By ZEINAB NAJM
Times-Herald Newspapers
DEARBORN —Police recently made arrests in multiple cases involving catalytic converter thefts, failing to obey officers, retail fraud, stolen firearm and more, according to the department.
The news was posted on Police Chief Ronald Haddad’s Facebook page on July 26 following a press conference on July 25 detailing the cases and suspects awaiting charges.
Montzar Al-Shaheen was arrested July 23 for failing to obey officers after police were called to the 6800 block of Oakman.
Haddad said a witness saw Al-Shaheen, 23, testing car doors to see if any were unlocked, and called officers who arrested him.
“What’s important here is that a citizen was very observant and no matter how small, they call the Police Department,” Haddad said. “These type of crimes can really shatter the security of our community. At times they hit five or 10 cars when we’re not so fortunate and they take stuff, but in this case a citizen’s report caused a crime not to happen.”
In another case, Haddad said three suspects were arrested in relation to catalytic converter thefts from vehicles in Dearborn.
The crimes took place in late June and early July, according to the Facebook post, when the three men were seen driving a burgundy Buick Century and allegedly stealing a catalytic converter by police.
Suspects Darryll Baldwin, 24, and Robert Dabney, 50, were arrested on July 6, and Antoine Davis, 35, was arrested July 18. All are Detroit residents.
Baldwin was charged with two counts of felony larceny from an automobile and habitual offender fourth notice. Davis was charged with larceny under $20,000, flee and elude second degree, habitual offender fourth notice and driving on a suspended license.
Dabney was charged with possession with intent to deliver marijuana and other chargers pending approval from the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.
“There is a platinum inside that makes the catalytic converters valuable to them,” Haddad said. “These three individuals really plagued our entire region, and after great work by our detectives and special operations people — they do the undercover surveillance — I’m happy to report that these three individuals have been taken into custody.”
Another case Haddad highlighted was a stolen firearm from a vehicle on July 24.
Officers responded to the 5200 block of Ternes on the report of a larceny from vehicle where the victim said he hid his handgun in his unlocked vehicle overnight.
“No matter how much we tell people to ‘lock it or lose it,’ we continue to have several cars every week that are victimized because they leave them unlocked and they leave valuables in plain view in the car,” Haddad said. “I can tell you that just last night an irresponsible gun owner left a car unlocked and as a result lost a gun overnight.
“I think that there should be consequences for that type of irresponsible behavior, but more importantly that puts our officers and community at risk when we have guns out there that get into the wrong hands.”
In a retail fraud case on July 20, two suspects were arrested after they broke glass display cabinets and stole merchandise at Macy’s inside Fairlane Town Center.
Loss Prevention Officers arrested one of the suspects, DeyJohn McCain, 26, of Detroit, after a struggle. McCain was carrying a firearm as a valid CPL holder, but police found numerous items that were possibly stolen in his vehicle.
McCain was charged with resist and oppose, unarmed robbery and felony firearm. He did not wave his firearm in a threatening way during the incident.
Another suspect, Natalie Sharrak, 30, of West Bloomfield, was arrested for allegedly assisting in the theft. She was charged with first degree retail fraud.
Haddad also announced that crime in the city was down 7 precent over the past year from July 23, 2017, to July 23, 2018.
During the press conference, Haddad informed the public about a spoof called “swatting,” which entails someone calling the police that there is a barricaded person or murder taking place at a house with a concealed identity through apps.
Haddad said officers, SWAT teams and emergency responders make a run to the houses and find nothing happening at the locations.
“We had two such encounters last weekend, one was on Salina on the south end and the other was at the west end on Parker,” he said. “What’s important to note here is that this puts officers’ lives in danger; they’re going through the community at a high rate of speed. It also poses additional burdens on our citizens.”
He added that the department would spend “every resource known to man” to identify the source of the two swatting calls.
(Zeinab Najm can be reached at [email protected].)