The "People's Police Force": Is It Happening?

By Margaret Borys

Should the Police Department run the city of Detroit?

That wasn't how the ballots read, of course, but that was the essential question confronting voters in the 1973 mayoral election.

The police, under increasing fire from the black community stemming from a long history of repression, brutality, and selective law enforcement, threw their support to their Commission, John Nichols, the so-called "law and order" candidate. Former State Senator Coleman Young, a respected figure in the black community, made reform of the Police Department the most important single issue of his campaign.

With his labor and civil rights background, Young could personally testify to becoming acquainted with the Police Department "at the other end of the stick." Nichols was a "cop's cop" who came up through the department. He had a "tough guy" image and his detractors called him "General John."

While campaigning for mayor, Nichols refused to resign as Police Commissioner until the courts forced him to. When he did quit, Roman Gribbs -- then Mayor, and a popular figure with the police himself -- appointed Philip Tannian to replace him. Tannian, a 39-year-old ex-FBI agent, worked in various capacities for the city and the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office before his appointment by fellow University of Detroit alumnus Gribbs.

With the election of Young, blacks breathed a sigh of relief. Whites, fearing a loss of their voice in city government and spurred by fantasies of white might happen under a black mayor, panicked and, if they could afford it, split for the suburbs. Nichols, for his part, became Undersheriff of Oakland County -- joining another former Police Commission, Johannes Spreen, Sheriff of that county. In recent photographs, Nichols looks less like a suburban sheriff than a Latin American dictator, in full dress uniform festooned with ribbons and badges. 

Coleman Young immediately began acting on his campaign promise to reform the Police Department, much to the dismay of the Detroit Police Officers Association (DPOA) and other highly conservative elements. One of Young's first official acts upon assuming office was to order the dissolution of STRESS (Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets), an undercover decoy unit. STRESS had become a red hot issue in the black community; in its three years of existence, it contributed greatly to racial polarization in the city by causing at least seventeen fatalities and repeatedly engaging in various criminal activities. 

Young also announced his intention of aiming for a 50-50 racial and sexual balance in Police Department personnel, of putting more uniformed officers on the streets, restructuring the Department, and creating a system of "mini-stations" dispersed throughout the city to improve community relations with police and increase availability. 

Furthermore, Young stated in no uncertain terms his intention of enforcing the city's 87-year-old residency clause for city employees -- with special emphasis on suburban-dwelling white police. This uncompromising stance, which Young characterized as an essential aspect of his effort to create a "people's police force," led to a protracted court battle with the DPOA and culminated in an arbitration ruling on September 5 favoring the city's position.

Young retained Tannian as the Chief of Police. Under the new City Charter, which passed on the same ballot that elected Young, Tannian works in conjunction with the new Board of Police Commissioners, a civilian body of five people appointed by the mayor.

With STRESS in its grave, increased numbers of blacks and women on the force, and Mayor Young's reorganization of the DPD in progress, the two-year-old administration is hoping to create the basis for a new kind of police force and improved police-community relations. It is facing enormous obstacles in the DPOA, entrenched in racism and bureaucracy, accumulated ill will, and money shortages. Many residences, especially those in the black community and elsewhere who have had first-hand experience with the pre-1973 DPD, are watching carefully to see how the changes being wrought by Young will be reflected in street-level realities. 

Structure: The administrative heads of the major units within the DPD are called Deputy Chiefs, District Commanders, Commanders, and Inspectors. Nineteen of the 79 positions on this level are now filled by blacks. Out of a total of 5,505 officers according to mid-1975 figures, 1,520 are supervisors, not street patrolmen. There are 30 sections which are separate from the precinct deployment. Troop strength ranges from 173 at the 4th Precinct to 339 at the First. 

Affirmative Action: Under Mayor Young, the hiring of qualified minority personnel to compensate for prior years of discrimination has been accelerated. Affirmative Action, begun in 1971 under Roman Gribbs, is federally-funded and endorsed. In fact, if the DPD refuses to implement the program, it faces the loss of federal money. According to Chief Tannian, Chicago has refused to participate in the program, and its federal funds are being partially withheld.

As of September 30, 1975, 22 percent of all DPD officers were black. If the proportion of blacks in the Department is to reflect their strength in the city's population, measured by 1970 figures, that proportion will have to increase to 44 percent.

Residency: Despite the September arbitration ruling and repeated insistence by Mayor Young that residency rules be vigorously enforced, there is no information available from the Department to indicate that any officer has been suspended since September. The issue now is who will suspend non-resident police, and when. Deputy Chief George Bennett has recently charged Chief Tannian with lax enforcement of the residency clause. 

