Detroit News: DPD routinely underreporting homicides (AKA covering up murders)

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090...micides/?imw=Y

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A thorough look at the 2008 homicide statistics reveals other omissions:


• In one case, the police reclassified a homicide as a suicide.
• Two men were stabbed to death, but were not included due to "insufficient evidence."
• A man who was beaten to death, according to the medical examiner, died by accident, according to the police.
• A baby beaten to death never made the homicide tally, nor did a man who was found shot in the head.

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Detroit = The Wire

Got to juke the stats, we can't pull those bodies out of the rowhouses!

Since this has been going on for years, it's safe to say that homicide tallies for previous years for the City of Detroit are almost certainly too low. And if this is going on for murders, what other serious crimes are being swept under the rug to keep the stats lower? The sad part is, if a murder is reclassified as a suicide or an accident, then it isn't being investigated and a MURDERER gets to walk free.

Where the heck are Bunk & McNulty?

One minute.

If this IS going on, and it seems to be simple conjecture near as I can read between the lines, it is orchestrate by the very top brass of the DPD [[and city administration) and not the rank and file. The grunts of Homicide do their darndest, believe me. And if some Deputy Chief told a grunt to change a murder cast to a suicide when it wasn't, I can darn near guarantee you that the press would have been tipped off to specific cases.

Anyway, don't indict the whole DPD for lying. Those of you who took statistics 101 know well how you can manipulate figures.

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Originally Posted by Ray1936

One minute.

If this IS going on, and it seems to be simple conjecture near as I can read between the lines, it is orchestrate by the very top brass of the DPD [[and city administration) and not the rank and file. The grunts of Homicide do their darndest, believe me. And if some Deputy Chief told a grunt to change a murder cast to a suicide when it wasn't, I can darn near guarantee you that the press would have been tipped off to specific cases.

Anyway, don't indict the whole DPD for lying. Those of you who took statistics 101 know well how you can manipulate figures.

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And Detroit is surely not the only department fudging their figures.

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Originally Posted by Ray1936

One minute.

If this IS going on, and it seems to be simple conjecture near as I can read between the lines

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I'll take the word of the News/Free Press over ANYONE in Detroit city government any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Do you really doubt this is going on, or do you truly honestly believe that Detroit only had 340 murders last year? That's the number that the DPD reported and it doesn't pass the smell test from where I'm sitting.

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Originally Posted by ejames01

Where the heck are Bunk & McNulty?

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Nah, for this you need Lester, to find all of those bodies in the vacant row houses.

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Originally Posted by iheartthed

And Detroit is surely not the only department fudging their figures.

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I know what you mean. After all, there were probably 125 murders in Grosse Ile last year, we just didn't hear about them.

You rarely hear on the news about murders Unless its more than one person or it was an unusal situation. People get gunned down every day, you just don't hear about it.

SOP for police everywhere

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Originally Posted by kraig

I know what you mean. After all, there were probably 125 murders in Grosse Ile last year, we just didn't hear about them.

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I'm talking about other major cities.

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Originally Posted by iheartthed

And Detroit is surely not the only department fudging their figures.

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More proof positive that the number one issue facing detroit is the pervasive systemic culture of denial. It does not matter if detroit is not the only city "fudging their figures" What matters is that numbers were misrepresented. What matters even more is that these "numbers" equal DEAD PEOPLE.

Let me apply your "detroit is not the only" argument to some other issues facing the city.
Detroit is not the ony city:
...to have a Mayor resign and do time in jail.
...to have several city Council Members indicted, and/or under federal investigation etc.
...to have a state appointed emergency finacial manager in charge if its' school system.
...to be facing a budget deficit in the hundreds of millions range.
...to have more people moving out that into it year after year.
...to have a HS graduation rate that ranks among the worst in the nation.
...to have a murder rate that ranks at or near the worst in the nation.
...to have a jobless rate that ranks among the worst in the nation.

I could go on, and on, and on some more. Sure other cities face one or even several of these issues. But very few, if any face, all these issues and to the severe degree that detroit does. There are two school of thought concerning news stories that paint the city in a negative light. Some say "hey it's like this everywhere, why not report something positive". I reject that sentiment. I would rather that we get everything out in the open, no denial, no excuses. Let us confront the issues and begin the long process of reform. Sqabbling over numbers and using the "detroit is not the only city" argument only serves to ignore the severity and number of issues and contributes to the long slow decline

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Originally Posted by iheartthed

I'm talking about other major cities.

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Does it make Detroit any safer is Baltimore or St. Louis is lying about their numbers? What matters is that our Law Enforcement is conducting itself honestly here. Whether it's in the reporting or the investigating.

