And one of the people the text messages showed he was having "improper contact" with was Baltimore attorney Sheryl Robinson Wood, head of the monitoring team from the time federal intervention began in the summer of 2003 until June 2009. During that time, Wood and the two firms she was associated with collected in excess of $10 million from the city of Detroit.

According to court records, Judge Cook concluded that Wood "had engaged in conduct which was totally inconsistent with the terms and conditions of the two consent judgments ..." That conduct, the judge wrote, included "undisclosed communications, as well as meetings of a personal nature, with the former city of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick during the term of the consent judgments" and "inappropriate discussions with [Kilpatrick] about the lawsuit." In other words, the independent monitor was anything but independent.

The clear implication is that progress was stymied as a result.

The city attempted to have Judge Cook order the entire $10 million be repaid. The judge declined, saying that the city needed to file a separate breach of contract lawsuit if it wanted to recoup the funds. Whether such a suit will be filed hasn't yet been determined.

Critics, however, contend that the system itself is flawed. They argue that, with more than $1 million a year coming in, the motivation for those collecting that cash is to have the process drag on as long as possible.

In 2003, after the deal was struck, Detroit attorney Ronald Glotta, who provides office space to the coalition and does commentary for the group's weekly radio show, wrote a piece lambasting the use of private contractors to oversee reform of the DPD.

The monitor, Glotta wrote, will "be paid huge sums of money" by the city, yet "assumes no responsibility for the effectiveness of its activity. As with all privatizing projects, the company appropriates all the profit, privilege and perks but imposes on the citizens all the risks, losses, hazards and liabilities."

"The question being presented is why the city of Detroit is spending so much money to accomplish so little."

It proved to be prescient criticism. Certainly, during the first six years of the consent decrees, much was paid out and little accomplished. No one can dispute that.

Asked if he thought having a for-profit monitor created an incentive to delay the reform process in order to keep generating income, Deputy Mayor Green replied, "Not with this monitor."

Green is a former U.S. Attorney who, after entering private practice, was a monitor himself, hired to oversee implementation of a consent decree involving the Cincinnati Police Department in 2002.

In 2008, he was appointed deputy mayor when then-Council President Ken Cockrel Jr. assumed the role of interim mayor Kilpatrick was forced to resign. Bing retained Green as his deputy mayor after being elected in May 2009.

As a result, Green, whose duties in the Bing administration include oversight of the Police Department, has seen the monitoring process from both sides.

Departmental angst

Changing the way a police department operates — especially when it comes to attitudes ingrained over decades — is an enormous task, even under the best of circumstances.

When those changes are being imposed from the outside, it is all the more difficult.

From the writing of a consent decree to its implementation, nobody fully appreciates all the difficulties involved, Green says.

"Police departments don't anticipate the amount of work it will take," he says. "There can be resistance to having the federal government dictate changes, and internal angst over losing control."

Part of that can be attributed to the mountains of paperwork required by the monitors.

Because of the consent decrees, activities as routine as the frisking of suspects or foot chases all require that the officers involved fill out reports.

Some changes were certainly necessary, says Officer John Bennett, who offers frequent commentaries about the department and city politics in his blog, DetroitUncovered. But, he says, "In other ways we are being hamstrung because we are so overcome by paperwork. You get so bogged down in the mounds and mounds of paperwork that officers end up being taken off the street, keeping you from answering a call that might involve someone being in harm's way."

"Generally," he says, "we'll be happy when they [the monitors] are gone, when that cloud hanging over us is gone, and those millions of dollars that are going to the monitors can be poured back into manpower."

"The day we can finally say we are out from under these consent decrees will be a good day," he says.

How much paperwork might be eliminated once the consent decrees are finally lifted isn't clear. And it's not just a matter of paperwork. Along with reviewing procedures followed when cops are investigating other cops, one of the things members of the monitoring team routinely do now is listen to tapes of suspect interviews to determine if leading questions are being asked, and if the interrogations are thorough.

However, even if the mayor keeps the promise made during his recent State of the City address and the Police Department meets all the objectives laid out in the consent decrees by the end of this year, the monitor will continue to provide oversight to ensure compliance for an additional year before the monitor and DOJ are removed from the picture.

For that day to come, though, the department has to truly embrace the need for change, and to understand that the feds are here to help make the department better, Green and Chief Godbee explain.

"What is necessary," Green says, "is to finally get to the point where you say, 'enough pushback,' and the department realizes it just has to get the job done."

The Detroit Police Department is, he says, now getting the job done.

Certainly there was much difficulty dealing with the previous monitor, says former Detroit Police Chief James Barren.

Appointed by Cockrel, Barren served as chief until shortly after Bing took office. He describes the situation while Wood was monitor as tense. "There was a lot of animosity in those meetings," he recalls. "My feeling is, that really slowed things down."

And what does he think of the criticism that the former monitor could have been motivated to keep the pace of change slow?

"Who knows?" he says. "But it makes you wonder. I thought about that myself a few times."

A bigger problem, though, was funding.

"We just didn't have the money to get done a lot of things we were being told to do," he says.

