Story highlights
Police dispatcher identifies dead suspect as Ricky Coley
The shooter was found dead Monday afternoon
A police officer in a Detroit suburb was killed Sunday night
A 20-hour standoff ensued after the man barricaded himself in the house
A late-night 911 call. Police race to the house of a venture capitalist in an upscale suburb of Detroit. Shots are fired at officers and one of them is killed.
The house is surrounded, a SWAT unit is summoned and after a 20-hour standoff punctuated by more shots, the homeowner and suspected shooter is found dead.
Two lives are over. One, that of a 12-year veteran of the police force, a married man with four children. The other, seen through legal documents and online resumes, appears to have spiraled downward from a high-flying career as a top-level auto executive with a wife and child to that of a divorcee facing legal issues and financial woes.
At 10 p.m. ET Sunday, police officers responded to a report of gunfire at the home in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan, according to a police spokesman.
Officer Patrick O’Rourke was shot several times by the gunman and later died at a hospital, said Lt. Tim Diamond.
After a 20-hour standoff during which police knocked out a wall in the home and the suspect fired more shots, police sent in a robot outfitted with a camera, according to a release from the West Bloomfield police department.
When a team of police officers entered the room they discovered Ricky Coley was dead, a police dispatcher said.
The cause of death had yet to be determined, the release said.
It appeared that the 50-year-old was on the verge of losing almost everything.
According to court documents, Coley was scheduled to have an early intervention conference on Monday morning in his recent divorce case, a day on which he was reportedly about to be evicted.
In her filing, Coley’s ex-wife, Deniece, alleged he attacked her on June 12 and she moved out of the house. Deniece Coley said her husband had cheated on her and subjected her to “physical, mental, emotional and psychological abuse.”
The divorce was granted six days ago, according to CNN affiliate WDIV.
The Coleys were married in November 1998 and have a 7-year-old child. Deniece Coley was granted sole custody of their child. According to CNN affiliate WXYZ, Ricky Coley was ordered to leave the house by Monday.
He was also the subject of a federal lawsuit surrounding an auto carrier company that his financial holdings company owned until it closed its doors in January 2010. The complaint alleges that Translogic Auto withheld more than $9,600 from employees’ paychecks that were intended for an insurance plan. The insurance company canceled employees’ policies, due to nonpayment of premiums, the suit says, and employees and beneficiaries lost benefits.
The suit also says Coley transferred more than $341,000 to himself or affiliates during the time when the company failed to pay insurance premiums. Coley was the sole defendant in the lawsuit, filed by the U.S. Department of Labor.
WXYZ reported he was also found in default to two banks for $52,000 in one case and $43,000 in another.
A page on LinkedIn, a business networking site, that appeared to belong to Coley said he was the chairman emeritus of CNC Holdings, the venture capital company that purchased Translogic in 2008.
The page said he worked at Ford from January 2001 to January 2008, in the last year as North American plants operations manager/director, overseeing more than 30 plants and a $1.6 billion budget. Ford spokeswoman Kelli Felker didn’t confirm what role Coley filled at Ford.
He also worked at General Motors and UPS, according to the LinkedIn page. A resume that was last updated in June 2011 on the website Indeed.com mirrored the LinkedIn profile.
Deniece Coley said in her divorce petition that her then-husband hadn’t worked in three years.
His resumes show Ricky Coley held multiple degrees. He studied industrial and systems engineering at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, earning an undergraduate and graduate degree. He also studied patent law at North Carolina Central in Durham, North Carolina, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also claimed an MBA from Queens College in Charlotte, North Carolina.