Detroit Police Department dive team member describes how he found a Revolutionary War-era cannon in the Detroit River last summer

I didn’t ask Detroit Police Sgt. Dean Rademaker if he is a gambler. But with his luck, he might consider dropping down a few bills in Las Vegas.

Last July, Rademaker, part of the police department’s scuba diving team, found a Revolutionary War-era cannon on the bottom of the Detroit River. It was a training dive to get new divers familiar with the river’s fast currents.

Rademaker, who already was part of the dive team that found another cannon in 1994, wasn’t in the water for long before he discovered another amazing part of our region’s history.

The cannon was found in about 6 inches of silt. It is 5.5 feet long and weighs 1,288 pounds.