FeedsShooting follows drug bust
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Westland police gathered evidence at the scene on Tuesday.On Tuesday, a busy Westland strip mall erupted in violence as an undercover drug deal led by Romulus police went bad, leaving one suspect dead and another hospitalized.
At about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, a drug informant for the Romulus Police Department met with prospective cocaine buyers in the parking lot outside Bob’s of Canton, located on the northeast corner of the intersection of Warren and Merriman roads in Westland. Nine Romulus police officers waited in two vans parked nearby.
“It was an undercover reverse drug operation,” said Westland Police Chief James Ridener. “It ended up a straight up robbery.”
Charles Kirby, director of public safety for the City of Romulus, said that the meeting grew out of a tip received by the Romulus police and that the would-be buyers had chosen the time and place.
“The police never pick the location,” he said. Kirby added that since the criminals don’t wish to be caught, deals are frequently made during the daytime in innocuous locations to avoid attracting unwanted attention.
However, Ridener said that the ‘buyers’ had no intention of paying for the drugs and instead pointed weapons at the informant in an effort to steal the 3 kilograms of cocaine that the ‘seller’ had in his possession. The suspects fired, and the officers doing surveillance and backup for the meet scrambled out of their vehicles. A Romulus officer ultimately returned fire.
Westland police arrived on the scene shortly afterward to handle the investigation. “We recovered at least two weapons that I saw—a TEK-9 (handgun) and another smaller handgun,” said Ridener.
The cocaine, which Kirby estimated had a street value of $25,000 per kilogram, was also recovered.
As of Tuesday evening, Ridener said that three of the five suspects were in police custody. A white male suspect was arrested at the scene, a black male suspect was removed to an undisclosed hospital for treatment for a gunshot wound, and a black male suspect was pronounced dead at the scene from a gunshot wound. At that time, the department was still searching for the final two suspects—both black males—who had disappeared from the scene.
“We have teams out there actively searching them out,” said Ridener, adding that police suspected that at least one of the suspects might have been headed to Detroit. No further information about any of the suspects was available as of Tuesday.
No police officers or civilians were injured during the incident
