Suspected Shooter of 6-Year-Old Boy Back in Custody, New Bond Set to $100K

Ryan Le-Nguyen, the suspected shooter of Coby Daniel, 6, is back in custody with a new bond set at $100,000 on June 11. 

The new bond: Le-Nguyen was originally released on a bond set at $10,000 on June 8 after the prosecutor’s office originally requested a $100,000 cash bond. The prosecutor’s office immediately filed an emergency motion to increase the bond. 

• On June 10, a different Washtenaw County judge heard the case and said the additional facts not originally presented in the arraignment are “quite troubling,” according to a video from Fox 2 Detroit.
• Judge Anna M. Frushour ordered Le-Nguyen to turn himself in through his attorneys, set a new bond and ordered that he wear a GPS tether if he was released on bond. The bond must be paid in full and paid by someone approved by the court. 
• Washtenaw Prosecuting Attorney Eli Savit revealed in a video posted on Facebook that the prosecutor’s office makes recommendations about the bond conditions, but the court makes the final decision. He says that they “recommended significantly more stringent conditions which would have made it more difficult for the defendant to be released.” 
• Arnold Daniel, Coby’s father, said he would have “been ignored” if he hadn’t initiated “calling the news people” and fought to get Le-Nguyen back in custody. He calls for Le-Nguyen to be held accountable.

Why the bond was set low: In response to Savit’s Facebook video, a user wondered why the judge stated, “No one was there to talk about the high bond.” 

• Savit responded by saying that prosecutors aren’t generally “staffed to be able to send people to arraignments. That has historically meant that prosecutors have not given any recommendations at all on bond, which in my view is inappropriate.” 
• He proceeds to add that improvements can be made so they can have representation available at arraignments for serious cases and that he will figure out how to improve the system. 
• In a YouTube video of the original arraignment, Magistrate Elisa V. Fink came to the decision that it was important to set a bond to “emphasize the seriousness to Mr. Le-Nguyen, but also because at a minimum, there was an extremely bad choice made involving a firearm,” which she states is “always a concern to the court.”
• Fink stated that a bond has two parts: whether the defendant is a danger to the community and a flight risk.
• She said that Le-Nguyen is not a flight risk, but that the “only real issue” was his “alleged behavior in this situation which appears to be a dangerous and ill-advised option made.” She proceeded to say that the facts presented to her “indicates some potential danger” because he “chose to behave in a way that was in fact dangerous,” even if he did not mean for anything to go wrong. 

Featured Image via Magistrate Elisha Fink Live Stream (left), Fox 2 Detroit (right)