DETROIT (WOOD) — The DNA of a suspect accused of shooting two Detroit officers matches DNA found at the scene of the deadly shooting of a Wayne State University officer, police confirm.
During a news conference on Friday, Detroit Police Chief James Craig named Raymond Durham as the main suspect in Sgt. Collin Rose’s murder.
Craig said police received “telephonic confirmation of a positive DNA match” between Durham and the suspect in Rose’s murder. He said the DNA match is one component of the investigation and they will continue to gather evidence and conduct more interviews.
Dash camera showing the person of interest in the shooting of two Detroit police officers, identified as Raymond Durham. (Courtesy Michigan State Police – March 15, 2017)
“We are calling him a suspect in this matter, so that is a big first step,” Craig said.
Durham was arrested Wednesday after two Detroit police officers were shot on the city’s west side, according to NBC-affiliate WDIV in Detroit.
One of the officers was shot twice in the upper torso and in the ankle; body armor stopped the shots to his torso. The second officer was shot in the neck. Both were hospitalized in critical condition, but are expected to be OK, the chief told WDIV.
“I think they will be happy,” Craig said. “The one officer who had the more significant injuries, he said to me as I leaned over his bed, ‘I believe that the suspect who shot us is the suspect who shot Collin Rose.'”.
The officers were in the same area where Wayne State University Sgt. Collin Rose was shot and killed in November 2016.
Craig had said Rose radioed to say he was investigating possible thefts of navigation systems from vehicles and that he was about to speak to someone on a bike near the Detroit campus. Officers who arrived on the scene found Rose with a gunshot wound to the head. He died the next day.
Rose, a five-year veteran of the university’s police force, was the first Wayne State officer to be killed in the line of duty.
Rose graduated from Gull Lake High School in 2006. The 29-year-old took his first job in law enforcement as an officer in the Kalamazoo County village of Richland.