Detroit attorney helped convince active shooter to surrender in Dearborn
DEARBORN, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - It was a seven-hour long standoff that left one man dead and another in handcuffs.
Dearborn police say a 38-year-old man from Riverview is in custody after shooting and killing a 55-year-old Hampton Inn hotel clerk on Thursday.
Police say it all began with a "billing dispute" between the gunman and hotel staff. Despite dozens of local, state and federal police, as well as the family members called to the scene to assist, it was Detroit attorney Gabi Silver who the gunman wanted to talk to.
"I was taking my dog to the vet, I arrived at the vet's office, and I got a text message from a sergeant of Dearborn Police Department telling me they had an emergency on their hands asking me if I could call right away," Silver told Detroit Now News Friday.
Silver, a criminal defense attorney for Cripps & Law, says she is still unsure why the gunman chose her.
"I didn't know him," Silver said. "He was scared to come out of the room. He was scared that something bad was going to happen to him if he came out of the room."
While Silver says she did not know the gunman had been involved in shooting and killing a man just hours before, she continued talking to the gunman for the next four hours reassuring him that everything was going to be okay.
"I told him that I would stay on the phone with him until he walked out of that room. I told him to put the phone in his pocket, leave it on speaker phone," Silver said. "I didn't want him to have anything in his hands, to go out with his hands up and I would just stay with him and talk with him until he was safely out of the room and that's what I did."
At approximately 8:30 p.m. Thursday night, the gunman surrendered to police and was taken into custody.
