After 11 years, the Detroit Police Department soon may start operating without the watchful eye of a federal monitor.
The city and the U.S. Department of Justice jointly filed a motion, asking a U.S. District Court judge to no longer require federal oversight of the city's Police Department. In the motion filed today, the city and Justice Department asked that the court terminate the use of force and arrest and witness detention consent judgment on Aug. 18.
The city and Justice Department agreed to enter into an 18-month transition agreement. Under that agreement, the Justice Department would review and evaluate the Police Department's internal audits, conduct on-site visits and provide "comments and technical assistance where needed, to ensure that DPD's reform efforts continue and are sustained."
The city entered into two consent judgments with the Justice Department in 2003 after police were accused of excessive use of force, illegal detentions and unconstitutional conditions of confinement.
In January, the court dismissed the consent judgment dealing with confinement conditions, according to the motion, which says the city was in full compliance with that consent judgment.
"The Detroit Police Department has fundamentally changed since this case was filed in June 2003," Melvin Butch Hollowell, Detroit's corporation counsel, said in a statement posted on the city's web site. "Today, DPD's practices are consistent with constitutional policing standards."
The city and Justice Department asked the court to dismiss the federal monitor, who is paid $87,825 a month -- a fee covered by taxpayers, Hollowell's statement says.
The Police Department, Mayor Mike Duggan, emergency manager Kevyn Orr and U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment.
According to the motion, "serious uses of force have drastically declined and the DPD has completely ended the practice of arresting and detaining witnesses."
The motion also says the Police Department:
-- Has had 17 fatal shootings in the past five years, compared with 47 in the five years before the Justice Department's investigation.
-- Averages less than 28 shootings per year, compared with 69 per year before the investigation.
-- Has established an audit team, staffed with sworn and civilian auditors "to conduct department-wide audits to track the performance of all aspects of the DPD."
-- Has "established other reviewing bodies, including the Inspection Unit, Compliance Liaison Officers, and Force Investigation Section to perform intensive inspections of police practices from the precinct to the command levels."
According to the motion, the transition agreement "would facilitate the evolution of the DPD from an agency focused on the requirements of the consent judgment to an agency focused on sustaining effective and constitutional police practices outside the framework of strict third-party oversight."
Ron Scott, with the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, said he doesn't believe the culture of the Police Department has changed.
"I think it's a damn lie that use of force has gone down," Scott said. "It has not."
The consent decrees came after a Free Press investigation that uncovered excessive use of deadly force; illegal dragnet arrests of possible witnesses to crimes, and questionable investigations into fatal shootings of civilians by officers.
The motion filed today says that, over the past 11 years, the parties have worked together to implement new policies and procedures at the department.
"This work, although slow at first and difficult at times, has brought the City into compliance with most of the terms of the Consent Judgment, with some provisions having been in compliance for more than four years," the motion says.
In the monitor's report quarterly report dated July 14, the city was in full compliance with the first phase of the consent judgment and 90% compliant with the second phase, according to the motion.
Wayne State University law professor Peter Henning, a former federal prosecutor, said Friday that despite the consent decree running more than a decade, it's not unusual for government bodies to remain under years-long federal oversight when abuses are found.
Adding difficulty to Detroit emerging from oversight were its chronic budget problems and high turnover of police chiefs as well as a former mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, who the federal officials discovered, through text messages, had an inappropriate relationship with a federal monitor, Sheryl Robinson Wood, appointed to oversee the troubled department.
But Henning also blamed a hefty dose of the delays on intransigence at the DPD.
"No government likes to be told what to do," Henning said. "They like to tell people what to do. They like to give orders. Police departments are resistant to change -- the thin blue line."
Henning said it's clear the DPD has ended the worst of its abuses of constitutional rights, but he also said the department isn't out of the woods, noting its backlog of rape-kit tests.
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McClatchy-Tribune News Service
