A security guard at a Warren marijuana facility was forced to the ground at gunpoint early Wednesday after one of six suspects ordered him to hand over his weapon, setting off a chase that ended with a crashed Camaro, a foot pursuit through a Detroit neighborhood, and more than 200 pounds of stolen marijuana recovered from a U-Haul truck.
Warren officers responded to an active alarm at about 2:43 a.m. on Wednesday, October 14, in the 28000 block of Lorna, according to Metro Detroit News. Police say the suspects had arrived at the facility in a U-Haul truck and a Chevrolet Camaro, and that one of them forced the on-site security guard to surrender his weapon and lie face-down during the robbery.
Officers arrived just as both vehicles were trying to leave the scene. The Camaro struck a patrol car in the process, but officers took the two suspects inside into custody without further incident, the outlet reports. The U-Haul, meanwhile, fled south on Van Dyke Avenue with police in pursuit.
Chase Ends With Foot Pursuit in Detroit
Police deployed tire-deflation devices near 11 Mile Road as they tracked the fleeing truck. Four suspects eventually abandoned the U-Haul near Van Dyke Avenue and Lantz Street in Detroit and ran on foot, but officers caught up with them after a brief pursuit and made arrests without incident, per the same account.
Inside the abandoned U-Haul, officers say they found more than 200 pounds of stolen marijuana along with additional evidence connected to the robbery. Prosecutors authorized charges against six Detroit residents on October 15: 59-year-old Marcellus Huntley, 24-year-old Maya Mitchell, 33-year-old Joshua Dykes, 38-year-old Kyle Turner, 32-year-old James Claybrooks-Wells and 24-year-old Aaron Marshall.
Six Face Armed Robbery and Conspiracy Charges
All six defendants face armed robbery, breaking and entering, and related conspiracy charges, the report notes. Additional counts against the group include firearm offenses, assault with a dangerous weapon, fleeing and eluding, possession of burglary tools, and resisting police. Dykes and Turner also face habitual offender enhancements, according to the article.
All six were arraigned before Judge Bieda in 37th District Court and entered not-guilty pleas. Each defendant received a $500,000 cash-or-surety bond, with a condition requiring a steel-cuff GPS tether if bond is posted.
Part of a Wider Wave of Cannabis Robberies
The Warren case lands amid a persistent run of cannabis-business break-ins across the region. Since January 2024, at least 53 cannabis businesses in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties have been burglarized, including 40 in Detroit, according to Metro Times. In just the first three months of the year, at least 22 cannabis businesses were hit, 16 of them in Detroit.
Jazz Cannabis Club owner George Brikho told Metro Times his business was broken into three times in one year, losing roughly $100,000 in cannabis products. Metro Times also reports that fully fortifying a dispensary or cultivation site can cost between $25,000 and $50,000, not including ongoing security expenses — a burden operators are increasingly absorbing as break-ins continue.
Elsewhere in the state, a Macomb County dispensary lost approximately 24 pounds of cannabis valued at more than $115,000 in a case tied to an organized burglary ring, according to MITechNews. In response to the surge, Michigan cannabis businesses have been bolstering security, with MJBizDaily reporting that Flora Cannabis Co. in Lansing installed panic buttons, silent alarms and a reception-controlled locked-door system.
A Market Flush With Product, Squeezed on Price
The robberies have come as Michigan's cannabis market swells with supply. Retailers sold nearly 260,000 more pounds of marijuana flower in 2025 than in 2024, according to MJBizDaily, even as total store revenue fell to about $3.17 billion, down roughly $113 million from the prior year. Metro Times reports that wholesale prices have sometimes collapsed to less than $600 per pound amid the glut — a dynamic that has not stopped facilities from becoming repeated targets for armed crews.
Warren has seen this before. In 2023, a 62-year-old Detroit man was charged in connection with an armed robbery at a Warren dispensary, according to the Macomb Daily. Prosecutors accused Rodney Robinson of shooting through the glass door of the Sherwood Dispensary and injuring a victim on the property; a Warren magistrate set his bond at $500,000 cash or surety only and ordered a mental-health evaluation, mirroring the bond terms set this week for the six defendants in the Lorna case.
