Detroit suspect in stable condition after Troy officer fires during traffic stop
Troy police said Wednesday they’d accounted for all five of the bullets an officer fired at a suspect who drove a stolen car at the officer as he approached on foot.
The officer’s weapon struck the suspect once in the chest, while the other four bullets were found elsewhere inside the car, which was stolen from a dealership in Southfield on Nov. 6, police said.
The suspect was in stable condition Wednesday night at a nearby hospital while investigators sought authority for criminal charges, according to a Troy police news release. The incident, on Tuesday afternoon, tied up rush-hour traffic with numerous emergency vehicles obstructing Big Beaver Road just east of Rochester Road.
The news release from Troy police gave this account:
The incident began after Troy police were alerted by a license plate check that the car was stolen. Finding it stopped at a traffic signal at 3:21 p.m., officers in multiple squad cars positioned their vehicles to “box in the suspect’s vehicle,” attempting to block his escape.
But the driver of the stolen vehicle tried to ram his way out of the encircled squad cars, “and then drove straight at an officer who had exited his vehicle to make an arrest,” the news release said. That officer then fired five times at the suspect. The stolen car continued a short distance before crashing into another vehicle, after which police took the suspect and his passenger into custody and began giving emergency medical aid to the driver.
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The driver, a 25-year-old man from Detroit, was rushed away by EMS. His passenger, a 20-year-old man, also was transported to the hospital, treated for minor injuries caused by the crash, then released into police custody after officers learned he was sought by nearby cities under two felony warrants.
Westbound Big Beaver road was closed just east of Rochester Road until 9 p.m. Tuesday while investigators from the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office studied the scene. The county’s police agency, routinely called on as impartial outsiders, will determine whether the officer who fired was justified in doing so.
Contact Bill Laytner: blaitner@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Troy cop needed bullets to stop suspect with car stolen in Southfield
