PEPPER SHOOTOUT TURNS DEADLY 2000
Cpl. Brent Ashby of the Dearborn Police Department at about 2:30 a.m. July 19, 2000, was running license plates and came across a stolen black van on Michigan Avenue near Newman Street. The driver's name was William Debeau and as Ashby got out of his patrol vehicle, he sensed something was wrong. Ashby told the suspect to put his hands out the window, but as Ashby got closer, the suspect's hands disappeared. "When something like that happens, as an officer, a lot of things go through your mind," Ashby said. "When he put his hands back into the window, it seemed a little strange." Ashby told Debeau to step out of the van, which he did, but with his back to the Dearborn cop. When he finally turned around to face Ashby, Debeau hit the officer in the face with a blast of pepper spray. Debeau then made a run for it. Ashby caught up with him, but was hit with a second round of the painful spray. Shaken, Ashby stepped away from the van. Debeau began frantically digging inside the van. Ashby pulled his gun out and yelled, "Stop what you're doing." "I was stepping back away from the van to across the street because when I saw him digging around in the van, I had an idea that he was going for a gun," Ashby said. "I wasn't going to leave myself exposed by staying close to the van." Debeau then pulled out a 9mm and took aim at Ashby. Ashby fired back. His rounds hit their mark: Debeau was dead. "I shot several rounds at him, but I saw that I was aiming at the door," Ashby said. "I pulled the trigger and he ducked. When he came back up, I shot through the windshield and hit him." Ashby's story will be featured on cable network TruTV's series, Crisis Point at 10 p.m. tonight. The story is titled, "Black Van Shootout." Created and produced by Bruce Nash, the series discloses first-person accounts of life-threatening situations from the heroes who survived them. CRISIS POINT allows viewers to ride along on a pursuit, to feel the drama of a hostage standoff, or a glimpse of a life-or-death shootout through dash-cam and surveillance cameras. Giving the audience a face behind the headline, Crisis Point literally places the viewer in the officer's shoes. "I've been a police officer for 27 years and seen a lot of things but that night is still fresh in my mind," Ashby added. "That's the only time in my career where something like that has happened. When I was an officer in Houston, I could have used my gun on about nine different occasions, but I like to talk things out and find other ways to resolve things. It was justified this time, though." Ashby was almost not a part of the encounter. The night of the incident was his first night back on the beat after a vacation. His wife had also been in a serious accident, and Ashby had been off for a while, he said. Ashby added that telling his wife and four children wasn't a huge issue. He said they all knew of what happened from seeing the story on local news shows. "I wish it didn't have to happen like that, but that's part of life and part of the job," Ashby said.