb Township meeting in June. He was eventually removed from the gathering after yelling at commission members. At the time, he also told the Detroit News that a competitor like Sheetz would “put small businesses out of business.”

Hitting out against municipal officials for giving precedence to such high-profile projects instead of favouring the local community, he said, “When somebody’s building Cedar Point across from your local park, everybody’s going to go to Cedar Point. They see it’s a six or seven-million-dollar development and their eyes just glow, no matter the cost now or later for residents, neighbors, commuters.”

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The MENA American Chamber of Commerce CEO Faye Nemer, who knows Jawad professionally through the organisation, said, “Eddie has a track record of, you know, holding government accountable, local government,” according to ABC’s WXYZ Detroit.

“If you look at his record dating back to 2016 onward, he’s consistently called out any corruption, any potential fraud, any type of inequity towards business owners within, you know, the township. And that is something that he has done on a continuous basis.”

Moreover, community advocate Hassan Aoun described him as a “respected business owner and concerned resident who stood up when others remained silent” after the June meeting.