A Michigan State Police pursuit ended with a wrecked Dodge Challenger, a fleeing suspect, and a taser deployment. But inside Judge Victoria Shackelford’s courtroom, the most important confrontation concerned what officers could actually prove.
The case involved Antwan Conley, who faced charges arising from a May 2, 2024, encounter in Taylor, Michigan. Prosecutors alleged fleeing and eluding, along with resisting and obstructing a police officer.
The preliminary examination brought together prosecutor Omar Shaw, defense attorney Kim Riggins, and Michigan State Police Trooper Cody Longuski. Shackelford would determine whether the prosecution had presented sufficient evidence to move the case forward.
The hearing carried particularly serious consequences because a habitual offender notice was attached to the complaint. That designation could increase Conley’s potential punishment if he were eventually convicted of a qualifying offense.
Before the first witness testified, prosecutors announced their intention to pursue two additional charges. Both involved another officer, Trooper LaForge, whose participation in the incident would become central to the courtroom dispute.
The prosecution called Longuski, a Michigan State Police trooper with nearly seven years of experience. He testified that he was working traffic enforcement when authorities dispatched him to locate a vehicle traveling toward Taylor.
According to Longuski, a police helicopter had followed a Dodge Challenger after it reportedly fled Detroit officers. The helicopter tracked the vehicle as it traveled south, eventually bringing the investigation into his patrol area.
Dispatch information described the suspected vehicle as a dark-colored Challenger, possibly black or dark gray. Longuski testified that he encountered a vehicle matching that description while traveling through a residential neighborhood in Taylor.
The two vehicles approached one another near a curve. Longuski explained that he activated his emergency lights before attempting to turn around, placing his marked patrol vehicle directly within the approaching driver’s view.
His initial observation contained an important detail. Before the emergency lights appeared, the Challenger had been traveling around the posted speed limit, rather than obviously speeding or displaying another traffic violation.
Longuski testified that the vehicle accelerated after he activated his lights. He described hearing the exhaust increase in intensity as the Challenger moved around his patrol car and onto the opposite side of the roadway.
The encounter escalated when the Challenger collided with another state police vehicle. Longuski identified Trooper LaForge as the officer involved and said he witnessed the collision with the front passenger side of LaForge’s patrol car.
Following the collision, the Challenger came to rest on a residential lawn. Longuski testified that he saw a man wearing a white shirt leave the driver’s side and begin running from the scene.
From approximately 30 to 40 feet away, Longuski observed the fleeing individual. He subsequently identified Conley in the courtroom, connecting the defendant to the person he said had exited the crashed vehicle.
The pursuit continued on foot. Longuski initially remained inside his patrol car, attempting to intercept the fleeing suspect, before getting out and joining LaForge in chasing the individual through the residential neighborhood.
Longuski testified that he warned Conley to stop or face a taser deployment. When Conley continued running, the trooper caught up, deployed the device, and brought him to the ground.
According to his testimony, only one taser probe struck Conley. Longuski described taking him to the ground, after which LaForge participated in handcuffing him and completing the arrest following the chase.
The prosecution considered these events sufficient to establish probable cause for fleeing and eluding and resisting and obstructing. But before the examination concluded, the defense challenged the foundation of the trooper’s account.
Riggins began by separating Longuski’s direct observations from information he had received through dispatch. The trooper acknowledged that he had not personally witnessed any alleged traffic violation or flight from officers in Detroit.
That distinction mattered because the original pursuit began outside Longuski’s presence. He relied on information supplied by others, including the helicopter unit, rather than personal knowledge of what initiated the Detroit investigation.
The defense then focused on the nighttime encounter in Taylor. Riggins established that the street was dark and questioned whether the approaching Challenger’s driver could have immediately recognized the patrol vehicle.
Longuski acknowledged that he was driving a Dodge Charger while the suspect vehicle was a Challenger. Both vehicles approached a curve, creating an encounter that unfolded quickly along the same residential street.
Riggins suggested that the police vehicle might have moved toward the Challenger, potentially making the driver’s maneuver an attempt to avoid a collision. Longuski denied deliberately steering into the approaching vehicle.
The defense also questioned how much time Conley had to recognize the emergency lights. Longuski estimated that the vehicles were approximately 20 to 30 feet apart when he activated them.
These details supported Riggins’s argument that the evidence did not necessarily establish deliberate flight from a recognized police command. He challenged the prosecution’s interpretation of acceleration and the vehicle’s sudden movement around the cruiser.
The defense’s strongest challenge concerned the additional charges involving LaForge. Prosecutors wanted to establish that Conley had ignored lawful police commands issued by an officer who had not personally testified at the examination.
During direct examination, Shaw had attempted to introduce Longuski’s recollection of statements made by LaForge. Riggins objected, arguing that the testimony raised hearsay concerns requiring an appropriate evidentiary foundation.
Shackelford permitted limited testimony about what Longuski heard when relevant to explaining his own actions. However, she distinguished that purpose from using another officer’s out-of-court statements to establish disputed facts.
The prosecutor also suggested that LaForge’s statements might qualify as excited utterances. Shackelford responded that the prosecution would need to establish the factual circumstances necessary to support that particular hearsay exception.
