Police: 3 rock-throwing teens charged
Three Macomb County teenagers accused of stealing rocks from a landscaping site before joyriding and throwing the rocks at passing vehicles in November will face their first round of charges in that case, police say. Among their alleged victims: a father and daughter and a Shelby Township police officer.
The Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office has charged the three boys, aged 15, 16 and 16, with one count each of throwing objects at trains or cars, causing injury, a four-year felony; malicious destruction of property between $1,000 and $20,000, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison; and a misdemeanor count of throwing objects at trains or cars, causing property damage. No court date has yet been set, and the teens are not currently in police custody, said Lt. John Michalke, spokesman for the Macomb County Sheriff’s Office.
The incidents the teens are charged for took place over several hours in late November, and the teens are believed to have used at least two different vehicles when they went on “some kind of spree,” Michalke said.
On the night of Nov. 19, a father and daughter were driving in a Jeep on 21 Mile in Macomb Township, when the Jeep’s windshield shattered, which police say was the result of a thrown rock from the back seat of a passing vehicle. The broken glass cut the hands of the 16-year-old girl, and she and her father filed an incident report with the sheriff’s office.
Hours later, at 2:55 a.m. on Nov. 20, a Shelby Township police officer was headed east on West Utica Road when a passing white Chrysler 300 threw rocks out of the back, driver’s side window, which hit the patrol car.
The Shelby Township officer gave chase as the 300 turned onto Ryan, then into an apartment complex in the area before the boys allegedly fled on foot. A K9 unit was called out, but couldn’t immediately locate the suspects.
Meanwhile, the 300 was left behind with keys still in the ignition and rocks on the floor. They impounded the vehicle as officers waited in the area to make an arrest. Eventually, two of the three boys emerged from the woods at the apartment complex and were arrested. The third was arrested after further investigation. Shelby Township has filed for charges against the three teens, whose names they declined to release because they are minors, said spokesman Lt. Jason Schmittler.
Additional charges are possible, including for the Shelby Township incident and 12 other vehicles that were damaged.
Two of the teens hail from Macomb Township and one hails from Fraser.