Charges filed in pellet gun incident in Colonie

Police said they believed rifle was an actual firearm

A Utica man faces more than a dozen felony and misdemeanor charges after allegedly stealing a pellet gun from the Loudon Road Walmart on Wednesday and pointing it at several drivers before sparring with police, prompting the store to go into lockdown.

Police said they received several 911 calls at about 12:20 p.m. Wednesday reporting a man with a rifle running near the Walmart on Loudon Road. The calls initiated a large-scale response from Colonie police, and the suspect was located on Route 9 under the Latham Traffic Circle overpass.

After a brief struggle, the suspect, later identified as Daquan D. Forehand, 25, was detained, with some officers incurring scrapes and bruising while taking him into custody, police said.

Police released a pair of dash-cam images of the suspect brandishing the gun at a vehicle, which police said he stole from the retailer during a shopping trip with his family. After taking the weapon, the suspect allegedly ran through the store and into the parking lot, where he pointed the rifle at “multiple victims and attempted to steal vehicles from at least two victims,” police said.

Police identified the weapon as a Ruger pellet rifle.

“Throughout this incident, until just prior to being taken into custody, all the witnesses — including police officers — believed this pellet rifle to be an actual firearm,” police said in a statement.

The store went into lockdown until he was taken into custody.

Forehand, who police said appeared to be uninjured during the struggle, was arraigned and held under the supervision of the Albany County Sheriff ’s Office at Albany Medical Center, where he is expected to undergo a mental health evaluation.

He faces several felony charges: two counts of attempted robbery, one count of menacing a police officer and one count of grand larceny. He was also changed with misdemeanors of resisting arrest, three counts of criminal weapon possession, eight menacing counts and petit larceny.

Police said the officers who took the suspect into custody, Lt. Henry Rosenzweig and Officer Michael Sbardella, showed “tremendous restraint” by using minimal force “in a chaotic scene where the use of deadly physical force would have been justified.”

“Officers remained calm and used rapidly developing information from witnesses to make split-second decisions, ultimately resulting in a successful outcome.”

Forehand had been released on cash bail earlier in the day from the Oneida County Jail, where he had been in custody since March 7 on unrelated domestic violence charges, police said.