Off-duty Highland Park officer arrested for fight outside strip club

Chuck Hall is the manager at Subi's  and says a guy - not just any guy - got into it with the bouncer in the parking lot.

"He didn't want to leave - and then all of a sudden he hit the bouncer," Hall said. "They were trying to come back in the club. The bouncer says 'Look, have a good night, you guys had too much to drink. It's time to go.'"

Hall says the guy and his girlfriend were drunk and had already been at the strip club once.

"I had problems with him earlier in the night," he said.

That time the guy didn't want to valet park and that's when, Hall says, he flashed his badge.

"He identified himself as a cop," Hall said. "And I just said 'Come in and have a good time,' because he was arguing with our valet guy."

The manager says he tried to be accommodating that first time around, but when that officer and his female companion came back later - that's when things "got ugly."

"He struck one of our bouncers," Hall said. "Sucker-punched him, so the bouncers took him to the ground. We saw that he had a gun.

"All of a sudden he was reaching for the gun and that's when we called police. We don't want no one getting shot or hurt or anything like that."

They called Southgate police who arrested the man, a highland park police officer.

Hall says they showed police the video which investigators now have and they're not sharing with the media.

The prosecutor's office says they are currently reviewing the evidence and no charges have been filed yet.  

And because of that, Highland Park city attorney Todd Perkins says - no action against the officer.

"At this point, there is no disciplinary action," Perkins said. "He's not suspended or anything like that."

Perkins says the officer is retired from Ann Arbor and works part time in Fowlerville and at Highland Park, where he works narcotics and has never had any problems.

"It's surprising - life happens," Perkins said. 

"I don't think he would have hurt anybody," Hall said. "But when you have too much to drink that's what happens."