$2.5M bond set for Detroit suspect in Warren slaying

Staff report

WARREN

Like fellow Detroit native Dale Hatch the day before, Derrick Peete stood before Judge Terry Ivanchak of Warren Municipal Court on Thursday morning and learned that he is being held on $2.5 million bond for aggravated murder.

But unlike Hatch, Peete, 22, told Judge Ivanchak that he didn’t know whether he’d be able to post the bond and get out of the Trumbull County jail pending trial.

“I’m not for sure,” Peete said from the jail during his video arraignment.

Also unlike Hatch, Peete seemed serious and concerned.

Judge Ivanchak entered an innocent plea to Peete’s aggravated-murder charge.

Hatch, 25, and Peete are charged with killing Marco Dukes, 32, behind an apartment house at 156 Elm Road NE at 10:30 a.m. Sunday.

Hatch was picked up moments after the shooting on High Street Northeast a short distance from the shooting.

Peete was arrested Tuesday evening without incident at his girlfriend’s house on Kenilworth Avenue Southeast.

Dukes’ cousin Larry A. Smith, 29, remains in a hospital, recovering from at least one gunshot wound to his torso.

Dukes and Smith have criminal records in Warren. Peete has a criminal record in Warren and Detroit, and Hatch has a criminal record in Detroit.

Police have termed Sunday’s killing as a “gunfight” that may have involved 40 or more gunshots from “big guns.”

The gunfire damaged a nearby day care that was closed and the occupied apartment building.

Members of Dukes’ family say Dukes’ death resulted from an ambush, after someone called Dukes to the apartment house.