Overland Park armed robbery suspect had been out of prison only 4 days
OLATHE, Kan. — A man, facing seven charges in Johnson County , made his first appearance in court Thursday.
Sulif Wilkins sat silent in a Johnson County courtroom while being asked if he had financial resources to hire an attorney. At no point did he verbally acknowledge the Judge.
He's in court after an encounter with Overland Park Police earlier this week .
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"It was an extremely dangerous situation because we had members of the public inside the McDonald's, and he was in front of that store, which caused problems for the police department. Luckily, nobody got hurt," Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe said.
"Overland Park Police Department did a great job of basically controlling the situation without any injuries."
This stems from an aggravated assault call from Tuesday, near College Blvd and Oakmont Street in Overland Park. Officers initially didn't find Wilkins, but eventually spotted him on a traffic camera sitting on a vehicle in a McDonald's parking lot.
Police say Wilkins was confronted by that vehicle's owner, and Wilkins pointed a high-powered rifle at him, but didn't fire. The vehicle owner went back in the restaurant and called police.
Arriving officers took cover and told Wilkins to drop the weapon, according to police. Investigators say Wilkins aimed the rifle at officers and shot several times. Currently it's unknown if the weapon jammed or was empty. Wilkins then dropped the rifle and was arrested.
"The charges that he is now facing is one count of attempted capital murder, that is the attempted murder of a police officer, he's also facing two aggravated robbery charges, which are class three felonies, and four different felon in possession of a firearm charges; 2 of them is that he was he's a convicted felon," Howe said.
"He was just released from a manslaughter conviction. The two weapons that he had in his possession were automatic weapons, which is illegal under Kansas law."
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This comes on the heels of a fresh release from federal prison last week, where he was serving time for his involvement in the killing of 3-year-old Amorian Hale in 2015 . Wilkins wasn't the shooter, but investigators say, he was involved, and served time for state and federal convictions . "It is concerning that he was just recently paroled and then had the weaponry that he had," Howe said.
"We will work with the Overland Park Police on, as well as the federal authorities, to figure out how it is that he came upon, in a short period of time, pretty-high fire power. An assault rifle, as well as an automatic pistol. You wouldn't think somebody four days after their release would have that type of fire power." Wilkins being held on a $5 million bond. He's set to appear again in court next week.
