Man in custody after breaking into dispensary, assaulting responding officer, escaping arrest
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Tecumseh (KFOR) — A man was caught on camera breaking into a dispensary and then attacking the officer who responded when the silent alarm went off.
It happened early Sunday morning at the Good Ol Boys dispensary in Tecumseh.
“When the lights go off, it’s pitch black dark. You can’t see nothing,” Blake Nadeau, co-owner of Good Ol Boys, said.
However, that didn’t stop an alleged thief from making himself right at home. Surveillance cameras captured him kicking in the sliding glass door and then kicking in the door to the main room of the store.
“Immediately comes in and started hitting cabinets, trying to break things,” Nadeau said
The suspect wasn’t really getting anywhere. So, he kicked another door off it’s hinges and discovered the safe. However, it was locked.
“The alarm was a silent alarm. So, it was going off,” Chief J.R. Kidney with the Tecumseh Police Department said.
Kidney said an officer responded to the dispensary minutes after that alarm went off.
“The officer’s flashlight was the only light that he had. Pretty scary situation to enter,” Kidney said.
The officer entered the store, and when the suspect saw him, he tried to make a run for it.
“Turned around, he tried to go out this back door, got thrown on his butt pretty heavily,” Nadeau said.
When the officer approached him, the cameras captured a pretty civil encounter at first, which turned into a heated scuffle.
Nadeau said he watched it all on an app on his phone.
“I’m telling my girlfriend as we’re driving over, ‘Call them, tell them that they’re in a scuffle so he don’t get hurt,'” Nadeau said.
Before backup could arrive, the suspect is seen on camera pushing the officer to the ground and running out of the store, which led to a manhunt.
Police tracked down the suspect, 19-year-old Jacob Melendez, and took him into custody the next day.
Melendez was arrested on complaints of second degree burglary, assault and battery on a police officer, escaping a lawful arrest and destruction of property.
“We’re lucky for Tecumseh police, that they showed up willing to fight the guy to help save our stuff,” Nadeau said.
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