Board of Police Commissioners
Detroit Board of Police Commissioners
Criminal Justice
Remote
Join the meeting here: https://cityofdetroit.zoom.us/j/397380647?pwd=S1kzVzU4RURFb2NBRGJIb1kwWVNjdz09
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Reporting
Edited and summarized by the Detroit - MI Documenters Team
Note-taking by
Shaheda Jenkins
Article in Deadline Detroit about police misconduct getting swept under the rug causes uproar, defensiveness.
Live reporting by
Paul Warner
Article in Deadline Detroit about police misconduct getting swept under the rug causes uproar, defensiveness.
Pdubb
@PauldubbWarner
Hi, I’ll be live-tweeting today's Detroit Board of Police Commissioners meeting for #DETdocumenters @media_outlier @Detour_Detroit @PlanetDetroit @freep @wdet @BridgeDet313 @DETdocumenters @metrotimes @Chalkbeat
02:01 PM May 5, 2022 CDT
Chairperson Jim Holley starts the meeting out by asking the general public to keep their comments constructive and wants everyone to acknowledge the boards accomplishments.
They field over 1200 complaints a year about police misconduct. One of several achievements of the board that Holley reads off. New diversity and inclusion director. Developing fair policies that protect the civil liberties of the public. Honored to represent the city.
They welcome dialog. Holley thanks the board for letting him express this and make that opening statement.
Chaplin Glenn Hodges gives the invocation. He ask the lord to watch over the cities police officers. As usual the mission statement is read.
The board mission statement is read. Commissioners Hernandez and Pressley have submitted excused absences, but the rest of the board are at the meeting.
A long list of police department officials are at the meeting. Their names are read off.
The audio cuts out for a moment as police officials introduce themselves. Holley reads off part of the agenda. He says he does this to get a clear idea of what the board wants to accomplish in this meeting.
Retirement resolutions are read for Sergeant Kirk Kelsey and Senior Corporal Christine A. Lachat. Their accomplishments are read.
BRB. The chief's report is read. The shooting of a four year old child in Taylor, but was found in Detroit is discussed as well as recent stats. You can see the meeting by going to this link to hear all the stats. detroitmi.gov/government/boa…
The Chief complements his department on how that case was handled. Chief talks about a case where members of his department apprehended a suspect with a 18 count warrant out against him. One person in the room applauds after this incident is read off.
The chief says he had a meeting with other local officials about their CIT program. That's a crisis intervention training. He says they addressed a number of officers from the area about the program.
He says that they have received criticism about their national day of prayer, but the chief says he is unapologetically Christian and that all denominations of religion attended and it was beautiful. He says it's ok if people want to pray for crime, cause they still....
have people driving around with babies who have been shot with buckshot and not getting to the hospital. He is referring to the 4 year old child who was shot on the 4th that he talked about earlier.
The chief then talks about officer Sanchez, who he gave a award too after he became partially disabled after intervening with a person who was trying to commit suicide. When he tried to stop the man from stabbing himself his partner accidentally shot him in the hand.
He recovered, and is still on the department. A local tv station did a story on officer Sanchez, and Chief has given him a award of merit.
Chief reads off a list of community events the department will be involved in. That list can be seen in the video of the meeting.
He now talks about the incident a few days ago at Mini's bar. Chief has removed an officer from vice after the incident, and he has made a leadership change on the vice squad. He says that the video of the incident did not show the training that is given to officers.
He says the DPD is the largest policing agency in the state and they get more attention than any other department in the state. He says the DPD does 278,223 police calls, or runs, a year, and that gives officers that many times to do something wrong. The chief is...
responding to a critical news article about the department, so he gives context to what their job entails and how often they have to make runs. He says many of those runs are violent and that he cannot say they will be perfect, but they will be transparent.
He says they are committed to excellence but that does not mean they will reach a plateau of perfection.
He says that with their officer discipline they needed help. He says the article says there is no discipline in the department. Chief reads off the incidents where they have had to dismiss officers for disciplined. 177 members were disciplined and he says the....
article is incorrect when they say there is a code of silence in the department. The chief reads off their process for dismissing officers. He denies the article.
He says he supports his officers but will hold them accountable. Holley says that in the future the chief needs to respond to the article with an written editorial response. Commissioner Burton ask about the alarms that go off and if responding to these alarms is a priority?
