A wanted man in Michigan surrendered to police on Monday – with a box of doughnuts – after he challenged the Redford Township Police Department to get 1,000 shares on a Facebook post.
Michael Zaydel, a.k.a. Champagne Torino, was wanted on a variety of misdemeanour charges but instead of complying with the law, he decided to be an online troll on the police department’s Facebook page.
Fed up, police took matters into their own hands.
In a response to a “You suck!” Facebook comment by Zaydel on an unrelated post about a home invasion on Oct. 6, the police threatened to block him from their page.
“Michael, given your veiled threats to residents and officers on their threads, and your inability to engage in constructive dialogue on this page, this is your one warning. If it continues you will be blocked,” they wrote.
Zaydel sent the department a private message and issued them a challenge.
The police accepted the challenge.
“I don’t think that’s what he expected us to do, to share his message,” said Sgt. Duane Gregg to NBC-affiliate WDIV. “When we screenshotted his message and put it on there, in an hour we had the thousand shares.”
Nearly a week later, police still hadn’t heard from Zaydel and featured him in their “Wanted Wednesday” post.
By Monday, Zaydel was ready to turn himself in.
The 21-year-old told ABC7 that he was always intending to turn himself in.
“They [the police] were taunting me, but at the same time, they’re a police agency,” he conceded. “I thought I’d bring them something for the inconvenience.”
Along with the dozen doughnuts, Zaydel brought a bagel specifically for Gregg, “because he’s a bagel guy.”
“I’m surprised that he did eventually come in, we weren’t expecting it,” said police officer Jennifer Mansfield.
On Tuesday morning, Zaydel was arraigned and sentenced to 39 days in jail for misdemeanours which included violating his probation and an attempted assault and battery charge.
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