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Longtime Detroit drug dealer convicted of murder in Warren, gets life
Photo
Peete
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Detroit native Derrick D. Peete, 23, who has been dealing drugs in Warren and Detroit since at least 2009, received a life prison sentence with parole eligibility after 15 years for a gunfight that killed a Warren man.
He pleaded guilty Thursday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to murder in the death of Marco Dukes, 32, tampering with evidence, discharging a firearm into a habitation and the attempted aggravated murder of Larry Smith, 29, Dukes’ cousin.
His guilty plea avoided a trial scheduled to begin Monday before Judge Ronald Rice.
Peete, who got a one-year prison sentence in Trumbull County in 2010 for drug dealing but also had drug convictions in Detroit, also pleaded guilty Thursday to felonious assault and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
He killed Dukes and injured Smith during a gunbattle Nov. 11, 2012, in an alley off Elm Road near St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church on High Street, which was having Sunday services at the time.
Police said the shootout involved 30 to 40 shots from “big guns.” Prosecutors and Dukes family members say the incident apparently was related to drugs and money.
Peete and his accomplice, Dale Hatch, 26, also of Detroit, fled through the neighborhood with Hatch running through the church parking lot. Church members helped police capture Hatch a half block away.
Hatch pleaded guilty earlier to involuntary manslaughter in the Dukes killing and attempted aggravated murder and felonious assault in the Smith shooting. Hatch, who is believed to have fired only one shot before his gun jammed, agreed to a 10-year prison sentence.
Members of the Dukes family said they believe Peete deserved a longer prison sentence. “I feel justice wasn’t served,” said Darlene Dukes, Marco Dukes’ mother.
Gabe Wildman, assistant Trumbull County prosecutor, said prosecutors were willing to reduce charges against Peete because many of the people who witnessed the shootings would have been poor witnesses because of their untruthfulness and their criminal records.
Shira Dukes, a sister of Marco Dukes’, agreed that it’s hard to know exactly what led up to the shootings.
The incident has left her and her sister, Shania, unable to trust anyone, they said, because someone they used to trust called their brother to come to the spot where the shootings took place, Shira said.
Prosecutors say Peete, Hatch and Dukes fired weapons. A fourth person may have. The assault rifle Peete was using was confiscated from a car traveling on the Ohio Turnpike that several men were trying to take to Detroit, said Chris Becker, assistant Trumbull County prosecutor.
A woman driving through the area, which is just east of downtown, saw Smith bleeding from a gunshot wound and gave him a ride to the hospital that morning, Wildman said. But Smith lied initially about what caused his injury.
Peete was sentenced to one year in prison in May 2010 on several drug charges related to a Nov. 25, 2009, drug investigation called “Operation Recklamation” that involved 112 law-enforcement officers with 12 police departments executing search warrants on four homes in Warren.
Peete was one of several men with Detroit ties charged in the raid. Peete, 19 at the time, was arrested above a restaurant across from Warren G. Harding High School.
He also was convicted of delivery or manufacture of cocaine in October 2010 in Detroit and placed on two years’ probation.
On Nov. 2, 2012, Warren police made a traffic stop on him for driving 70 miles per hour on Hazelwood Avenue Southeast. He and a passenger, fellow Detroit native James Cohen, 23, had more than $12,000 cash on them.
Cohen later was convicted in Detroit of murder and is in prison awaiting trial on another murder.
In February, a Trumbull County judge sentenced Peete to 17 months in prison on a heroin-possession conviction. It is to be served at the same time as a 46-month prison term he got in federal court for possessing and selling heroin and cocaine in Warren about the same time as the Dukes killing.
He was one of 55 people indicted federally and 42 indicted in common pleas court as a result of the “Little D’Town” investigation.
Federal court documents said Peete was captured on wiretaps talking to one of the biggest local drug dealers, about Peete selling a handgun. Peete and another man also sold 9.9 grams of heroin to an undercover agent, the indictment said.