There have been long, costly and often futile attempts to get a computerized tracking system in place. And then there are problems with aging holding cells, which the city says it just doesn't have the money to bring into compliance.

Which brings into focus the monitor's fees. By the time Wood resigned as monitor, she and her team were being paid more than $193,000 a month, which amounts to more than $2.3 million a year. (Warshaw's team is a relative bargain at slightly more than $91,000 a month, or about $1 million a year.)

Another factor that has to be considered when looking for reasons why the process has dragged on so long has to do with turnover at the top.

In the nearly eight years since the consent decrees were issued, Detroit has had three mayors and five different chiefs of police.

Every change in administration results in a shuffling of the department's top brass, creating an impediment to progress.

"Every time you get a new chief, there is always an adjustment period, and a shake-up of the bureaucracy, which is destabilizing. In an atmosphere like that, work just can't get done," says Mohammed Okdie, a former chair of the appointed Board of Police Commissioners.

The board, under the City Charter that has been in place since 1974, provides oversight of the Police Department.

With work under way on a new City Charter, there has been discussion regarding changes that could be made that would provide that body with more independence.

Okdie, for one, says it's a change that is much needed.

Final authority

A former social worker for Detroit Public Schools, Okdie was appointed to the Board of Police Commissioners by Kwame Kilpatrick in 2005.

The commission reviews and approves the Police Department's budget before it is sent to the mayor and City Council. It is also tasked with overseeing the investigation of citizen complaints, and acts "as final authority in imposing or reviewing discipline of employees of the department," as noted in an analysis conducted by the nonprofit Citizens Research Council of Michigan.

The problem with the setup Okdie says he saw from his vantage point as the board's president is a lack of checks and balances: The chief of police and all members of the board are appointed by the mayor.

"If the mayor appoints the commissioners, then those commissioners will be subservient to the mayor's will," Okdie says.

Looking at the history of the board, Okdie says it was created following voter approval of the City Charter in 1973. At that time, as the percentage of African-Americans in the city was growing, the police force remained largely white. The city's black population was outraged by the actions of the STRESS unit, an acronym for Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets. Members of the unit shot and killed 17 civilians in a four-year period, according to a Detroit News report.

Coleman A. Young, the city's first African-American mayor, disbanded STRESS soon after he was elected. Young also moved quickly to increase the number of black officers on the police force.

A lot of people blamed the problem on the issue of race, says Councilmember Gary Brown, a former deputy chief in the department. "It turned out to be not a black or white issue, but a blue issue."

Okdie expresses some amazement that Detroit voters were quick to rise up and make a fundamental change in oversight of the department in the early '70s, when an average of four people a year where dying at the hands of the STRESS unit, yet remained relatively quiet during the 1990s, when an annual average of 10 people were being killed by police.

"I'm appalled that the citizenry isn't more outraged over the handling of the consent decrees and what the DPD did in the years leading up to it," Okdie says.

The bottom line, he says, is this: If the Board of Police Commissioners had been truly independent and doing its job effectively in the '90s, then problems would have been illuminated and addressed before they got out of hand, and the federal government would not have found it necessary to step in.

The difficulty of remaining truly independent, he asserts, was highlighted by an especially tragic incident that's still making headlines and causing questions to be raised.

In 2010, Okdie's last year on the commission, 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones died from a police gunshot during a controversial raid at her family's home on the city's east side.

Part of the controversy involved the use of a flash grenade, and questions of whether it was set off to increase the drama for a television crew that was filming the action.

(Last week, after a nine-month investigation, the Michigan State Police issued a warrant request in the case. The name of person they say should be charged, and the exact charges they are seeking, have yet to be released.)

Following the killing, Okdie says, he pushed the board to conduct an investigation to determine if department policies had been followed.

Shortly afterward, he says, he received a visit from Deputy Mayor Green. Disturbed by what he considered an inappropriate encounter, Okdie sent a letter to Mayor Bing.

Green, Okdie claimed in the letter, "attempted to direct the activity of the board by advising me as to what he 'preferred' that we do. He also did not want us to hold a press conference and asked that we say nothing at all regarding the case."

He went on to complain of Green's "frequent" involvement in board issues. Okdie called the contacts "improper."

"The board has the potential to create a fair and trusted environment for the police and for the community but it cannot do so if this interference continues," Okdie concluded.

Bing responded with a letter of his own, telling Okdie that his "characterization of Mr. Green's actions as an inappropriate attempt to influence ... are completely wrong and I reject them."

Bing concluded his letter with a terse statement: "Finally, with your tenure on the Board coming to an end July 1, 2010, I want to thank you for your service to the citizens of Detroit."

Okdie says the Charter Commission should change how members of the Police Board of Commissioners are selected; he advocates that they be directly elected. It is unclear whether any other cities use such a model. There are a number of oversight commissions, however, whose members are appointed by city councils rather than mayors; others have systems where appointment authority is shared.

Although he didn't specify a particular approach, Council member Brown tells the Metro Times that with a City Charter revision under way, "now is the time to give the Board of Police Commissioners teeth."

In a recent interview with the Metro Times, Scott of the Coalition Against Police Brutality also complained about the way the Police Department handled the Stanley-Jones case.