Mini-stations: The "mini-station" concept is intended to emphasize community relations and provide a service to citizens who could not otherwise go to a precinct. Several mini-stations are located in senior citizen housing areas, and many community groups are also requesting them. the program is headed by James Bannon, former co-commander of STRESS and currently Commander at the 2nd Precinct.

There are 25 mini-stations in existence and a total of 30 to 45 is projected. Each station has nine officers, three per shift assigned from each precinct. All expenses, except for personnel costs, are paid for by a two-year federal grant of $441,000.

The mini-station program has been slowed by personnel shortages; community fear and distrust of the police; and internal squabbling within the Department. Black officers are especially crucial to the mini-station program if racial tensions are to be eased. (Last week, one mini-station in the black Herman Gardens area was bombed and two of its white officers beaten up). 

Police brutality and misconduct: In the past, citizen complaints were filed into oblivion. Now, the Internal Controls Bureau, headed by Deputy Chief George Bennett, is responsible for handling complaints. Bennett has a reputation for honesty and dedication.

The Professional Standards Section of the Bureau received 2,624 complaints alleging police misconduct during the first six months of this year. There has been a tremendous increase in processed cases, which have gone from a previous low of 35 per month to the present figure of 229. Officer Moses Baldwin, Executive Director of the Guardians of Michigan, the black police officers' association, applauds the work of the Bureau. "Brutality should be a statistic, just as crimes are," he says. "Supervisors must be held accountable for the actions of men in their precincts."

Citizens who have complaints against individual officers, specifically police criminality, may call 224-4088 (the line is in service 24 hours a day, seven days a week). Complaints against improper or inadequate police service can be registered by calling 224-4235 between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. or by making a formal complaint at the precinct involved. The complaint process can result in reinstruction, reprimand, time forfeiture, suspension, demotion, or dismissal.

The vigorous work of the Internal Controls Bureau is especially important because the courts, up to this point, have done little to curb police criminality. Despite such examples of barbaric police work as the STRESS homicides and the deaths in the 1967 rebellion, no Detroit police officer has been convicted of murder in Recorder's Court since 1934.

Street Crime: The changes in the DPD have not yet resulted in an improvement in actual crime statistics. 1974 figures showed 2.3 robberies and 4.8 burglaries every hour, 70 autos stolen, and 116 larcenies committed daily, and an increase in homicides and assaults of 6.3 and 5.9 percent, respectively.

It's widely agreed that a huge proportion of violent crimes and crimes of property are traceable to one of the city's most profitable crimes: the importation and sale of heroin. There may be 50,000 addicts in Detroit, who are forced to support their extensive habits by ripping off. 

The combined strength of the Narcotics and Organized Crime sections of the DPD is 185 officers, who are supposedly seeking out the middle and upper echelon of the drug hierarchy. They work in an intentional port of entry where it would seem, there would be good opportunities to confiscate large amounts of smuggled heroin and apprehend high-level pushers. It's also generally agreed, however, that the heroin trade could not flourish if collusion between government agencies and pushers did not exist. 

Deputy Chief George Bennett, a special unit of his Internal Controls Bureau, and the Wayne County Organized Crime Task Force have spent considerable time under dangerous conditions to investigate police collusion in the heroin world. Their investigations have so far led to the indictment of nine police officers and seven civilians for bribery, conspiracy, and heroin trafficking in the 10th Precinct. 

The fact is that laws are violated every minute. Some violations, however, are prosecuted, and some are not. What is critical is the principles and priorities that determine which lawbreakers are singled out, the degree of energy with which they are prosecuted, and how they are looked upon by the courts. The tradition of the Detroit Police Department has been to selectively prosecute individuals according to their race, class, and vulnerability.

The Coleman Young administration faces still resistance to any efforts to moderate these factors and prosecute, as the Mayor has stated, "any and all violations of the law." Prostitutes and junkies still take the weight while pimps and pushers get off. Reams of parking tickets are issued in residential neighborhoods, while big hogs double- and triple-park in front of downtown hotels and exclusive clubs never get hassled. The DPD has still not resolved the issue of political surveillance of the city's residents. Most significantly, white-collar criminals, tax cheaters, big corporations, and with few exceptions, heroin pushers, are never seen in Recorder's Court, although the damage they do is certainly at least as extensive as that wrought by street criminals. 

In the last analysis, reversing these enforcement and prosecution priorities will take much more than the most thorough of reform of the police -- difficult enough in itself. They accurately reflect the prevailing power relationships and social priorities of the society at large; and it is in changing these determinants that the truly formidable challenge lies.

Margaret Borys is a freelance writer, veteran political activist, and lifelong resident of the Detroit area.