Slain WSU officer was ‘the guy you’d want helping you’
Officer Collin Rose, who died Wednesday at Detroit Receiving Hospital after he was shot in the head the day before, is the kind of man who, if your tire went flat, is “ the guy you’d want helping you,” said the chief of the Wayne State Police Department.
Rose joined the university’s department in March 2011 and recently returned from Georgia where he underwent “specialized training” in his work as a K-9 officer, said his boss, Anthony Holt.
“We’re considering this a tremendous loss of a great talent,” Holt said Wednesday night. “He was a great officer for the community.”
The 2010 Ferris State graduate studied criminal justice before graduating from Ferris’ law enforcement academy. Rose was studying for a master’s degree in police administration.
Rose was engaged, with the wedding date set for October 2017, Holt said.
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The shooting suspect, DeAngelo Davis, 31, was arrested about 10 p.m. Tuesday, roughly three hours after the off-campus shooting. He has previous run-ins with the law, including an assault of a police officer in 2009.
In that incident, according to Wayne County court records, Davis was charged with assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder, two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, assaulting, resisting a police officer and obstructing; and malicious destruction of personal property less than $200.
He pleaded guilty to the charges and was given probation in September 2009. He violated his probation and a warrant was issue for him in June 2010. He was charged with violating his probation in November 2010 and sent to the Wayne County Jail.
Davis picked up a forgery charge involving a license plate in March 2010. He pleaded guilty but failed to show up for his sentencing in May 2010. He was sentenced to the Wayne County Jail once he returned to court in November.
Davis was again charged with two counts of assaulting, resisting and obstructing a police officer in March 2011. He pleaded guilty the next month and received a sentence of time served, 53 days, in the Wayne County Jail in May 2011.
Holt said investigators don’t believe Rose was targeted when he stopped a man after a 911 call about an altercation.
Rose was a member of the police brotherhood who attended law-enforcement funerals locally and around the country, on his own dime, Holt said.
Rose was listed as a member of the Police Unity Tour, a bike ride from New Jersey to Washington, D.C., that starts every year on May 9. Amanda Linklater, the tour’s member services director, confirmed Rose took part in the tour in 2015 and 2016, and was slated to participate next year.
The tour includes a candlelight vigil at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, during which the names of officers killed in the line of duty in the past year are read aloud.
Participants have to raise at least $1,850, which is contributed to the memorial, Linklater said. The unity tour has donated about $20 million to the memorial over the past 20 years, she said.
Last month, in a ceremony on Wayne State’s campus, one of the K-9 dogs who accompanied Rose was named “Wolverine” in honor of Detroit Police Officer Patrick Hill, killed three years ago in pursuit of a murder suspect.
Wolverine is a “Vapor Wake” bomb-sniffing dog, one of the few of its kind in Michigan.
Rose had two K-9 partners with him when he was shot Tuesday — Wolverine and Clyde, a drug-sniffing dog.
The dogs are now back in the department’s possession. There are other officers on the force who can handle K-9s, but there was no timetable on when those dogs would be back on the street.
Rose had ties to canines in his personal life, as well. His fiancee is a staffer at the nonprofit Detroit Dog Rescue, group officials said Wednesday. Beyond that, the officer “has helped with our foster dogs and the couple took pride in their dogs at home and were excited to continue a life together,” read a post on the group’s Facebook page. “Officer Rose passed away today shortly before 6pm surrounded by loved ones and over 130 police officers.”
jdickson@detroitnews.com
Staff Writers Mark Hicks and Oralandar Brand-Williams contributed.