Armed robbery preceded shooting
Three Detroit teens are charged in connection with a shooting and armed robbery in Hazel Park on Monday that ended after police say the suspects fled and crashed in Warren.
Suspects Jalin Williams, 18, Kristopher Peals, 19, and Najon Boyer, 19, were arraigned Thursday in Hazel Park 43rd District Court.
A woman who was in the suspects’ Dodge Nitro was not charged.
Police said they first believed the shooting, in which no one was struck, stemmed from a road rage incident, but their investigation later showed the incident started with an armed robbery.
The shooting was reported Monday afternoon by two Hazel Park men, ages 34 and 50, in a vehicle behind the Dodge Nitro who mistakenly thought they were being shot at by the suspects near Woodward Heights and Couzens.
Police, however, said the suspects were fleeing from the location of an armed robbery.
“The armed robbery victim was supposed to purchase a gun from one of the suspects and arranged to meet at Woodward Heights and Couzens,” said Hazel Park police Chief Brian Buchholz. “Instead, one of the suspects robbed the
18-year-old victim of $400 while pointing a handgun at him and then fled with the other suspects.”
The Hazel Park robbery victim was with his cousin, 18, of Detroit who was driving a blue Chrysler, police said.
They reported the Dodge Nitro and the Chrysler drove away from the area in different directions.
“But after fleeing, both
of the vehicles met headon again on Woodward Heights near Couzens,” Buchholz said. “That’s when shots were fired from the suspect vehicle.”
Investigators estimated two of the suspects fired a total of six to nine shots.
The teens in the Chrysler headed south after the shots were fired. Hazel Park police then got a 911 call from the older Hazel Park men who mistakenly thought they were the target of the shooting, police said.
City officers spotted the
suspects in the Nitro near Eight Mile and John R roads.
Police unsuccessfully tried to stop the vehicle, which fled through Detroit and then into Warren.
During the pursuit, police said a semi-automatic handgun was thrown from the vehicle and later recovered.
The fleeing driver entered a residential neighborhood near Nine Mile Road and Van Dyke Avenue in Warren, where he lost control and it crashed near Federal and Hupp avenues.
Police said they recovered two other handguns from the suspects at the crash site.
Once the suspects were arrested they were taken to the hospital for non lifethreatening injuries and cleared to be incarcerated, police said.
Williams on Thursday was jailed on $500,000 cash bond on charges of armed robbery, discharging a firearm from a vehicle, and two other felony firearm charges.
Peals’ bond was set at
$250,000.
He is charged with discharging a firearm from a vehicle and possessing a firearm in the commission of a felony.
Boyer, who police said drove the suspect vehicle, faces a felony count of third-degree fleeing and eluding and is jailed on $25,000 cash bond.
All three suspects are set to appear in Hazel Park court at 1 p.m. April 27 for a probable cause conference.