Man Accused of Stabbing 2 Mich. Police Officers, Using Son as Shield Out on Bond

By Cole Waterman

Source mlive.com

BAY CITY, MI — A Bay City father captured on video using his 1-year-old son as a human shield just before he allegedly stabbed two police officers is no longer in jail. The development has been met with disappointment by the Bay City Department of Public Safety.

Meanwhile, a special prosecutor is being sought to try the case.

Bay County District Judge Timothy J. Kelly on Friday, Jan. 17, freed Eshawn K. Langston, 23, on a personal recognizance bond. Langston had been jailed since his arrest on Dec. 11 on a $25,000 bond Kelly had set.

Langston is charged with two counts each of assaulting police causing injury and assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of fourth-degree child abuse. The first two charges are four-year felonies, while the last one is a one-year misdemeanor.

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Bodycam: Suspect Uses Son as Shield, Stabs Mich. Police Officers

With his 1-year-old son sitting on his lap, a 23-year-old man wanted for a bond violation struggled with Bay City police, stabbing and cutting two officers before being subdued.

“I am extremely disturbed and disappointed that a subject who has been charged with multiple felonies, including the stabbing of two law enforcement officers, was released from jail on a personal recognizance bond,” said Bay City Public Safety Director Caleb J. Rowell. “This puts the public and any law enforcement officer in danger who will undoubtedly have contact with this subject again.”

Bay County Prosecutor Michael P. Kanuszewski said his office was not involved in the case, as he has filed a request with the Michigan Attorney General’s Office seeking a special prosecutor to handle it. If AG staff determine a special prosecutor is warranted, they can either try the case themselves or forward it to the Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council. That agency would then assign another county prosecutor’s office to handle the matter.

Kanuszewski made the request as he previously represented Langston in another criminal matter. His chief assistant prosecutor, Christopher S. Johnson, also previously represented Langston.

“Due to this inherent, deep conflict of interest, we had to refer it out,” Kanuszewski said. This has become common practice, with Kanuszewski’s staff sending more than one case per day to the AG’s Office seeking a special prosecutor.

Kanuszewski took over the office in the first week of January after defeating prior Prosecutor Nancy E. Borushko in the November general election. He previously served as the head of the county’s Office of Criminal Defense.

Langston’s charges stem from police at about 12:30 a.m. on Dec. 11 going to a residence in the 1100 block of North Jackson Street to arrest him for violating his bond. Langston in August was charged with domestic violence against his child’s mother and was prohibited from having contact with her, a condition he violated earlier that day, court files state.

They found Langston seated in the driver’s seat of a locked silver Jeep with his 1-year-old son in the passenger seat, reports state.

Officers told Langston they had probable cause he violated bond and he was under arrest. Langston refused to step outside and “was screaming and moving around in his car violently enough to shake the Jeep,” officers wrote in their reports. At one point, Langston put the Jeep in drive and rammed a 2002 Ford Police Interceptor, pushing it about 10 feet, reports state.

Video footage recorded by officers’ bodycams show Langston repeatedly telling police they will have to kill him.

“I don’t want to break a window with a kid in there,” says one officer. Another agrees and tells him to break a back window.

“We’re gonna break your window and drag you out of the car unless you unlock the door right now,” an officer tells Langston.

“I hope ya’ll ready for that, bro,” Langston shouts. “Ya’ll kick my window in, I’m not going down. It’s gonna be more than just another arrest, bro. You’re gonna have to take me out of this (expletive) in a body bag, I promise you. Ya’ll gonna have to kill me.”

Langston says if his son is hurt in the process, he’ll “do something” to the officers. At that point, he picks up his son from the passenger seat and sets him in his lap.

Officers order Langton to put his son down and keep telling him to unlock his door.

“This is injustice!” Langton repeatedly hollers.

“It’s not. It’s a condition from a judge,” an officer tells him.

Langston argues with the officers, insisting he hadn’t been around his son’s mother.

“You can’t talk your way out of it,” an officer tells him. “You are going to jail tonight.”

Civilians crowd around the Jeep and yell at Langston. A woman urges Langston to let her take the child.

“Eshawn,” an officer tells Langston, “you are putting your child in this position, OK? This is on you. This is on you.”

Bystanders get more animated as Langston grapples with an officer trying to reach him through the passenger side. Officers break the Jeep’s rear windows and deploy a Taser. Langston kicks at officers as they pull him from the driver’s side door, still shouting he’ll have to be killed. A woman nearby screams hysterically.

Officers turned off the Jeep’s ignition, grabbed the baby, and handed him to his mother.

Once officers had Langston handcuffed, two of them realized they had been wounded, according to police. A sergeant suffered a stab wound to his lower abdomen. A patrol officer had a gash on his right thigh, which one of his peers addressed on-scene with a tourniquet.

Bay City Third Ward Commissioner Andrea Burney-Obershaw has defended Langston and criticized the police who arrested him.

“The officers that arrested this man, had no business breaking out those windows with him shielding his child” Burney-Obershaw wrote in an email to her fellow commissioners on Dec. 13.

“These officers should be suspended or reprimanded to some classes to learn how to handle that kind of criminal conduct without endangering innocent people especially a child. Could you just imagine this baby scared to death holding to his father. Human shield really. That child was clinging for dear life. Wrong is Wrong.”

Langston is to appear for a preliminary examination on his felony matters on Feb. 26. His misdemeanor domestic violence case is set for a pretrial conference the same day.

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