Chief says some are verified as actual break ins, and those are the alarms they respond to but no, not all alarms are answered by the DPD.
A motion is made to give Officer Sanchez a certificate of appreciation. Commissioner Bell, this reporter believes, since it's hard sometimes to see who is talking in the meeting. He says the most complaints they get about officers is their demeanor the officers use.
He says they cuss people out, and that just like in the NBA they should be fined for their nasty demeanor. The chief does not disagree about the behavior but says it is unacceptable in regular engagement but in shooting situations he says it may happen.
Commissioner Linda Benard says the article is disturbing. She wonders how one reporter can go through so many cases to find this information about police misconduct. She wants to know why this reporter can review 10,000 cases but the department does not have these cases....
consolidated by the department. She says she is embarrassed by the article. She quotes the article as saying the DPD has the worst union contracts in the country.
She says the contract keeps the officers from being held accountable due to things like deleting records and other things.
Chief says he does not know who informs her information. He says there is a process in place but he has no say so over it, the board does.
Bernard says a lot of work needs to be done and that it is a disgrace what is in the article. The Chief says he does not believe all the info in the article and says some of the info in the article is incorrect. He says they do not delete records. The chief and the board have
a disagreement about who approves the CBA. He says he wants to discuss this later and does not want to have a disagreement with the board.
Willie Buton agrees with the Bernard's comments about the article but also compliments the chief on his report.
Here is a shot of the room. As can be seen it can be tough to identify who is speaking. https://t.co/S3bYrfD39V
Chief reassures the board that he will hold officers accountable. He does not want to say the unions are the reason for the problems, but says that there is due process to discipline an officer.
Chief says the union is "very" concerned about the discipline problem. Holley says he has met with the union leaders and they are good people.
Chief says you may see another article about these same problems but he trust they will trust their discipline process. He says it needs to be improved and be more efficient.
Bernard says the Washington ACLU says the DPD has a problem. Bernard and the Chief are having a disagreement about these problems and who owns it. Holley stops the conversation. Burton ask for 5 seconds for a question. He says he wants the ratio and makeup of...
of the department and can they get that info in 2 weeks. Holley says that's off topic. Chief says they have had a 21 percent reduction in homicides, a 25 percent reduction in non-fatal shootings, and a 8 percent reduction in robberies. The chief ends his report with help...
from Holley. Holley says the subject of arbitration should be brought up in a separate meeting. Next up is a report from the officer of the chief investigator.
The investigator investigates non criminal complaints against the department. Interim chief investigator Lawrence Akbar gives the report but gives a statement before he gives his report. He says that it was his department that brought the info in the article to the board.
He's upset. He says they put in a lot of work bringing that info to the board. He has been doing this for 45 years. He was insulted by the negative comments. This is a image of Akbar. https://t.co/gKiFkos691
Here is the info on how to file a complaint against the department. https://t.co/uRt6Tzkgyi
He says that the pandemic has caused delays in their department, just like so many institutions have been blindsided by covid.
Akbar holds a monthly community meeting to talk to the public. He also says the volume of cases is big.
He says duplicate complaints are a problem. People will go to several precincts and file the same complaint, and his department has to sort them out.
They have talked to Chicago's oversite complaints for help. They get 5,000 complaints a year that they consolidate to 1,500. They only have 80 investigators and they do a great job.
He compliments his department and the chief. He says his department shares info. He says Chicago has the same problem with caseload and losing employees.
He has 9 investigators on the backlode cases, where Chicago has 80 investigators. He personally works on cases.
Next complaint meeting for the pubic is Wednesday, May 11th, at 4:30 PM via zoom. Go here detroitmi.gov/government/boa… for zoom info.
once again he tells the board the 5 ways a complaint can be filed. Here is that info again. https://t.co/16CSgCaHSO
Akbar ends by thanking the board for "tolerating" him for all these years.
A board member ask what is the punishment for not wearing a functional body cam? Akbar says they will look at all the facts and those are passed to the discipline unit, so they do not make that call for what the punishment will be.
Benard wants to know his departments full budget. Bernard says that doing the best we can is not the best. She says he said their are 1200 cases sitting on desk waiting for approval. Chief says he did not say that. He says if he said it he was mistaken and that...
there are only 59 cases sitting on desk. What does inconclusive mean? No info to refute the allegations against the officer.
