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Wayne police apprehend armed robber
One minute, Sgt. Brian Girouard was pondering his imminent retirement.
The next, he was pursuing a pair of suspected thieves down the street at speeds approaching 80 miles an hour.
Girouard, who retired from the Wayne Police Department on June 30, was in the parking lot of the 29th District Court on Tuesday when Leo’s Jewelry was robbed.
Girouard noticed two suspects fleeing the location and quickly took off in a high-speed pursuit that ended with the apprehension of one of the suspects a few miles away.
“What a way to go out,” said Lt. Rob Puckett of the Wayne Police Department. Puckett is one of the officers promoted in the wake of a wave of retirements to hit Wayne at the end of the last fiscal year.
He said the robbery at Leo’s, which is on Michigan Avenue just east of Wayne Road, was a tense situation that developed shortly after the store opened for the day.
“It was definitely a planned event,” said Puckett.
Two suspects, one of whom brandished a handgun, entered the store and walked directly to the counter that housed a selection of Rolex watches, said Puckett. He demanded that an employee open the case.
“There was no resistance whatsoever from the employees,” said Puckett. “They did what they were trained to do.”
The suspects left with about a dozen of the upscale watches, but not before the armed suspect turned and fired a single shot into the store, shattering a display case.
“There was no resistance, but they felt the need to fire a round and scare everyone,” said Puckett. “It’s very fortunate that nobody was hurt.”
The pair fled outside, where they attracted Girouard’s attention. Other patrol cars soon joined the chase, and the two suspects eventually ran into a guardrail and crashed their car into the Rouge River, said Puckett. They fled, but Ofc. Terrance Springer overtook one of them and tackled him.
“We recovered all of the stolen property from the vehicle, as well as the handgun,” said Puckett.
Police believe the suspect they caught, DeAngelo Johnson, was the suspect who fired the gun. He was a passenger in the vehicle, which had been reported stolen after a carjacking in Redford Township. He was arraigned on armed robbery charges on Friday, and is being held at the Wayne County Jail on a $1 million cash bond. The other suspect escaped and police are still looking for him.
“(Johnson) didn’t give up any information on his accomplice, at all,” said Puckett. “We did recover come evidence at the scene. It’s still an ongoing case.”
Brazen daylight robberies are not the norm in the city, and Puckett lauded the department for its quick response to the crime and capture of one of the suspects.
“It was great work from everybody in the police department,” he said. “It was good to get an arrest and we’re very fortunate that nobody was hurt.”
