BlueLivesMatterBY COWGIRL
Dearborn, MI – Two men walked into the Dearborn Police Department on Sunday afternoon while armed with rifles and wearing tactical vests; it didn’t go over well.
According to The Detroit News, the situation began with an incident that happened a short time before. Dearborn Police Officers had responded to a shopping district near Ford and Southfield on a Suspicious Person call. Witnesses reported seeing “two suspicious men in a vehicle wearing tactical vests and masks.” Upon arrival, the Police Officers did not see anyone matching the description.
A few minutes later, a Dearborn Police Sergeant spotted their vehicle in a park about three miles away. He conducted a brief traffic stop, and did not see any weapons. After being released, the two men went to the Dearborn Police Department.
The two suspects, who were not named, videoed the entire incident. One suspect, age 24, said at the beginning “So we’re here, outside the Dearborn police station. We’re going to go in and make a complaint because we were illegally pulled over about an hour ago. We felt a little afraid for our lives when we were pulled over, so we figured we better protect ourselves.”
The male suspect, his face hidden in a mask and wearing sunglasses, then held the camera out to show a large rifle strapped to his chest. The second suspect, age 40, was unarmed, but was wearing a tactical vest with cameras. Both men walked into the DPD and the resulting video shows a tense but brief standoff.
There was actually an extremely brief moment of silence on the video before the Dearborn Police Officers reacted. The armed suspect actually panned his camera around to show the inside of the PD, and two Officers clearly pointing their weapons at him are shown in a doorway. Then the camera fell and the video went black, but the audio continued recording for almost two and one-half minutes.
One Dearborn Police Officer can be heard yelling “What the hell’s the matter with you?” Another Dearborn Police Officer yelled, “Put it on the ground or you are dead. I will shoot you.” And another Dearborn Police Officer said “I will put a round in you, sir, put that rifle on the ground.” The armed man did not immediately comply, and said “Can we all calm down? It’s all legal, sir.” He also mentioned something about President Trump, but the exact words were difficult to understand.
One of the Officers repeated the commands to the suspect to put down the weapon, “Put it down. Barrel down, set it down, step back,” and noted out loud that he was also carrying a sidearm. The unarmed man said that he was there to file a complaint. The Officers advised that no complaint would be filed at that time.
Both men were arrested and taken into custody. Although the specific charges were not released, each man was under $1,500 bond. Police Officers recovered a loaded AP-14 firearm, a rifle magazine containing 47 rounds, a loaded Glock 19 handgun with four additional magazines containing 66 rounds, body armor and ballistic vests, a mask, gun belt, several pieces of camera equipment, an AR-15 rifle, and a AK-47 style rifle.
In a statement, Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad said “I find this behavior totally unacceptable and irresponsible.” He also said “This is not a Second Amendment issue for me. We had members of the public in our lobby that fled in fear for their safety as these men entered our building.”
The president of Michigan Open Carry, Tom Lambert, made it plain that he and his organization supported the Dearborn Police Department and condemned the actions of the two suspects.
In this day and age, I have no idea what would possess two people to walk into a police station wearing tactical vests and openly armed. There have been ambushes in the past that have occurred from people walking into police departments in the very same manner. These two suspects are fortunate that they were not justifiably shot and killed.
Thankfully, Dearborn PD officers were able to take the suspects into custody without being harmed.