Public Leadership
Chief Craig and Mayor Duggan are moving the city in the wrong direction. They are resisting the depth of changes required to create peaceful, just communities. Instead, they are committed to protecting power and supporting the use of deadly force against people.
At a time when many people around the country are rethinking the role of policing, Craig and Duggan are increasing police budgets, expanding technological controls, and attempting to intimidate those who dare criticize any police abuse of power.
During the trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, Detroit police shot and killed two people, both of whom were experiencing emotional and psychological distress.
Saying the use of deadly force is never easy to think about, Chief Craig praised officers for bravery and quickly moved to attack “anti-police rhetoric” which he said is fueling escalating anger against police. What could have been a moment to acknowledge the critical need for support and compassion as people throughout our community deal with trauma, became yet another opportunity for the Chief to grandstand his attacks on Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib.
Such tactics mirror the most regressive politics in our country. They depend on stoking the fears of people to justify expanding police powers. They invoke division and promote a culture willing to accept brutality and death.
That is why the recent findings of the International Commission of Inquiry on Systemic Racist Police Violence Against People of African Descent in the United States are so important. Issued at the end of April, the report has received almost no mainstream coverage in Detroit. Its findings, however, bear directly on our city and on the kind of rethinking we must do to radically alter the practices of protecting one another.
Twelve Commissioners from around the world spent 18 days listening to testimony from family members, activists, attorneys, and criminal justice experts. The commission examined in-depth the shooting of 44 African Americans, 43 were killed and one person was paralyzed. All of the victims were unarmed. None of the victims posed any threat to police. The Commissioners concluded that the systematic police killings of Black people in the U.S. constitutes a prima facie case of crimes against humanity and they asked the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to initiate an investigation of responsible police officials. Chief Craig and the City of Detroit should be among them.
The report details findings that included a “pattern of destruction and manipulation of evidence,” medical examiners colluding with police, prosecutorial misconduct, grand jury abuse, systemic impunity and lack of oversight.
The report took on the notion that death and abuse are the product of just a few “bad apples.” Rather it highlighted the “real problem” of “structural racism that is embedded in the U.S. legal and policing systems. “
At the press conference releasing the report, Collette Flanagan, founder of Mothers Against Police Brutality said, “We are into orchards of bad apples with trees that have diseased roots tainted with racism and white supremacy, and they are bearing rotten fruit.”
The recommendations of the Commission are clear and include the passage of the BREATHE Act. Such reforms are essential to protect life, but most of us know that none of the reforms of the last 40 years have made a difference in police violence.
Rather community efforts to develop peaceful, imaginative and compassionate responses to trauma are pointing the way to not only defunding police, but creating systems of real support and security.
In the face of mounting evidence and concern, Chief Craig and Mayor Duggan continue to ignore evidence, defend abuse, and attack those who are pushing us toward peaceful community life. They do not deserve to be in positions of public leadership.