Detroit's police oversight body is in hot water after an investigation revealed flagrant abuses of power, including mishandling hundreds of citizen complaints against police officers. The Detroit Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has completed a probe into the city’s Board of Police Commissioners, finding that multiple members engaged in improper practices, as reported by the Detroit Free Press.
According to the investigation by the OIG led by Ellen Ha, the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners saw its vice chair, Willie Bell, stripped of his title following accusations of unauthorized budgetary acts and recommendations. Also implicated were three former commissioners and the former board secretary. The revelations have uncovered a broader systemic issue within the oversight board, long criticized for its ineffectiveness. One accusation stated that there was improper case closures and unauthorized overtime pay, as detailed in the findings. The BridgeDetroit reports that this formed part of a sweeping effort to address a backlog of complaints from 2022.
In a particularly damning aspect of the case, former Interim Board Secretary Melanie White was found to have ordered the closure of complaints not alleging police misconduct, a move against the city charter's prescriptions. The Free Press further indicated that in response to allegations from February 2023 of more than 700 improperly closed citizen complaints, the OIG took control of nearly 3,000 complaint files covering a span of two years.
The report cites recommendations, including immediate retraining of Bell and Commissioner Lisa Carter, both of whom failed to correct White’s misuse of her position. The ClickOnDetroit quoted Inspector General Ellen Ha as saying, "It is disappointing that the OIG is making many of the same recommendations we have previously made in the past years based on our prior investigations." Ha remarked that if the Board of Police Commissioners had implemented changes from previous recommendations, "there might not have been an abuse of authority of this magnitude."
The extensive backlog of cases still looms over the board, with 1,334 uninvestigated cases reported as of last count. Amid these findings, the board is under increased scrutiny, with multiple probes from different agencies, including an audit at the behest of the city council still in progress.
