Detroit transit police officers tell how they rescued abducted toddler
DETROIT (WJBK) - Three-year-old Marvie Gardner kidnapped overnight is back in his mother's arms.
A friend of the mother is accused of taking the child, setting off an AMBER Alert and a city-wide manhunt. The child and the suspect were tracked down this afternoon. Police would not have been able to do it without the help of the public which played a huge role in the search for Michael Grayson and 3-year-old Marvie Gardner.
"It was all hands on deck, everybody wanted to grab whoever the perpetrator was," Sydney Bogan, transit police chief.
The city-wide search for the man that police believe abducted Gardner ended in the unlikeliest of places: the back of a DDOT bus near Seven Mile and Ryan on Detroit's eastside.
"We just did it like a normal traffic stop, pulled the coach over got on the bus," said Raymond Carr.
Transit police officers Raymond Carr and David Weise had the privilege of putting Michael Grayson in cuffs, but they had a lot of help.
Detroit police and the Fugitive Apprehension Team laid the ground work tracking Grayson's whereabouts after he allegedly abducted little Marvie early Thursday morning.
An AMBER Alert had Detroiters on high alert.
"We all get it on our cell phones and it's a force multiplier," said Sydney Bogan, transit police chief.
DPD, the violent crimes taskforce and the fugitive apprehension team fielded and followed up on tips for hours. They found the stolen van Grayson allegedly drove in the 19 thousand block of Riverview.
Later someone spotted Grayson with Marvie on Biltmore. Police found the boy in a car in front of an abandoned house there just before 2 p.m. Thursday afternoon.
Grayson however was still in the wind--but soon it would stop blowing. Someone saw him boarding a city bus and called 911. And officers took advantage of DDOT's AVL or Automated Vehicle Locator System, tracking Grayson to coach number 1500.
"Understand also the driver is monitoring the radio too," Bogan said. "And I'm sure when he realized what was going on he had to operate cooperatively and try not to alert the suspect in terms of that he was about to be interrupted by police."
Grayson was arrested soon after and while being interviewed in the back of squad car he told investigators he left something on the bus.
"The lieutenant and the sergeant they followed the bus and stopped it on Seven Mile and they found his coat and inside his coat was a butcher knife," Bogan said.
Those items are now in evidence, Marvie Gardner safe at home with his family and the man that allegedly abducted him is behind bars.
A welcome ending to an otherwise frightening story thanks to Detroit and transit police, the violent crimes taskforce, fugitive apprehension team and a number of Detroiters that flooded dispatchers with tips.
"Without the public we would be lost," Bogan said.
Detroit police have not submitted a warrant yet to the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office that could happen sometime Friday and Grayson could be arraigned sometime this weekend.