LATHRUP VILLAGE, Mich. \u2013 A prominent Lathrup Village community leader was taken into custody on Monday after Oakland County investigators raided his home.<\/p>\n
Sources confirmed to Local 4 that the search warrant was carried out by the Oakland County Auto Theft Task Force. <\/p>\n
As of Monday evening, no charges had been filed.<\/p>\n
Friends and neighbors identified the man as Mark Watts. <\/p>\n
Records show Watts owns Quality Auto Sales in Detroit, with an office located just minutes from his home.<\/p>\n
He is also the founder of a youth mentoring program called \u201cBoys 2 Men\u201d and serves as president of the Lathrup Village Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n
Search warrants executed, evidence removed<\/p>\n
Deputies were seen removing several guns from the home, along with large bags of evidence. <\/p>\n
Investigators photographed multiple vehicles in the driveway, including one with a \u201cFor Sale\u201d sign in the windshield. <\/p>\n
They also removed several license plates and towed away vehicles.<\/p>\n
Lathrup Village police released a statement saying two search warrants were executed, but noted that officers were not part of the investigation. <\/p>\n
Local 4 reached out to the Oakland County Sheriff\u2019s Office but had not received additional details as of Monday evening.<\/p>\n
Watts was walked out of the home in handcuffs, placed in the back of a squad car, and taken away.<\/p>\n
Neighbors, friends left stunned<\/p>\n
The raid caught neighbors and friends off guard. <\/p>\n
Damon Knight, who identified himself as a friend of Watts, said the scene was unlike anything he had witnessed in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just came out of my house, and I\u2019m like, there\u2019s police cars all over the grass for what?\u201d Knight said.<\/p>\n
Knight described Watts as a well-regarded figure in the community and struggled to make sense of what unfolded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a good community. He\u2019s a good guy,\u201d Knight said. \u201cI mean, what are they doing with the cars. He sells cars. Why are they messing with his vehicles?\u201d Knight said.<\/p>\n
No charges filed<\/p>\n
As of Monday (May 4) evening, Watts had not been charged with any crime. <\/p>\n
Being taken into custody does not necessarily mean charges will be filed.<\/p>\n
Local 4 is continuing to seek more information from the Oakland County Sheriff\u2019s Office and will update this story as details become available.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LATHRUP VILLAGE, Mich. \u2013 A prominent Lathrup Village community leader was taken into custody on Monday after Oakland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[794,126912,143,904,145,144,796],"class_list":["post-299752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-detroit","tag-lathrup-village","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-county","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-wayne-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}