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Originally Posted by detrola

More proof positive that the number one issue facing detroit is the pervasive systemic culture of denial. It does not matter if detroit is not the only city "fudging their figures" What matters is that numbers were misrepresented. What matters even more is that these "numbers" equal DEAD PEOPLE.

Let me apply your "detroit is not the only" argument to some other issues facing the city.
Detroit is not the ony city:
...to have a Mayor resign and do time in jail.
...to have several city Council Members indicted, and/or under federal investigation etc.
...to have a state appointed emergency finacial manager in charge if its' school system.
...to be facing a budget deficit in the hundreds of millions range.
...to have more people moving out that into it year after year.
...to have a HS graduation rate that ranks among the worst in the nation.
...to have a murder rate that ranks at or near the worst in the nation.
...to have a jobless rate that ranks among the worst in the nation.

I could go on, and on, and on some more. Sure other cities face one or even several of these issues. But very few, if any face, all these issues and to the severe degree that detroit does. There are two school of thought concerning news stories that paint the city in a negative light. Some say "hey it's like this everywhere, why not report something positive". I reject that sentiment. I would rather that we get everything out in the open, no denial, no excuses. Let us confront the issues and begin the long process of reform. Sqabbling over numbers and using the "detroit is not the only city" argument only serves to ignore the severity and number of issues and contributes to the long slow decline

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It absolutely does matter when you are trying to measure the relative "danger" of one city against another. So please, have a coke and a smile and...... you know the rest. :)

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Originally Posted by iheartthed

It absolutely does matter when you are trying to measure the relative "danger" of one city against another. So please, have a coke and a smile and...... you know the rest. :)

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LMFAO. I do have to give you style points for that one.

This thread reminds me of the storied "dumping" of murder victims along the Hamtramck/Detroit city limits in the 1980s.
The story was that one or the other police department officers would rather dump and run than spend time off the street doing processing and paperwork.

Sounds like a Dutch Leonard crime novel, but it was an urban legend back then, believed by many.

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Originally Posted by iheartthed

It absolutely does matter when you are trying to measure the relative "danger" of one city against another. So please, have a coke and a smile and...... you know the rest. :)

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Thanks for again proving my contention that the number one issue facing detroit is the pervasive, systemic culture of denial. I was not suggesting that the number does not matter in gathering data as a matter of statistical analysis. My point is simply that too often the focus is placed on the number rather than the reality that the number represents. Is detroit the murder capital or the runner up to that title? If this were the only sad list on which detroit is at or near the top, then it may be appropriate to fixate on the numbers to gleen an accurate assessment of detroit's true place on the list. The issue is detroit is at or near the top of many such lists.

My main argument is against the wrong headed "detroit is not the only city..." form of denial that you perpetuated in your post. How many times and for how many issues will you use this defense? An intervention will do no good until you and those like you stop the denial. When you stop looking at the trees you may realize that you are in a forest...and I'm sure you know well the rest.

bizarre... is the FBI oversight/probe still ongoing... what about the departments tech upgrades that were supposed to happen regarding its filing system?

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Originally Posted by Bobl

This thread reminds me of the storied "dumping" of murder victims along the Hamtramck/Detroit city limits in the 1980s.
The story was that one or the other police department officers would rather dump and run than spend time off the street doing processing and paperwork.

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Was that just an allegation or was this actually proven?
Who was the dumper and who was the dumpee?

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Originally Posted by detrola

Thanks for again proving my contention that the number one issue facing detroit is the pervasive, systemic culture of denial. I was not suggesting that the number does not matter in gathering data as a matter of statistical analysis. My point is simply that too often the focus is placed on the number rather than the reality that the number represents. Is detroit the murder capital or the runner up to that title? If this were the only sad list on which detroit is at or near the top, then it may be appropriate to fixate on the numbers to gleen an accurate assessment of detroit's true place on the list. The issue is detroit is at or near the top of many such lists.

My main argument is against the wrong headed "detroit is not the only city..." form of denial that you perpetuated in your post. How many times and for how many issues will you use this defense? An intervention will do no good until you and those like you stop the denial. When you stop looking at the trees you may realize that you are in a forest...and I'm sure you know well the rest.

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Wow, I guess I've been anointed the voice, mind and conscience of Detroit! Gee thanks. But in the interest of full disclosure I think I should inform you that I don't even live in Detroit. Nor do I even live in the state of Michigan. [[Although something tells me that I've spent more time in the city of Detroit this year than you have. I could be wrong...)

