Guns, drugs found at Detroit home after owner caught shoeless hiding under neighbor’s deck

DETROIT – Officials found two pistols, a shotgun, and a trash can full of various drugs inside a Detroit home after catching the owner hiding shoeless under his neighbor’s deck.

Police standoff

Federal officials went to a home on Longworth Street in Southwest Detroit around 6 a.m. June 15 for a search. Members of the FBI Detroit Violent Gang Task Force said the search was linked to their investigation into Candelario Covarrubia.

Nobody answered when police knocked, and they eventually breached the front door. They said Covarrubia’s wife appeared at the front door seconds later and argued with authorities. She tried to slam the door, so they took her into custody, according to a criminal complaint.

Officials used a patrol car loudspeaker to order Covarrubia out of the home. Two children eventually came to the front door and were removed, according to authorities. A 2-week-old baby was also escorted out.

Covarrubia was eventually seen in the backyard, but he quickly disappeared from sight, police said. Officers weren’t sure if he had gone back inside or fled to the neighbor’s yard.

After a standoff that lasted about two and a half hours, an FBI SWAT team went into the house and didn’t find Covarrubia.

He was caught hiding under the deck in the backyard of his next-door neighbor’s home. Officials said he was wearing socks without shoes and had cut the bottom of his foot.

He was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment while in police custody.

Guns, drugs found during search

Officials said they found two pistols on the floor of the walk-in closet inside Covarrubia’s master bedroom — a 9 mm SCCY CPX-2 and a black .38-caliber handgun. Two pistol magazines were also found in the room.

While in the bedroom, authorities found a key to the detached garage. Inside the garage was a shrine to Jesus Malverde, the patron saint of narcotics traffickers, an FBI agent wrote in the criminal complaint.

Officials said they found the following drugs in an aluminum trash can:

• About 1,060.5 grams of fentanyl in a black plastic bag.

• About 155.5 grams of cocaine in a plastic bag.

• A plastic bag of a white powdery substance.

• A plastic bag containing nine baggies of a crystal substance.

• A rectangular vacuum-sealed package of a white, chunky substance.

• A digital scale.

• A plastic bag of blue pills.

While searching the garage, agents also said they found a Hatsan Armor Company Escort Slugger shotgun and various types of ammunition. The shotgun was hanging on the wall, they said.

FBI officials said the quantities of drugs found in the garage suggest they were going to be distributed.

Charges

The criminal complaint concludes there’s probable cause that Covarrubia possessed controlled substances with the intent to distribute them and used or carried a gun during drug possession and/or distribution.