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Suspected car thief tackled by Detroit priest
Reverend Canon Jean-Baptiste Commins was in his church parking lot Monday evening when he heard tires squeal and a loud crash. He ran over and says he saw a young man running from the scene with only one shoe on.
DETROIT (FOX 2) - A suspect is saying his prayers tonight after a French priest in Detroit tackled him as he tried to run from a crime scene.
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The 18-year-old suspect is accused of stealing a car before crashing it outside of Saint Joseph Shrine near Saint Aubin and Antietam.
Reverend Canon Jean-Baptiste Commins was in his church parking lot Monday evening when he heard tires squeal and a loud crash.
He ran over and says he saw a young man running from the scene with only one shoe on. Somebody said to stop him — and his instincts kicked in.
Commins was wearing his clerical attire when this went down. Another member of the church helped him hold the suspect down, until police arrived.
The 18-year-old suspect was arrested, and three other people were detained. It's believed the vehicle they had been in was stolen.
Police believe the vehicle was stolen. As police tried to initiate a traffic stop, the suspect crashed into another car. The woman inside suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
"I grabbed him and put him down," he said. "He was resisting a lot, trying to run away, definitely, and so I had to, unfortunately, give him a few punches and hurt my hand a little bit — nothing major — but making sure that there was no threat, since I didn't know if he had a gun, if he had a weapon.
"It was definitely, you know, suspicious behavior and probably guilty of the accident."
Once the suspect was wrangled, he turned his attention to the victim of the car crash.
"I rushed back to the lady, to make sure, you know, if she needed the Anointing of the Sick or a blessing or something," he said. "So I was there, too, with the medics, and she was not very responsive. But her eyes were twitching a little bit."
FOX 2: "What'd you do later, like, after all of that happened? Just back to normal life?"
"Yes, I went and had to do my prayers as usual and have dinner with the community, and wow, just another day, just another day in the D," he quipped.
Just another day in the D, where a French priest protects his community.
The Source: Information for this report is from police and an interview with Reverend Canon Jean-Baptiste Commins.