By Jim Kasuba
Source Press & Guide, Dearborn, Mich.
Police officers were shot at during a high-speed chase that began in Detroit and ended in Allen Park.
The chase began shortly after 10 p.m. Thursday in what Detroit Assistant Police Chief Charles Fitzgerald described as a "simple traffic stop."
Fitzgerald held a press conference Friday afternoon, live streamed on the Detroit Police Department's Facebook page, where he spoke about two incidents that involved people shooting at officers on the same day.
Fortunately, no one was injured in either incident, but for Fitzgerald, the two cases on that "chaotic day" highlight how dangerous police officers' jobs can be.
"It's terrifying," Fitzgerald said. "The men and women of the Detroit Police Department put their lives on the line every single day."
In the second incident, where the chase went through parts of Dearborn, Lincoln Park and Allen Park, the teenage suspect was a person who allegedly shot someone just two days earlier.
The 14-year-old driver had two other people in a truck, which was being pulled over because the license plate didn't match the vehicle. After officers activated their overhead lights, the truck took off at a high rate of speed.
He said the officers were about to end the pursuit, but then the suspect rolled down a window and opened fire.
"The chase went through multiple cities and ended with a culmination of a PIT maneuver by our partners at the Michigan State Police, in the Southfield/Outer Drive area," Fitzgerald said. "All three suspects in the vehicle fled."
According to police, two fled on the Allen Park side and the other was captured in Dearborn. Two weapons were recovered. One of the passengers in the vehicle is a minor and the other is an adult.
According to Fitzgerald, the 14-year-old suspect was arrested two days prior for a nonfatal shooting and he was released on "a horrifyingly low bond." The suspect allegedly shot his girlfriend in the lower back. Fitzgerald said the girl most likely will be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.
Fitzgerald said the juvenile was given a $10,000/10% bond after he was arrested for that shooting.
He said the suspect was still wearing the same shirt he had on when he was arrested for the prior incident.
"When you are taking the right people off the street, you are taking bad people off the street," Fitzgerald said. "They're being released back to the street. It's not helping our cause at all."
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