Detroit Police

U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib wants law enforcement to stop using facial recognition software to identify criminal suspects.

A report from the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology found Detroit is one of the first and largest cities to use the technology.

The report also says the software makes mistakes, especially when it's used to identify people with darker skin. Those mistakes can lead to false arrests. 

Detroit police have started searching abandoned homes as part of an investigation into a possible serial killer and rapist.

Detroit Police Chief James Craig says the killer appears to be targeting sex workers on the city’s east side. Three women’s bodies have been found in vacant homes there in the past several months.

Two white former Detroit police officers are being sued over a Snapchat video that showed them making racist comments about an African American motorist.

Officers Gary Steele and Michael Garrison were fired over the Snapchat video post. It showed the two mocking Ariel Moore after towing her car, with commentary like “what black girl magic looks like.”

An “environmental audit” of northwest Detroit’s 6th police precinct has revealed pockets of racist behavior that was tolerated by command staff there, Detroit Police Chief James Craig said on Wednesday.

The audit was sparked by a January Snapchat video from a white 6th Precinct officer, Gary Steele. The video shows Steele and partner Michael Garrison mocking African American motorist Ariel Moore after having her car towed for expired tags, and included seemingly racist commentary like “this is what black girl magic looks like.”

Nearly four years after he was shot by officers trying to arrest him at his father’s Detroit home, Terrance Kellom’s parents say evidence from their federal lawsuit shows the police account of their son’s death doesn’t make sense.

The initial story was that a single federal agent, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Mitchell Quinn, shot and killed Kellom when a multi-agency task force attempted to arrest him on an armed robbery warrant in April 2015.

The city of Detroit has settled a lawsuit with the family of a girl shot and killed by a Detroit police officer nine years ago.

Aiyana Stanley-Jones was seven years old and asleep on a couch with her grandmother when Detroit police raided their east side home looking for a murder suspect in 2010.

Detroit Police Chief James Craig has fired a second white police officer because of a seemingly racist Snapchat video.

Michael Garrison’s partner Gary Steele made the video after they towed a young black woman’s car for expired plates in January, leaving her to walk home in frigid temperatures. It included racially-charged commentary like “what black girl magic looks like.” Garrison can be heard saying “walk of shame.”

Craig launched an investigation into the incident and both police officers in February. He also launched an “environmental audit” of the sixth precinct, where both worked.

Some of Detroit’s black women leaders are rallying behind the young woman who was taunted on video by two white police officers—and calling for some bigger changes at the Detroit Police Department.

State Representative Sherry Gay-Dagnogo organized the event that brought some of the city’s state legislators and other officials out to support Ariel Moore.

Detroit’s ombudsman says the city should have a plan in place to prevent racial incidents from blowing up into civil disturbances.

Speaking to the Detroit Police Board of Commissioners Thursday, Bruce Simpson cited “a number of racially-charged incidents that have taken place recently.”

Most Detroit police officers will get raises under a newly-extended contract.

Mayor Mike Duggan opened the Detroit Police Officers Association contract two years before it’s set to expire. Under the new contract, which runs until 2022, all DPOA officers will get2 percent base wage hikes immediately, and 7 percent hikes by 2021. That’s in addition to an already-scheduled 3 percent increase in 2019.

At least 18 people, including Democratic congressional candidate Rashida Tlaib, were taken into police custody at a pro-union rally in downtown Detroit Tuesday.

An African-American police officer is suing the Detroit police department, claiming rampant racial discrimination, a hostile work environment, and an atmosphere of retaliation against black officers.

11-year department veteran Johnny Strickland lays out that case in a new federal civil rights lawsuit. It accuses Detroit police of fostering widespread racial discrimination, where white supervisors retaliate against black subordinates who complain.

Despite some recent, high-profile deaths in the line of duty, the Detroit Police Department is graduating plenty of new officers.

Twenty-three new recruits graduated from the police academy this past week. It’s the second class of graduating officers so far this year.

Two Detroit police officers have been charged in an October fatal crash.

Wayne County prosecutors said Friday that 26-year-old Stephen Heid and 28-year-old Ronald Cadez face charges of willful neglect of duty.

The Detroit Police Department wants to boost its budget and add personnel in the coming budget year, but some in the department want to focus on keeping the officers the department already has.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s budget proposes an additional $8 million for police in the coming fiscal year.

The department wants to use much of that to add another 141 employees to its ranks.

Gov. Rick Snyder has ordered U.S. and Michigan flags to be lowered to half-staff in honor of a Detroit police officer who died after his unmarked patrol car crashed on the city's southwest side.

 The flags will be lowered Tuesday for Darren Weathers on all state buildings and within the Capitol complex. State residents, businesses, schools, local governments and other organizations can follow suit.

A man now faces first-degree murder and murder of a peace officer charges in the shooting of a 25-year-old Detroit police officer.

The Wayne County prosecutor's office said yesterday that charges against 43-year-old Decharlos Brooks will be amended after the death of Officer Glenn Doss.

Doss died Sunday at a hospital. He was shot once in the head Wednesday night while sitting in the passenger seat of a patrol car after he and his partner responded to a domestic violence complaint.

Detroit leaders say violent crime is trending downward in the city, a fact Mayor Mike Duggan and law enforcement officials touted Thursday as they released the city’s complete, but still unofficial, 2017 crime statistics. 

Police Chief James Craig admits that while the numbers are looking better, Detroit is still one of the most violent big cities in the country.

“We’re not saying we’re successful. We’re saying we’re making progress, and we want to sustain the progress,” Craig said. “And we’re doing it.”

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has charged a former Michigan State Police trooper and three Detroit police officers with a slew of serious crimes, including second-degree murder.

Former MSP trooper Mark Bessner faces the murder charge. He’s also charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter.

Detroit Police Chief James Craig says a high-speed chase that ended with a teen’s death Monday was an “egregious incident” that “never should have happened.”

Craig has already suspended the two officers involved in the pursuit, which ended in a collision that killed the 19-year-old driver and injured a 67-year-old man.

Davontae Sanford is suing the city of Detroit, as well as former Detroit Police Commander James Tolbert and Sgt. Mike Russell, for wrongful imprisonment. 

Sanford spent nearly nine years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. At age 14, he was picked up by Detroit police in 2007 after four people were gunned down in a home in his neighborhood. Police interrogated him off and on for 2 days without a parent or attorneys present.

A Michigan State Police trooper has been suspended after he shot a 15-year-old all-terrain vehicle driver with a Taser, prior to the teen fatally crashing into the back of a pickup truck.

Charges have now been filed in the shooting death of a Wayne State University police officer.

Raymond Durham, 61, faces first-degree murder and three other charges in the fatal shooting of Sergeant Collin Rose last November. Rose was shot in the head while conducting a bicycle traffic stop near midtown Detroit.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s office had to drop charges against another man accused of Rose’s murder last year. But Worthy says the case against Durham is different.

After spending 25 years in prison for murder, Desmond Ricks was officially exonerated Thursday.

Wayne County prosecutors admitted in court they simply don’t have the evidence to re-try Ricks for the 1992 shooting death of his friend Gerry Bennett outside a Detroit restaurant.

A federal agent had “no justifiable excuse or reason to shoot 20-year-old Terrance Kellom” at his father’s Detroit home in April 2015.

That’s what Kellom’s family said in a civil wrongful death lawsuit filed in federal court Thursday.

The suit names Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Mitchell Quinn, and two Detroit police officers as defendants. Quinn is the officer who shot and killed Terrance Kellom.

The officers say Kellom dropped through a hole in the ceiling, and advanced on them with a hammer.