Good Riddance

Good Riddance

Mayor Young's dismissal of Police Chief Philip Tannian and the installation of acting Executive Deputy Chief William Hart as the Detroit Police Department's new top commander are welcome moves. They clear the way, hopefully, for the mayor to complete the police reorganization program which Tannian failed so miserably to implement.

Tannian, a high official in the Roman Gribbs administration before Gribbs appointed him to replace former Police Commissioner John "Blackjack" Nichols so Nichols could run against Coleman Young in the city's last mayoral election, was retained in the top police post by Young after his victory in order to keep the more than 80% white Detroit police force from open revolt.

It is Mayor Young whom the police oppose, not simply Tannian or any other individual. Tannian became a figure hated by the police rank and file largely because he dared to attempt to carry out part of Mayor Young's reorganization plan, the basic premise of which is that the police force must be constituted as a 50% black-50% white, 50% male-50% female organization.

That this concept is repugnant to the DPD as it is presently constituted speaks eloquently of the racist, sexist attitudes which propel our city's police in their daily activity.

The current "crime wave" which has Detroiters locked in the grip of fear has led many citizens to look nostalgically -- and even desperately -- toward the days when the police were allowed a free reign by white city administrations to "control" criminal activity in Detroit's vast black ghetto. Their job was basically to "keep the niggers in line," and they were allowed every possible means to do so.

But a return to police barbarism will not solve any of the city's current problems. Indeed, those problems cannot be solved by police activity of any kind, but only by basic changes in the entire social structure which has created this monster.

One basic change would be to make the police department absolutely responsive to the citizens it is intended to serve. And in a city which is 50% black and rising, there is no way that change can be made by a white-dominated police force with a white commander. Mayor Young made a valiant effort in sticking with Tannian so long, but the results of his tenure only make the point more clearly.