Bad boys, bad boys, what ya gonna do when they come for you?
As police departments across the country continue to struggle with public trust issues—often of their own making—a local investigation has uncovered an undeniable pattern among those who vow to protect and serve Michigan’s Motor City. WXYZ Action News revealed Monday that a stunning 64 Detroit police officers have faced criminal charges since 2016, a number so high that it sparked dismay on both sides of the thin blue line.
The charges, which include both on and off duty conduct ... include alcohol related offenses, theft, assault and drug trafficking, among others.
“This is an alarming number, and we should all be concerned,” said Willie Bell, the chairman of the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners. “That is extremely high for any department.”
If, for some reason, 64 doesn’t seem like a very large number, the WXYZ investigators dug down further, comparing the legendary home of Motown to police departments of comparable or even larger size.
Just one city—Baltimore—put up worse numbers, coming in with a whopping 76 officers charged.
It was hard to find a department with numbers approaching Detroit’s. During the same time period, the Atlanta Police Department reported only 33 officers charged. In San Antonio, the department saw 17 officers charged, as did Dallas—a department with some 600 officers more than Detroit. Las Vegas police report only one officer being criminally charged since 2016, but a spokesman said the department doesn't track off-duty charges.
In an interview with WXYZ’s Ross Jones, Detroit Police Chief James Craig acknowledged the horrific statistic, yet boasted that his own department was responsible for most of the arrests. Chief Craig then insisted that there were no excuses for having so many criminals on his force … only to immediately offer Jones multiple excuses for why his underlings commit so many crimes.
“It’s not a small number,” Craig said. “Certainly not an excuse, but our officers probably face more trauma, exposed to more trauma than places I’ve worked.”
In some instances, Craig says, trauma may have triggered the alleged criminal behavior. Three of the 64 officers, he says, were involved in high-profile shootings, later self-medicated with alcohol and were charged with alcohol-related crimes.
Craig said the stress of the job doesn’t excuse their poor judgment, but it might help explain it.
It’s worth noting that Detroit’s “finest” don’t have a particularly clean history when it comes to community relations or corruption. The DPD’s terrorizing of the black community in the 1970s is the stuff of racist legend. The police chief went down on federal embezzlement charges in the 1990s. DPD officers have attacked each other in recent years, and Chief Craig himself stands accused in an extortion scheme that implicates multiple nearby police departments.
Nonetheless, Craig estimates that the 64 charged officers comprise less than 2.5 percent of the force, which he acknowledges is too many, yet says doesn’t represent the vast majority of the department. Of course, the WXYZ investigation couldn’t possibly reveal the number of dirty cops who weren’t charged, much less the ones who haven’t been caught.
Attorney Geoffrey Fieger represents a man who was viciously beaten by an off-duty cop who, while working security at a grocery, suspected Fieger’s client of shoplifting. He tells WXYZ that the department has a vetting problem as well as a leadership problem. Like many police departments across the country, DPD also seems to struggle with holding itself accountable.
"They’re real bad at apologizing," Fieger said in an interview with WXYZ’s Jones. "I have yet to have a case where the police who’ve been accused of wrongdoing apologizes."
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