"We went for months without being able to get information about what's going on," complains Scott.

On the other hand, he gives Green and Godbee high marks for accessibility and engagement.

And even Scott admits that, in some ways, the situation is certainly better than it was a decade ago.

"We're not seeing high-profile shootings every week," he says. On the other hand, the coalition receives a "continuous stream of complaints about adverse behavior" that he claims is "making people more hostile and disrespectful."

He offers up a pile of cases containing complaints the coalition has received. There are stories alleging unlawful detention, groping body searches, beatings, and generally hostile and abusive treatment at the hands of cops.

"It's like walking up a slippery hill," he says. "You make progress, and then you slip back down.

Scott says the coalition is talking with attorneys from the National Lawyers Guild about the possibility of again attempting to formally intervene in the consent decree process.

Told of Scott's concerns during an interview with a reporter, Green suggested talking with other community activists, mentioning several names.

Among them was Raphael B. Johnson.

Convicted of second-degree murder as a teenager, Johnson turned his life around after serving his time. A motivational speaker and author who made an unsuccessful bid for City Council in 2009, Johnson was appointed by Bing to a seat on the Board of Police Commissioners last year, but withdrew his name after it became apparent the council wouldn't confirm him.

Last year, he founded the group Detroit 300, which helps residents organize to fight crime in their neighborhoods.

Johnson freely offers praise for Godbee, saying the chief can often be found in those same neighborhoods, building rapport with the community.

"He represents the idea of where we need to go," observes Johnson. "Godbee is very hands-on and community-friendly. But it is going to take a while for that attitude to trickle down."

Especially in a city like Detroit, where the situation on both sides of the blue line can be extremely dangerous, he says. Residents have a deeply held fear of the police, but the cops have justified fears of their own.

A much publicized incident in January, involving a gunmen who walked into a police precinct and began blasting away, wounding four officers before he was shot and killed, provided a graphic look at the dangers officers face.

In Johnson's view, for Detroit to become safer, politicians, the police department and residents have to work together.

"If any one of those three don't stay true to that spirit of cooperation," says Johnson, "we all are going to fall."

Strides and concerns

Asked what he thought of a group like the coalition becoming involved in the consent decree now, Deputy Mayor Green says that "at this point, seven years into the process, bringing another party in would not be helpful."

However, he says that, once compliance is attained, the administration will be open to "considering another structure that would provide citizen involvement."

As the interview progresses, he expresses some concern that the questions are focusing on what remains to be accomplished, and not the great strides that have been made since Bing took office.

Perhaps the most important accomplishment claimed by the department involves the implementation of a computer tracking system.

As far back as at least 1997, when L.A. attorney Merrick Bobb provided his report to then-Mayor Dennis Archer, the Police Department was being urged to create a comprehensive computer system that thoroughly tracks the actions of officers — including instances that result in the department being sued, and any payouts that are made as a result.

And, as recently as 2009, says Chief Godbee, it looked as if that effort might have to be scrapped and the process started anew. But the system was able to be salvaged, he says. Although it has not yet been certified as adequate by the monitor, it is up and running and doing every thing it is expected to.

Another significant hurdle involves the conditions in the city's lockups. In 1999, this paper found that, between 1992 and 1998, at least 18 prisoners had died or committed suicide while being held by Detroit police.

Godbee says that negotiations are under way with the Wayne County Sheriff's Department to have it take over the task of holding prisoners.

That, too, is an issue that is expected to be resolved soon.

But it's not just a matter of "checking off boxes," says the chief. He and this administration share the goal of not just being in compliance, but of making this a "best practices" department that is seen as a model that other departments around the country look to.

"As a police department, we are responsible for the public's safety," adds Green. With more than 3,000 officers, he says, "there are going to be some bad occurrences. Our goal is to keep them to a minimum, and then respond appropriately when the do occur."

Scott would agree with the need to do more than, as Godbee says, "just check off boxes."

At the heart of the issue is the culture of the department itself, and whether police officers see themselves as an occupying force or as partners in a communitywide effort to create a city that is safer for everyone — police and residents alike.

Beginning this week, with the Coalition Against Police Brutality leading the way, a public discussion will begin exploring ways to help ensure that happens.

They don't want assurances and promises. They want data and transparency. And they want to explore ways that can help make certain that the changes — not just in policy and procedure, but also in the culture of an entire police force — that began with a court action nearly eight years ago finally come to fruition.

This is the first in an occasional series of stories covering implementation of the federal consent decrees and oversight of the Detroit Police Department.

Day of inquiry
Meeting to mull effectiveness of federal consent decrees

An public event titled: "Day of Inquiry: Can the Courts Protect Us From Police Abuse?" will be held 4-6 p.m. Thursday, March 10, at the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights at the Wayne State University Law School, 471 W. Palmer St., Detroit.

The event will look at the effectiveness of the federal consent decrees that have been in place against the Detroit Police Department since 2003.

It is sponsored by the Keith Center for Civil Rights, the Coalition Against Police Brutality and the Detroit/Michigan Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.

Contact michigannlg.org or 313-963-0843 for more information.

> Email Curt Guyette