‘Hero’ in trouble after returning car

The deputy city marshal had stopped to assist a security officer and an injured man when a patrol vehicle pulled up.

"I'm here. Do you need back up," the driver said.

Instead, the driver was arrested at gunpoint. After all, he had allegedly made off with the marshal's car minutes earlier.

"I always wanted to be a hero," the suspect, Kenneth Ambrose-Callan, was quoted as saying in a police report on the Oct. 15 incident.

The bizarre series of events occurred shortly after midnight at Fourth and Fremont streets when, according to a police report, the marshal, identified only as S. Wheeler, stopped to assist the security officer and injured man.

Soon, he noticed his vehicle had disappeared.

"I ran down to the alley north of Fremont Street to see if somebody had moved my vehicle, but it was not there," Wheeler wrote in the report. "I attempted to contact my supervisor by phone, but my phone was still inside the patrol vehicle along with an AR 15 patrol rifle that was secured in the vehicle."

According to the report, Wheeler looked south on Fourth Street and saw a patrol vehicle approaching him "with emergency lights still activated."

The vehicle stopped in front of him, and Wheeler saw a man in the driver's seat.

"When the subject pulled up in my patrol vehicle, he looked at me and stated, 'I'm here. Do you need back-up?'" Wheeler wrote in his report.

Wheeler was not amused.

"I drew my department issued duty weapon from my holster and placed the male subject at gun point because next to him was my department issued patrol rifle," Wheeler wrote.

The deputy marshal handcuffed Ambrose-Callan and advised him he was under arrest.

He read the suspect his rights and asked him why he had stolen the vehicle.

That, according to the report, prompted the "hero" comment.

Wheeler then asked Ambrose-Callan "if he was on any medication or if he had been diagnosed with a mental disorder," and the suspect replied, "No."

A records check revealed that Ambrose-Callan's only priors were for traffic violations.

Now the 39-year-old man, who had identification from Arizona, faces felony charges of burglary while in possession of a firearm and grand larceny auto.

He is being held at the Clark County Detention Center.

Contact reporter Carri Geer Thevenot at cgeer@reviewjournal.com or 702-384-8710.