Mayor Announces Plan to Fight Crime: DETRO1T ONE

Following up on statements made in his State of the City address last month, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing made a major announcement last week, stating that Detroit will collaborate with the region’s top federal and state law enforcers to work on new ways to fight violent crime together.

DETRO1T ONE: Mayor Announces Plan to Fight Crime

The program, called Detroit One, will use rapid information sharing and collaboration by Detroit police with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Michigan State Police, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to target the worst offenders in Detroit. It is being modeled after a similar program that was successfully implemented in Washington D.C.

The program will work primarily by:

• Targeting chronic violent offenders. By sharing information and resources, the agencies hope more of these individuals will be arrested, and more quickly.
• Establish city wide investigations in order to track the movement of offenders.
• Assign prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office to each Detroit police precinct, in order to give around the clock legal advice, approve search warrants and charging documents, and decide as a team whether state or federal charges would be most prudent.

Additionally, due to significant funding cuts to prosecutors in the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office, subject to this agreement, prosecutions of Detroit’s violent offenders may be more likely to occur in federal court.

The regional head of the FBI and Michigan State Police will also be a part of the program, and are set to assign 13 newly graduated officers to the city, in addition to the 12 who were already added last year.

All in all, the plan will not create any additional costs for the City, which has already hired an emergency financial manager to address the $300 million shortfall.

The mayor and other officials also emphasize the importance of Detroit citizens supplying information to the police, calling for an end to the “no snitch” culture.

Subsequent to this announcement, another big commitment was made, this time from private Detroit businesses.

The mayor made a statement Monday that Penske Corporation, in addition to other businesses, including Detroit’s automakers, Quicken Loans and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, will donate $8 million toward the purchase of 23 EMS units and 100 police cruisers in order to boost public safety and reduce response times.

Penske has said that they hope to have the new police cars on the streets within 60-90 days. “We’ve talked to the manufacturer — and these are special-built vehicles, so, they have to be specked and built on line.” They also want to ensure that the vehicles are equipped with top of the line electronic equipment. The EMS units are hoped to be up and running in the city within 120-160 days.

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