Detroit Police Department

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Detroit Police Department
Detroit Police Headquarters at 1300 Beaubien.
Making Detroit a safer place to live, work, and visit
Established 1865
Jurisdiction Municipal
Stations 6
Chief Ella M. Bully-Cummings

The Detroit Police Department serves the city of Detroit, Michigan. The department was founded in 1865 to serve the city's growing population. The department is broken into 6 districts, the central, southwestern, northeastern, western, eastern, and northwestern. The department has lost 6 officers between the years 2000 and 2007. The 1970s were hard on the department with 26 officers killed in ten years. Ella M. Bully-Cummings is the chief of police. She is the first female police chief in department history.

In 2000, the city requested an investigation by the United States Justice Department into the Detroit Police Department which was concluded in 2003 over allegations regarding its use of force and civil rights violations.[1] Despite the critics, the city proceeded with a major reorganization of the Detroit Police Department; simply put, the city seized the opportunity to trim its budget saving $20,000,000.[2]

Crime in Detroit, Michigan is unevenly distributed throughout the city.[3] Overall, crime in the City of Detroit declined by 23 percent from 2000 to 2004.[3] According to a 2006 study, crime in downtown Detroit is much lower than national, state and metro averages.[4] The Detroit Police Department's Crime Analysis Unit has reported that crimes have dropped by 24 percent since the introduction of casino gaming to the city.[5]

Contents

[edit] Demographics

Breakdown of the makeup of the rank and file of DPD [6]:

  • Male: 75%
  • Female: 25%
  • African-American/Black: 63%
  • White: 34%
  • Hispanic: 3%

The Detroit Police Department has one of the largest percentages of sworn black officers of any major city police department. Currently, 12 of the department's 15 upper command members including the chief, assistant chief of operations, assistant chief of administration, and all six of the department's district commanders are black [7]

[edit] Popular Culture

  • The Detroit Police Department is featured in the movie Robocop. In the movie, the police has been privatized and is owned by the megacorpration OCP.
  • The Detroit Police Department is featured in the 1973 blaxploitation film Detroit 9000.
  • The Detroit Police Department is a major focus of the 2005 film Four Brothers.
  • The Detroit Police Department plays a major role as the police force featured in the film Assault on Precinct 13
  • The Detroit Police Department has its very own section of the A&E television series "SWAT"

[edit] External links

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Quarterly Status Report to the Independent Federal Monitor. Detroit Police Department Retrieved on April 8, 2007.
  2. ^ Lin, Judy and David Joser, (August 30, 2005).Detroit to trim 150 cops, precincts. Detroit News. Retrieved on July 24, 2007.
  3. ^ a b Detroit Crime Barometer (October 2005). Center for Urban Studies, Wayne State University. Retrieved on February 13, 2008.
  4. ^ Booza, Jason C. (July 26, 2006). Reality v. Perceptions: An Updated Analysis of Crime and Safety in Downtown Detroit. Michigan Metropolitan Information Center, Wayne State University Center for Urban Studies. Retrieved on January 21, 2008.
  5. ^ Wilks, Jeff, Donna Pendergast, and Peter Leggat (2006). Tourism in Turbulent Times: Toward Safe Experiences for Visitors. Elsevier. ISBN 0080446663. , p. 103.
  6. ^ Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics, 2000: Data for Individual State and Local Agencies with 100 or More Officers
  7. ^ Detroit Police Department Organizational Chart