But since I'm the brain of Detroit for today, I'll tell you my two cents and hope that something sticks. First, I must tell you that I have never said there aren't some serious problems with the city. But you are wasting your time if you focus on these crime rate statistics as if it were the impediment to a more viable city. It's just something to keep you all chasing your tails.

The murder rate is not the problem with Detroit; it is a symptom of the problem. Detroit's crime stats will never ever match those stats of say Troy, or Farmington Hills, and you are being unrealistic if you expect for that to ever be the case. Detroit is a large city that is more culturally and socioeconomically diverse than Troy or Farmington Hills, even if Detroit is 80% black. Now if you want to compare Farmington Hills to a socioeconomically equivalent neighborhood in Detroit, I'm almost certain that you will find nearly identical murder rates.

But as I said before, the murder rate is not the problem in Detroit. Economics is the problem with Detroit. And more specifically, Detroit's economic base has been decimated partly by an overall decline in manufacturing in the U.S. that was never replaced, and partly by a region that is continuing to cannibalize itself.

Fifty years ago, Detroit was both the manufacturing center and business center of southeast Michigan. Now it's largely just the government center of Wayne County. Manufacturing declined by forces beyond the control of local government, but non-manufacturing operations on the other hand, were actively recruited from Detroit to relocate to areas outside of the city. Right now, with the economic tilt of Detroit shifted towards Oakland County and other suburbs, there really isn't much incentive for a booming real estate market in the city, or resurgence of the population [[due to lack of jobs).

I know what you're thinking: if the economic tilt is towards the suburbs then why should anyone care about the city? Right?

Well, the suburbs have been doing a stunningly poor job of creating commerce by any means other than attracting it from Detroit. In fact, there are more examples of businesses leaving suburban Detroit to go to cities such as Chicago, than there are of the suburbs attracting any sort of business relocations from outside the region. And L. Brooks Patterson himself said that attracting business to Oakland County would be much easier if the image of Detroit were better. Those are pretty stunning words coming from the man who has been just as complicit in damaging the image of the city as anyone else.

Yet he has a point! Because businesses like to have flashy addresses. Companies like to be associated with "global cities". The location of your business, especially smaller enterprises, has a way of legitimizing you. And there are many areas of the country that are steadily emerging as better "legitimizers" than the Detroit area. Nowadays when you say "Detroit", most Americans think a rusty Dodge Grand Fury with a loose hub cap, rather than a shiny new Cadillac [[or Lexus ;) ). No matter how much they try, being located on Big Beaver Rd in Troy just isn't as attractive as being located on State Street in Chicago. Let me say it in plain terms: Troy can't compete with Chicago. Even if the crime rate of Troy is much lower than that of Chicago.

So Detroit the city's problem is that there is no economy, and Metro Detroit has an image problem because Detroit has no economy. Metro Detroit's image problem that cannot be fixed so long as you all try to ignore Detroit [[ or just paying attention long enough to chastise the city about a high murder rate). But Detroit has a lot of things going for it that could make reinventing southeast Michigan much easier than it would be for a Youngstown, Ohio or even Pittsburgh, first and foremost being its internationally recognized name. Whether Metro Detroit actually utilizes the assets of the city to its advantage remains to be seen. I'm not gonna hold my breath. But I'm rooting for you.

Maybe Big Beaver Rd. just needs better marketing :) http://www.getoffonbigbeaver.com/

Hell, Chicago gets away from making the annual crime lists by not even reporting their numbers to the FBI.

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Originally Posted by iheartthed

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Why are you unable to address the relevant issue - honesty in government? Your psedo-intellectual socio-economic masturbation fest only dealt with possible environmental factors that contributed to the murders, not why DPD would falsify crime data.

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Originally Posted by ThaFuzz

Why are you unable to address the relevant issue - honesty in government? Your psedo-intellectual socio-economic masturbation fest only dealt with possible environmental factors that contributed to the murders, not why DPD would falsify crime data.

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Does it even need to be stated why DPD would try to soften their numbers? The same reason other cities would be trying to soften their own numbers. Because nobody wants to be caught holding the "Murder Capital" media label.

I thought that would be quite obvious to anyone with a 4th grade education......

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Originally Posted by iheartthed

Does it even need to be stated why DPD would try to soften their numbers? The same reason other cities would be trying to soften their own numbers. Because nobody wants to be caught holding the "Murder Capital" media label.

I thought that would be quite obvious to anyone with a 4th grade education......

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then why the dissertation with tangental relevance to the topic at hand?

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Originally Posted by ThaFuzz

then why the dissertation with tangental relevance to the topic at hand?

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Because as I said at the beginning of my dissertation, these statistics are much ado about nothing. They have little relevance to why Detroit is in such a state.