Board of Police Commissioners

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They’re having some weird audio, I’ll let you know when it resolves

In the meantime, here’s the agenda for this meeting

https://detroitmi.gov/sites/detroitmi.localhost/files/events/2025-02/Agenda%20February%2027%2C%202025.pdf

The meeting was called to order and Commander Gregory Wilson, a police chaplain, gave the invocation

They approved the minutes from the previous meeting unanimously

There’s a lot of people attending this meeting, they listed a long list of staff and elected officials in attendance

Chief of Police report flew by. Basically violent crime is down and the department is trying to combat homelessness by allowing people to shelter in any police precinct. A story was related about a man who died in his car trying to stay warm with a propane heater.

Commissioner Bernard praised the DPDs response to the recent death of two children from exposure due to being unhoused. She related that Comm’r Darryl Woods personally paid for the funeral of the children

Comm’r Woods responded that he wished that fact had remained private, and went on to further praise Chief Bettison and the department.

Comm’r Banks just added the chief’s rep for a job for a pal. Felt odd. I’ll try and look into it

Moving on to public comment. First commenter was from Ravendale and had issues with the Traveler’s Inn, which everyone in the meeting seems to know is a hotbed of seediness and crime.

Next commenter lamented the state of care in the city, and expressed her sadness at the death of the children in the recent incident

The next commenter notes that the database used to track officers who have been convicted of a crime or of misconduct has been shut down by the Trump admin. She said it is incumbent on the community to make sure bad cops aren’t just shuffled around.

Minister Eric Blount of Sacred Heart Catholic Church says the Board is concentrating on things outside its purview in order to look competent, while real issues are being ignored.

He mentioned citizens being wrongfully arrested due to being misidentified by facial recognition software.

A second commenter asked the department rep about Trump deleting the police misconduct register. DPD says it won’t affect them at all, because they have their own list and exhaustive background checks.

Next commenter was trying to get in private contact with Darryl Woods about her relative who was reincarnated after years in parole with a GPS tracker. Woods said he’d look into it.

The next commenter came in hot against several commissioners, accusing them of a cover up, then dropped an f-bomb and got cut off.

Former commissioner William Davis called in to advocate for reserve police officers. He said they should receive a stipend or at least a gas card for their efforts

A caller echoed sentiments of Minister Blount about the proper role of police commissioners, and how their role is not to deal with homelessness, but with police misconduct.

In New Business, a motion was made by Comm’r Carter to raise the proposed salary of a job posting and to post another job listing. The motions both pass unanimously

The meeting was adjourned at 4:01pm

Well folks, this closes my coverage of the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners meeting for February 27th. Learn more about our coverage of local meetings at https://documenters.org

‼️IMPORTANT: If you believe anything in the coverage today is inaccurate, please email us at documenters@outliermedia.org with “Correction Request” in the subject line