Ben Wallace Told Bloomfield Township Police He Should Have Known Better

A contrite Ben Wallace acknowledged he placed in his vehicle the gun and ammunition found by Bloomfield Township police who were investigating him for drunken driving, police reports said.

The Detroit Pistons center also said during an interview that he knew he was in the wrong. The interview was with a command officer at the Bloomfield Township Police Department shortly after his early-morning arrest Saturday.

He is charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated and carrying a concealed weapon, and is scheduled to appear in 48th District Court Monday for a preliminary exam conference.

Officers stopped Wallace’s 2007 Cadillac Escalade in the area of Telegraph and Long Lake roads about 2:35 a.m. after watching it cross over lane markers and drive over the fog line multiple times, reports said. Wallace, who was driving, said he and a male friend were coming from Club 21, where had about four beers over a two-hour span.

The officers smelled alcohol on Wallace as he exited the vehicle and arrested the 37-year-old Bloomfield Hills resident after he failed roadside sobriety tests, reports said. The vehicle was impounded after officers determined Wallace’s friend was also intoxicated.

While searching the vehicle, an officer found several rounds of ammunition in the closed middle console of the front seat, and a backpack in the backseat. An unloaded FNH 5.7x28mm handgun was inside the backpack with a full magazine of bullets in the same pocket.

Wallace was booked at the police station and took three different breath tests before 4 a.m., reports said. Police have not disclosed the results of the tests.

He initially refused to speak with police, but after asking the arresting officers to leave the room, said he would talk to the commanding officer because he felt more comfortable with him, the report states.

Lt. Mark Paquin wrote that Wallace told him the gun belonged to his wife, and that he put it in the backpack for protection when he left Virginia to drive home the previous day. Wallace acknowledged he did not have a concealed weapons permit, and without questioning, said he completely forgot about the weapon when he arrived in Michigan and went to the club with his friend.

“Mr. Wallace added that if he had known tonight was going to end up this way, he would have done things differently,” Paquin wrote in his supplemental police report.

Wallace also said he majored in criminal justice and Virginia Union University.

“Mr. Wallace then told me that he knew he was in the wrong, and he shouldn’t have had the gun,” Paquin added. “I felt that Mr. Wallace was being honest and forthright, and he was also very cooperative.”

Wallace, known as ‘Big Ben’ and revered in Detroit for his defensive prowess and leadership in the team’s 2004 championship run, is a former All Star and four-time winner of the NBA’s Defensive Play of the Year Award.

Pistons officials declined comment Friday. Due to the NBA lockout over a labor dispute between players and team owners, neither the league nor the team are allowed to speak about individual players. Negotiations are scheduled today and over the weekend in New York, but some preseason games have already been cancelled.

Wallace remains free on a $5,000 personal bond pending Monday’s hearing. If convicted, he faces up to 93 days in jail on the drunken driving charge, and up to five years in prison on the weapons offense.