DETROIT _ A man arrested in connection with Tuesday's shooting of a Wayne State University police officer has been twice previously charged with assaulting a police officer, state records show.
Police arrested the 31-year-old man Tuesday night after officer Collin Rose, 29, was shot while on duty near the Lincoln Apartments, on the southern end of the Woodbridge neighborhood, west of the John C. Lodge freeway.
At a press conference this morning, Wayne State Police Chief Anthony Holt told reporters: "Things are very grave" for Rose, who was shot in head and is on life support. The officer is engaged to be married in early 2017.
The man arrested was charged in 2009 with felony-assault counts involving a police officer, a dangerous weapon and bodily harm less than murder from a Taylor Police Department case. He pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm and was sentenced to 90 days in jail, according to state records. In 2011, he was charged with two charges of felony assault involving a police officer, one causing injury, and pleaded guilty, resulting in a 53-day jail sentence, the records show.
The records confirm the same man was arrested Tuesday. The Free Press is not naming the suspect because he has not been formally charged.
Rose, 29, is a canine officer, who had was hired by the Wayne State police department in March 2011, the police department said in an email to reporters. He was shot in the head and was fighting for his life while undergoing surgery late Tuesday night at Detroit Receiving Hospital, police said earlier Tuesday.
Rose was patrolling an area a few blocks off campus when he stopped to investigate a man, Wayne State police chief Anthony Holt said. It was unclear whether the officer had responded to a 911 call, although a woman who said she witnessed the shooting also said she'd called 911 about a troublesome man on a bike.
This is the third major tragedy to strike the Detroit policing community in the last three months after two Detroit Police officers died in the line of duty. Sgt. Kenneth Steil was fatally shot while pursuing a suspected carjacker in September on the city's east side, and officer Myron Jarrett was working a traffic incident on the west side when he was struck by a van on Oct. 28.
Suspects in both cases have been arrested and charged with murder. Both officers were promoted in rank posthumously; Steil to captain, Jarrett to corporal.