Commissioner Bell says they don't need to have a ongoing conversation about the backlogs because everybody is backloged.
Commissioner Burton says it's alarming to hear him say it's his staff and his office is his and that those are the cities department, not his and the backlog is a problem. He says that to say it's his department sends the wrong message. He wants to know what use of force....
does a tazer entail? Holley says it's not Akbars job to get all that info. https://t.co/LkFTRTXthQ
A board member compliments Holley and Holley says thanks and that he needed to hear the compliment.
Holley says they need help with the backlog. Burton ask Akbar what happens to the perception of the officer watching the video. He says he does not understand the question and Burton says he cannot understand why he can't understand it. Holley says he cannot...
understand Burton's question and dismisses Akbar. The next report is on civil rights and use of force. The head of risk management gives the report.
The officer will give definitions of the categories later. Here are those definitions https://t.co/OuMcnSu6Fa
Stats about using force against dangerous animals are read. https://t.co/FSLsWrdV4d
The DPD only uses three types of intermediate weapons, chemical, tazer and baton.
Tazer discharges are noted as a category. Here are those stats. https://t.co/pW9WPVrwgl
The DPD keeps records on the use of force by race. https://t.co/AbWHbunLfx
Holley ask about the 50,000 watts in the tazer. Is it 50,000 in one tazer or 25,000 for the two. The department head says he will get them that info.
No info about tazer injuries. He says there is some sort of injuries with the two probes. From past BOC meetings we know that all people tazed by the department must have medical treatment to have the probes removed.
Bernard is concerned about fights in certain precients. It is not said who these fights involve but the info will be provided.
Burton says he liked the report but has concerns about his district. He was concerned about people who encounter police officers and those people may have medical or mental issues. Burton answers his own question by saying that the info must come later.
A copy of the tazer polices will be made available to the board. Burton says they get a lot of reports and says that this report is better than the reports they normally get.
4 reports will be submitted to the board and not read out loud. https://t.co/JvYQYdUDbb
Burton puts out a motion to move, for today's session, to give citizens one more minute of public comment. Motion fails. The next community meetings are read. They can be found on the agenda. detroitmi.gov/sites/detroitm…
7 speakers are lined up for comment. First person compliments the DPD because we only hear about the bad things about the DPD. The complaints. He admires the leadership of DPD. This is a DPD officer talking.
He says they should have a call line to report the great actions of DPD officers. Keep it balanced in reporting on the bad and good of the DPD.
Holley says that out of 3,000 officers only 2 percent of officers get complaints filed.
Vicki Shah is next. Acknowledges Ramadan that has just passed. She says she has been in front of the board talking about analytics and says they needed to be improved. She says she agrees with Bernard that this needs to improve.
A caller ask about the 50,000 watts from the tazer and says that can kill a person and do people get care afterwards?
Wants to know about no knock warrants and says Chief White is doing a great job.
Brenda Hill is next. She ask officers to get their emotions in check. She says for officer White? getting to emotional does not give her confidence in him.
Next speaker says the presentations last too long and the board needs a permanent secretary.
Minister Eric Blount says DPD officers have to get it right every time. He says the weekly board agendas are just cheerleading for the DPD.
Frequent caller Scotty Bowman (not the hockey coach) He says the board has hired people to positions that they are not qualified for, and the board has violated policy in their hirings. He says they have violated the city charter in some of their hirings
He says the state does not negotiate the contract, the city does. That was the last speaker. The meeting is closed at 5:43 PM, and closed very quickly after public comment.
If you have any questions, comments or feel that some of these tweets are inaccurate, please contact Documenters at documenters@citybureau.org
Meeting adjourned at 5:43 p.m. This concludes the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners meeting. The next meeting is scheduled for May 12, 2022 at the 11th precinct at 5901 Connor at 6:30 PM. For more meeting coverage, check out documenters.org.
Attachments
Agency Information
Detroit Board of Police Commissioners
The Board of Police Commissioners has supervisory control and oversight of the Police Department, including plenary authority over citizen complaints and the power to appoint fact finders, subpoena witnesses, administer oaths, take testimony, and require the production of evidence. The Board also appoints a civilian as Director of Police Personnel and approves all promotions made by the Chief. The 11 member board is comprised of 7 elected members from each city council district and 4 members appointed by the Mayor. https://detroitmi.gov/government/boards/board-police-commissioners
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