The judge’s approach exposed a crucial weakness in the proposed additional charges. Without sufficient testimony about LaForge’s own commands and Conley’s response, the prosecution faced difficulty proving the necessary elements involving that officer.
After cross-examination, Riggins attempted to introduce helicopter surveillance footage. He argued that the recording could challenge Longuski’s description of how the vehicles approached each other before the collision.
The prosecution declined to stipulate to the helicopter video’s authenticity. Without testimony or another adequate foundation establishing the recording’s admissibility, Shackelford would not permit it to be played as requested.
Riggins discussed body-camera and dash-camera recordings as possible alternatives, but the helicopter footage remained unavailable for the defense’s intended presentation. The evidentiary dispute left the court relying primarily on the testimony already admitted.
With no additional prosecution witnesses, both sides addressed whether the charges should proceed. Shaw argued that Longuski’s testimony established sufficient probable cause for the original allegations and the proposed additional counts.
The prosecutor emphasized that the Challenger accelerated after police lights appeared, collided with LaForge’s vehicle, and that Conley fled on foot. Officers ultimately used a taser before completing the arrest.
Riggins argued that the original encounter did not necessarily demonstrate deliberate avoidance of a police officer. He also challenged the evidence supporting additional charges because LaForge had not testified about his own interactions.
The defense maintained that a vehicle moving away from an approaching car did not automatically establish intentional flight. The circumstances, including darkness, the curve, and the positioning of police vehicles, remained important.
The arguments placed two separate questions before Shackelford. First, whether the evidence established probable cause for the existing charges. Second, whether prosecutors had sufficiently supported their proposed new counts involving LaForge.
Shackelford began by explaining the preliminary examination’s relatively low probable cause threshold. The proceeding did not determine guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but required enough admissible evidence to justify further prosecution.
For the original fleeing and eluding allegation, she considered Longuski’s description of his marked patrol car, activated emergency lights, the Challenger’s acceleration, and the circumstances surrounding the subsequent collision.
For resisting and obstructing, the judge considered Longuski’s testimony that he personally gave commands during the foot chase. She also considered his account of deploying a taser when Conley did not stop.
Together, those observations satisfied the court’s probable cause assessment for the two original charges. Shackelford therefore determined that Conley would be bound over for further proceedings in Wayne County Circuit Court.
But the prosecution’s request for additional charges received a different response. Shackelford emphasized that the court could not simply assume LaForge had issued lawful commands without sufficient admissible evidence supporting that conclusion.
The missing evidentiary foundation proved decisive. Although the alleged circumstances might suggest what LaForge had done, the judge explained that her responsibility was to decide based on evidence, not speculation about likely events.
Prosecutors had failed to establish an adequate hearsay exception or another admissible basis for the statements supporting the additional allegations. Shackelford therefore declined to authorize those two proposed charges at the preliminary examination.
The ruling produced a split outcome. The defense did not secure dismissal of the original charges, but its challenge prevented prosecutors from expanding the case through the additional counts they had sought.
The examination then moved to scheduling and custody matters. The judge discussed Conley’s separate probation-related custody issue and potential dates for his next appearance, depending on whether he remained incarcerated.
Shackelford also addressed the habitual offender notice attached to his case. She explained that the third-offense habitual offender allegation could increase the applicable maximum penalties if its statutory requirements were established.
The two underlying felony charges carried stated maximum penalties of five years and two years, respectively. The habitual offender enhancement created additional exposure, although the hearing did not determine any sentence.
Conley was informed that his case would proceed to the Third Judicial Circuit Court in Wayne County. His attorney would clarify the applicable appearance date based on his custody status and related proceedings.
The hearing ended with the original allegations intact and the two additional charges rejected. Nothing in the preliminary ruling established Conley’s guilt, and the supplied record does not establish the ultimate disposition of his case.
The outcome illustrated how a preliminary examination can produce different results for separate allegations arising from the same incident. Evidence sufficient for one charge may fail to establish probable cause for another.
Longuski’s firsthand testimony supported the existing counts, according to Shackelford. But statements attributed to LaForge could not automatically replace the foundation needed to establish additional charges involving that officer’s conduct.
The dispute also demonstrated the importance of properly introducing video evidence. A recording that might assist one side’s argument still requires an adequate basis for admission under the applicable evidentiary rules.
The hearing did not establish that the traffic stop was unlawful, nor did it resolve every factual disagreement surrounding the pursuit. Those questions remained distinct from the limited probable cause determination before the judge.
Michigan’s resisting and obstructing law also involves specific statutory elements and judicial interpretations, including important questions concerning lawful police conduct. The courtroom testimony should not be reduced to a blanket rule about every police encounter.
What made Shackelford’s decision significant was her insistence on separating reasonable inferences from evidence actually admitted. She accepted the prosecution’s proof where it met the preliminary threshold and rejected unsupported additions.
For Conley, the difference was substantial. He still faced serious felony proceedings and potential enhanced penalties, but the prosecution could not add two more counts based solely on the foundation presented.
The final lesson emerged not from a dramatic dismissal, but from the judge’s careful distinction between allegations and proof. Police testimony carries evidentiary weight, yet every proposed criminal charge must independently satisfy the governing standard.
