Police shoot suspected drug dealer on Detroit's east side

Police sources told us a couple of suburbanites decided to stop on the east side of Detroit to score some dope.  According to the cops, they were parked in the driveway of an abandoned house, a dwelling where Detroit police know illegal drug activity goes down.

Gang Squad is always out busting bad guys on this block.  They patrol around there for that purpose, and DPD approached when they saw two young people that seemed out of place.  A suspected drug dealer did, too, coming from the backyard, detectives said.  His gun was drawn like he was prepared to pull the trigger.  However, an 18-year veteran officer opened fire first.

"The officer said that he pointed a gun at them, and they shot him in the face," said Deion Allen.  "A couple neighbors down there said that he didn't have a gun, said he didn't point [anything] at them, and that they don't know why he shot him."

Allen is the 20-year-old suspect's stepfather.

"He hangs out here in the street with his buddies.  I don't know what he [does]," Allen told me.

When asked could his son be wrapped up in the drug game and carry a gun, Allen said, "I don't know if he had one or not."

Two metro Detroiters witnessed a scene they will not soon forget, and a family is trying to make sense of something that they wish would have never happened at all.

The suspect is in critical condition.  Police told us they captured his gun and his drugs in the backyard.

We're told the suburbanites were a man and a woman, one in their late twenties and the other in their early thirties, from St. Clair Shores.  They were questioned by police but not held because a drug transaction never took place.