Downtown Lounge Connected to 3 Gun Incidents in 10 Days

The East Lansing hookah lounge that was the scene of an exchange of gunfire last weekend has been involved in two other gun incidents all within a span of ten days according to East Lansing Police.

ELPD Deputy Chief Steve Gonzalez tells ELi that police are ramping up enforcement in response, and City staff is looking into what else could be done to curb dangerous behaviors in and around Six Lounge.

ELi broke the story last weekend of a customer of Six Lounge being asked to leave the premises only to come back and fire at the establishment from a vehicle. In that case, a security guard returned fire with his own gun. A suspect in the case has now been charged with assault with intent to murder, along with other charges, and has had bail set at a half-million dollars.

Asked about a tip we received, Gonzalez told ELi yesterday that the weekend before, there had been a report of a shot fired in the City Center parking garage, the ramp above Buffalo Wild Wings across from Six Lounge.

Working with the Lansing Police Department’s Detective Bureau, ELPD detectives connected that East Lansing parking garage weapon discharge to the shooting of two men in Lansing, with both of these scenes of gunshots ultimately connected to a fight that grew out of an incident in Six Lounge.

There was no apparent connection between that round of fighting and last week’s gunfire exchange, according to Gonzalez. In other words, two separate circles of gun violence appear to be connected to Six Lounge.

In the third incidence of a firearm crime related to Six Lounge, ELPD received a tip from the U.S. Marshall Service that there was going to be an entertainer hosted at the hookah lounge who was wanted for a weapons charge. ELPD arrested that individual on the outstanding warrant before he entered Six Lounge.

Officers found a loaded stolen handgun in that individual’s car, which led to another charge. In this third case, no gun was discharged in East Lansing. But, said Gonzalez, “That makes it the third gun incident within ten days of each other, all related in some nexus to Six Lounge.”

Asked what’s going on, Gonzalez said “there is definitely a criminal element that frequents that location.” He said “significant large fights” have occurred outside the business, but there is no evidence of gang-related activity.

Gonzalez said that, “From a policing standpoint, we are increasing patrols, doing more targeted enforcement in that area to hopefully catch the bad actors showing up, or to deter them from coming.”

“A lot of times we find that when we saturate an area with uniformed police officers,” he said, “the bad guys, if you will, are going to find another place to go.”

Below: Deputy Chief Steve Gonzalez with a tactical vest worn by officers for self-protection.

Gonzalez said ELPD has also been talking with the City’s Planning Department to “discuss options as far as what is out there besides criminal enforcement” in terms of discouraging dangerous and illegal activity. He said they are trying to work with the business to quell problems.

The security guard who fired back last weekend was not charged with a crime because his action was ruled by prosecutors to constitute self-defense. No one was hurt in that case, but Gonzalez says that, just because he was legally “justified in defending himself… doesn’t take away the public safety aspect of firing guns in our downtown area, when we quite often have a lot of pedestrians in the area.”

“That is a concern we identified with having armed security at such a venue,” he told ELi.

Asked whether it is common in East Lansing for security guards to be armed, Gonzalez said it is not. “We do not see very many armed guards downtown.”

He says it is not uncommon for security guards to be hired for downtown work, including when areas like the Art Festival booths or construction sites need to be protected from potential mischief overnight. But such guards are not armed.

“This is really out of the ordinary, to have armed security guards in the city,” he said. “We don’t normally encounter that.”

Gonzalez added, “This is something that is on our radar and will stay on our radar. It has become an issue we will attack from all angles, not just from a police standpoint but as a city as a whole, to make sure our downtown area is safe and is a welcoming place for people to visit. As this evolves, we will continue to look at variety of options to keep this from happening again.”

ELi contacted Six Lounge to try to speak to management about what has been occurring in and around the establishment, but a person who was identified as a manager was only willing to tell us by phone that “nothing happened inside the business.” He declined to provide his name or any further information.

ELi’s Jessy Gregg reported earlier today that budget cuts have led to minimum staffing levels at ELPD. I asked Gonzalez to explain what happens when ELPD is understaffed according to national standards and has to deal with something like an exchange of gunfire.

He explained, “we have to rely on mutual aid and emergency callbacks of personnel for incidents like this. For example, during this event other local police agencies assisted us with taking unrelated calls for service while our officers were investigating the shooting.”

He added, “Further, the officers from night shift were involuntarily held over their shift while securing the perimeter during the Special Response Team's attempt to contact the suspect at his apartment. The officers were held until others arrived on emergency callback from off-duty to assist because our day shift was at minimum staffing.”

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