Detroit Board of Police Commissioners meeting, Sept. 29, 2022
Commissioners praised Chief of Police James White for a town hall meeting last week, during which he defended the proposal to expand the ShotSpotter surveillance technology in the city. White said the Detroit Police Department (DPD) intends to host these town hall meetings every quarter.
“If we wanna get serious, we gotta hold people accountable and lock folks up, again and again.”
In a public comment, a representative for the Wayne State Police Accountability Task Force expressed confusion over why the task force’s presentation was rescinded from the board’s Sept. 1 meeting. Commissioners Linda Bernard and Willie Bell wanted action on the task force’s findings.
Commissioners rescinded a presentation by police oversight activist Victoria Shah from the board’s Oct. 6 meeting agenda.
The board approved police chief White’s recommendation to promote Cpt. Ryan Connor to the rank of commander. Commissioner Cedric Banks mentioned that Connor had 43 citizen complaints against him, including 22 use-of-force complaints. White said those were made before Connor was promoted to captain.
Commissioners also approved White’s recommendation to promote Lt. Matthew Fulgenzi and Lt. James Cole to the rank of captain. Police chief White mentioned that Lt. Fulgenzi had citizen complaints but none were “career-ending.”
The board approved hiring Candace Hayes as its legal administrative assistant. Some commissioners were displeased that Hayes already started her job three days before they could vote on her hiring. In a confidential memo seemingly published by accident, Corporation Counsel Conrad Mallett stated no violation of the City Charter occurred.
Table of Contents
Documentation
The meeting was live-blogged on Mastodon and Twitter for Detroit Documenters, which offers its own report.
Documents available on Documenters.org, including the meeting agenda and more documentation by Paige Rollins.
The agency’s last meeting on Sept. 22 was documented by Damien Benson and Paul Warner. The next meeting on Oct. 6 was documented by Dan Ignacio and Paige Rollins.
Visit the agency’s website for official information.
Related news articles
- “Detroit City Council approves $7 million ShotSpotter expansion”
Oct. 11, 2022, Briana Rice, Michigan Radio - “Will ShotSpotter expand in Detroit? Council delays vote”
Sept. 27, 2022, Malachi Barrett, BridgeDetroit - “‘Not an immediate urgency’: For over 9 months, Detroit police commissioners have been sitting on report detailing insufficient data about citizen complaints”
Sept. 20, 2022, Malak Silmi, Outlier Media - “Is the new, larger Wayne County jail complex justifiable?”
Sept. 14, 2022, Rasha Almulaiki, Michigan Chronicle - “Police oversight board plans to take up WSU report on its flaws”
Sept. 2, 2022, Bryce Huffman, BridgeDetroit
Materials
Archived pages
Mastodon posts and meeting page are archived on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
Audio
The actual start of the meeting (3:02 p.m.) can be heard 32 minutes into the recording.
Images
Screenshots of online meeting. Due to limited resources, image descriptions are provided on request — contact me.
Meta
Page published Dec. 19, 2022.
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