Suspect in robberies, shootout that hurt Columbus police to remain jailed until trial

Bethany Bruner, The Columbus Dispatch
Updated ·2 min read

One of the two suspects in a crime spree that ended in a shootout Thursday on a busy highway near downtown Columbus will remain in jail until his trial.

Faisal Darod, 23, of North Linden, was initially scheduled to have a detention hearing Wednesday afternoon in U.S. District Court.

However, federal court records show Darod's attorney, Jeffrey Stavroff, formally waived the hearing and Magistrate Judge Kimberly Jolson ordered Darod held without bond pending his trial.

Darod appeared before Jolson at a Monday-afternoon hearing, which dozens of police officers from Columbus and other central Ohio agencies attended. Stavroff filed the written waiver after the end of Monday's hearing.

Police vehicles on I-70 at Mound Street near Downtown surround a stolen Porsche Cayenne SUV, just beneath the I-71 South sign, as officers responded to a Columbus police officer shot by robbery suspects Thursday afternoon.
Police vehicles on I-70 at Mound Street near Downtown surround a stolen Porsche Cayenne SUV, just beneath the I-71 South sign, as officers responded to a Columbus police officer shot by robbery suspects Thursday afternoon.

Darod and Aden Jama, 20, whom U.S. marshals arrested Saturday at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport while he tried to board a flight for Turkey, are charged with aiding and abetting both a bank robbery and the use of a firearm during a violent crime.

Columbus police and federal agencies arrested the pair after an investigation into the robbery Thursday afternoon of a Porsche SUV from a dealership in Whitehall. That Porsche was then driven to a bank on Hilliard Rome Road on Columbus' Far West Side.

Whitehall and Columbus police officers pursued the Porsche, which they allege Darod, Jama and Abdisamad Ismail, 19, occupied, onto Interstate 70 east. Around the West Mound Street exit, at least one person inside the Porsche began firing at officers, resulting in a shootout.

U.S. Attorney Kenneth Parker, right, announces a third arrest stemming from a Thursday shootout with Columbus police. Beside him during a Saturday news conference is, from left, Assistant U.S. Attorney Noah Litton, U.S. Deputy Marshal Dan Deville, U.S. Marshal Michael Black and ATF Special Agent in Charge Daryl McCormick.
U.S. Attorney Kenneth Parker, right, announces a third arrest stemming from a Thursday shootout with Columbus police. Beside him during a Saturday news conference is, from left, Assistant U.S. Attorney Noah Litton, U.S. Deputy Marshal Dan Deville, U.S. Marshal Michael Black and ATF Special Agent in Charge Daryl McCormick.

At the end of the shootout, authorities allege, Ismail was dead on the highway, Darod and Jama were on the run on foot and a Columbus officer with 10 months of experience with the department was fighting for his life on an operating table at OhioHealth Grant Medical Center.

The officer, who has not been identified, is continuing to recover at the hospital.

Federal court records detail the investigation, involving cellphone records, social media and other technology-related methods, that led to Darod's arrest Friday.

According to the details in the documents filed related to his arrest, authorities claim Darod told investigators that Ismail forced him at gunpoint to be involved in the bank robbery.

A map of the Columbus area is marked with the locations of key incidents in the armed robbery spree by three suspects Thursday that led to a deadly shootout. At right is the marker showing Byers Imports' Porsche dealership at 410 N. Hamilton Road in Whitehall, where police there say a suspect held up an employee at gunpoint about 2:15 p.m. for the keys to a black Porsche SUV. When the suspects drove off, the dealership turned on the anti-theft GPS device on the vehicle, allowing them to track the SUV and alert police. After leaving the dealership, the suspects robbed the Fifth Third Bank branch at 2455 Hilliard Rome Road, shown by the marker on Columbus' Far West Side. As police arrived to confront them, the suspects sped off south on Hilliard Rome Road and onto I-70 east. At about 4 p.m., near West Mound Street on the interstate, shown by the center marker, there was a shootout on the highway where a Columbus police officer was critically wounded and one of the suspects was killed. The other two suspects fled on foot south down a hillside from the interstate into the South Franklinton neighborhood and remain at-large. The wounded officer was rushed by his partner to OhioHealth Grant Medical Center, Downtown, where he underwent emergency surgery and was later upgraded to stable condition.

Authorities also are investigating Darod, Jama and Ismail as possible suspects in a July 5 bank robbery in Upper Arlington that matched the method used in the Hilliard Rome Road robbery, as well as other reports of high-end vehicles being stolen at gunpoint in Minerva Park.

Jama is currently being held in Illinois. He will be brought back to Ohio following extradition proceedings.

If convicted, Darod and Jama each face a maximum possible sentence of life in prison.

Darod's next court hearing is a preliminary hearing that is currently scheduled for July 24; however, that hearing may get postponed or canceled if Darod is indicted by a grand jury prior to that date.

bbruner@dispatch.com

@bethany_bruner

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus police shootout: Suspect to remain in jail until trial