Police: Man steals cop car with DUI suspect inside
A 39-year-old Detroit man was arraigned on several charges Wednesday after he allegedly drove off with an Oak Park police car — with a suspect still inside.
Dujuan Rollins is charged with one count of motor vehicle unlawful driving away, one count of third-degree fleeing in a vehicle, one count of assault with a dangerous weapon, two counts of malicious destruction of a fire or police property and one count of resisting or obstructing a police officer, according to court officials.
During his arraignment in 45th District Court, Rollins pleaded not guilty and requested an attorney for his next court date, a probable cause hearing on Nov. 29. Bond was set at $100,000 cash surety, no 10 percent.
According to police, the incident began about 4 a.m. Tuesday when a patrol car stopped to help a disabled vehicle on Eight Mile between Coolidge and Hubbell. A woman in her late 20s drove the vehicle, but there was also a man outside the vehicle who looked as if he was trying to help. The woman reported a flat tire and the belief that the car had run out of gas, said Oak Park Police Lt. Samantha Kretzschmar.
It soon became apparent that the man was not actually with the woman. Police escorted the man to the sidewalk, Kretzschmar said, and watched him clear “a substantial distance” away from the disabled vehicle before turning their attention back to the car and the woman.
Police soon came to believe that the woman had been driving drunk before her car became disabled, and arrested her on suspicion of DUI.
While she was in the back seat of a patrol car, the man who’d initially been helping jumped into the driver’s seat and took off down Eight Mile. Officers tried to open the door before he drove off, but couldn’t.
Officers got inside another patrol car that was on the scene and gave chase. The car headed north on Greenfield, east on Nine Mile, but never left the city. Eventually, the stolen police car voluntarily came to rest on a dead-end street, Albany, and police took the man into custody without incident.
No one was injured, Kretzschmar said.
The woman has since been released from police custody.