ON CAMERA: Man vandalizes American Coney Island with street sign

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American Coney Island is a Detroit landmark and tourist attraction but things got pretty scary over the weekend when someone came looking for trouble.

Repairs were going on Monday at an iconic corner in downtown Detroit. - You can blame the unwanted construction on a self-made detour seen on camera flying right through the middle of American Coney Island.

"He took a detour sign which is heavy and smashed it through one of our huge windows," said Grace Keros, the owner of American Coney Island.

It happened at about 4 a.m. on Sunday.
 
"At 4 or 5 a.m. we were still busy around here," Keros said.

It happened with about 20 customers inside, including one sitting at the very table at the window who snapped a picture of the aftermath.

The owner of American Coney Island says the one-man wrecking crew came looking for something other than a coney dog.

"What he was doing was terrorizing customers and my employees," she said, adding that customers even helped the workers kick the guy out.

"They were trying to lock the door protect the customers and protect themselves," Keros said.

But that only seemed to fan his flames. After smashing the window pane, he went back to the door and smashed it with his fist.

Phone calls were made to 911.

"You've got to take action," Keros said. "You just can't wait around because there are times when police will be here in two seconds and other times like this when it took 35 to 40 minutes. So what are you going to do, let the guy go crazy in here?"

In the meantime, the suspect walks two doors down to the Bathtub Pub. At 5 a.m. police arrive and are shown where the man was. Minutes later he was led away in handcuffs.

Keros says she knows how lucky she is no one got seriously hurt. But she says this could very easily gone a different direction and says more resources are needed to help keep everyone safe.

"My taxes are going up," she said. "It's going to the wrong place - it's got to go to police and fire, then deal with everything else."

FOX 2 spoke with police to see why it took some time for an officer to arrive at the scene and they said they will look into it. They did say depending on how the call came in, could influence the response time.  For example if they were told it was just vandalism, and then they wouldn't assume anyone was in danger. But again, they said they would have to look into the details of the call.