Suburban Detroit police fatally shoot motorist awakened from sleep inside car

PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — Suburban Detroit police fatally shot a motorist they awoke from sleep in a running car when he accelerated with an officer beside him in the vehicle and crashed into a patrol car Friday.

The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said deputies were dispatched shortly before 6 a.m. to a complaint that a vehicle was blocking a driveway and they found the driver asleep with a gun beside him.

One deputy removed the gun from inside the car while another entered it from the passenger’s side, the office said in a chronology. When the motorist resisted arrest and accelerated, crashing into a patrol car, a curb and a street sign, the deputy who was partially inside the car fired a single shot striking the motorist, the sheriff’s office said.

The motorist was pronounced dead at a hospital, the office said.

The deputy who was partially inside the car and partially hanging outside it was treated at a hospital for unspecified injuries, it said.

The names of the deputies and the motorist weren’t released.

The motorist was paroled on June 21 after convictions on weapons charges, the sheriff’s office said. The gun he had was reported stolen.