The Detroit Board of Police Commissioners is the civilian oversight organization of the

Detroit Police Department The Detroit Police Department (DPD) is a municipal police force based in and responsible for the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. Founded in 1865, it has nearly 2,500 officers, making it the largest law enforcement organization in Michigan. Histo ...

. The current 11-member board has broad supervisory authority over the department.

History

The Detroit City Charter was enacted in 1865, the Michigan Legislature allowed for a commission of four members to be appointed by the Governor to oversee the

for eight-year terms. Since 1974, the Detroit Police Commission has been charged with police department oversight regarding policy and rules, budget approval, officer discipline and citizen complaints. Detroit-Council-District-Map

The current charter was enacted in 2012 by a vote of Detroit residents. The body lost its power when the city became bankrupt in 2013, when Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr executed Executive Order 11. This authority was restored by a vote of the

Detroit City Council The Detroit City Council is the legislative body of Detroit, Michigan, United States. The full-time council is required to meet every business day for at least 10 months of the year, with at least eight of these meetings occurring at a location ...

in September 2015.

Composition and authority

Board of Police Commissioners has 11 members, seven are elected from each Police Commission District and four are appointed by the Mayor.

Current members

Districts

Police Commissioner districts have identical boundaries to the City Council districts. Each commissioner serves a four-year term.

Controversy

Open Meetings Act

Members and non-members have criticized the commission for alleged violations of the Michigan Open Meetings Act. On April 4, 2019, Robert Davis brought suit against the board alleging that they had been meeting privately with upper-tier members of the Detroit Police Department regarding personnel and business contracts. In response, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge

Daniel Hathaway Daniel is a masculine given name and a surname of Hebrew origin. It means "God is my judge"Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 68. (cf. Gabriel—"God is my strength"), ...

ordered then Chairman Willie Bell to a show cause hearing because the judge was considering a temporary restraining order against the board. At the April 11, 2019, board meeting, Fifth District Commissioner Willie Burton moved to open all committee meetings to the public. This was the third meeting at which he had made the motion, and it failed to be seconded. On October 14, Detroit’s Office of the Inspector General found that the Board of Police Commissioners had abused its authority by delegating hiring power to its secretary, Gregory Hicks. The Inspector General initiated the investigation after receiving a complaint on November 14 2019. The investigation concluded that the commission abused its authority in 2016 by delegating its charter-mandated authority to Hicks, which the report said caused violations of the Michigan Open Meetings Act afterwards.

Facial Recognition Technology Debate

The Detroit Board of Police Commissioners received global notoriety after the newly appointed Chair Lisa Carter had Police arrest Commissioner Willie Burton during a meeting. Carter said Burton was arrested for speaking out of turn, while Burton said it was an attempt to silence citizen voices. Many community members had shown up to the meeting to express their disapproval of facial recognition technology. Some of them wore masks in protest. Facial recognition technology became a matter of local public interest on June 13, 2019, when the board held a meeting to defend a proposed policy on the technology and to hear public comments. They had scheduled a vote on the technology for June 27. The meeting came a year after Detroit agreed to pay surveillance vendor $1 million in order to stream live video to locations where they could monitor it. The Detroit Police had been using the technology for two years at the time of the meeting. Following the July 11 arrest, Detroit became divided over the technology. At later meetings, the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

and other community organizations expressed opposition to use of the technology by law enforcement. The Board approved a facial recognition technology policy on September 19, 2019, with more restrictions than the police department had originally asked for.

References

External links

* {{Detroit Police Department, state=autocollapse Detroit Police Department Police oversight organizations 1974 establishments in Michigan Government watchdog groups in the United States