POLICE DRUG OPERATION TURNS INTO SHOOTOUT

Gunfire Erupts During Undercover Operation Outside Mobile
Restaurant

Police arrested one man late Tuesday and were searching for another in
connection with an undercover drug buy outside a restaurant on Satchel
Paige Drive.

No one was injured, but police said the man taken into custody
barricaded himself in the Howard Johnson Inn at 3132 Government
Boulevard and briefly took two hotel guests hostage.

Wesley Winbush, 21, of Mobile was taken into custody and will be
handed over to state officials, authorities said.

Officer Eric Gallichant, a Mobile police spokesman, described the
events leading to the arrest. Officers with the Alcoholic Beverage
Control Board and Mobile County Task Force members were involved in an
undercover drug buy at McAlister's Deli around 9:45 p.m. when gunfire
erupted between state police officers and suspects, he said. The
suspects were attempting to sell cocaine when the shootout occurred,
Gallichant said, and task force members fired "because the subjects
tried to run them over."

After the shootout, the suspects bailed out of the vehicle, and one
fled to the Howard Johnson, Gallichant said.

The guests were able to get away from the suspect before members of
the Mobile Tactical Response Unit and hostage negotiators got him to
surrender, Gallichant said. One man was still on the loose shortly
after midnight, but no description of him was immediately available.

Police converged on the motel after a silver Lincoln at Government
Boulevard and Satchel Paige Drive was initially surrounded by police
vehicles. The car had several bullet holes visible.

Hotel customers waited outside the lobby about midnight, while more
than three dozen emergency vehicles sat around the parking lot.
Members of the tactical team suited up with helmets, firearms, shields
and body armor, while uniformed officers took up positions behind
their cars at the corners of the motel with weapons drawn.

After Winbush was taken into custody, motel customers began making
their way back to their rooms.