House raided for illegal gun-making has ties to Duggan program
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Mar. 18—DETROIT — A bungalow on the city's east side that allegedly housed an illegal firearm-making operation is connected to one of Mayor Mike Duggan's signature programs that aims to reduce gun violence.
The house at 19165 Hoyt was raided Tuesday by police officers who discovered a "very small gun-manufacturing operation," police Chief James Craig said Wednesday.
The house was being used as part of the Detroit Life is Valuable Everyday program, a nonprofit that's affiliated with the city's Friends and Family Choices initiative. But Craig said there's no evidence DLIVE is involved in illegal activity.
One of the men arrested in Tuesday night's raid, identified by Craig as an "active gang member," was planning to purchase the house through the DLIVE program, said director Ray Winans, who co-founded the organization in 2016 to reach out to victims of gun violence at hospitals to offer resources and discourage retaliatory crimes.
Officers confiscated from the house firearms, ammunition and equipment to manufacture "ghost guns," which are untraceable because they have no serial numbers, Craig said at a press conference in the 9th Precinct, where the raid took place.
Police were dispatched to the house about 8 p.m. after getting an alert from ShotSpotter, a technology that records gunshot sounds and relays the location to police, the chief said. The department had just deployed ShotSpotter less than 24 hours earlier, and the alert was the first time it was used, Craig said.
When officers arrived at the house, they saw a car that was connected to a March 2 shooting, so they knocked on the door and asked the two occupants for permission to go inside for a "well-being check," he said.
The men refused, so the officers called a judge, who authorized a search warrant, Craig said. The two men, identified by Craig as 25-year-old gang members with criminal records, were arrested and 75 shell casings were recovered from the back yard.
"It appears they were testing out these weapons they'd manufactured by shooting in the back yard," the chief said.
A white Chevrolet Equinox, with two bullet holes in the passenger's side window, was parked Wednesday in the back yard.
Inside the home, the raid crew found "what resembled a very small gun manufacturing operation," the chief said.
Officers confiscated a rifle and four pistols, Craig said. Slides, trigger guards and a drill press used to make guns also were seized and displayed with the intact firearms at the press briefing.
Craig said he likely will seek state and federal charges against the men.
James Deir, special agent in charge of the Detroit field office of the U.S. Department of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives, said during Wednesday's press conference that it's legal to make firearms, but illegal to sell them without a license.
The raid occurred at a house tied to a nonprofit connected to a Detroit program aimed at fighting gun violence by working with men involved in gang activities or violence. During his March 9 State of the City speech, Duggan touted his administration's "People Plan," a collection of programs to help Detroiters obtain high school diplomas, paid job training and door-to-door outreach services for those in poverty.
A final program covered under the plan, coined Friends and Family Choices, is an effort "that's been dear to me," Duggan noted. Friends and Family Choices is a partnership between the city's Detroit At Work job training effort and DLIVE.
The program takes in young men who have "often been in gang activities and violence and when you sit with them what you see are smart people who don't want to spend the rest of their lives doing this," the mayor said.
Duggan spokesman John Roach declined to comment Wednesday.
DLive director Winans said one of Tuesday's arrestees is a program participant who has been working in catering.
As part of the Friends and Family program, the man, whose name is being withheld because he has not been charged, "was on a path toward buying that property," Winans said of the house near Seven Mile and Gratiot.
"I just don't see him being involved in making guns or anything like that," Winans said. "He does catering events and works hard. He's responsible, pays his rent on time and goes to work every day.
"We support this young man, but if what police are saying is true, we'd never support that," said Winans, whose organization bought the house in July for $73,000, land records show.
In announcing his bid for a third term in December, Duggan kicked off a fundraising drive for the People Plan with a goal of raising $50 million from philanthropic donors over five years to continue and expand the initiatives.
Stephanie Nixon, chief program officer for Detroit At Work, told The Detroit News last month that the city rolled out the Friends and Family Choices program as a pilot in 2019 after talking with people in the community who might have been involved with or influencers of violent crime.
Winans said he isn't happy about the allegations.
"But I'm glad we were exposed to it, because we now know how to deal with it," he said. "Nobody's bigger than accountability."
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