June 19, 2009


Bing needs to stop passing the ball on Detroiters' safety

By JEFF GERRITT
FREE PRESS EDITORIAL WRITER New Mayor Dave Bing has a lot on his plate, but that’s no excuse for going MIA on public safety in Detroit neighborhoods. His lack of response to what appears to be serious problems in how Detroit Police report and handle homicides and other crimes shows he’s either out-of-touch with the hard-knock realities facing Detroiters around-the-way, or clueless about the public relations side of running a big city.

There’s little doubt that Bing would handle, in a very public way, threats to the safety of suburban commuters in Detroit’s central business district. But he has no real response to troubling revelations about crime in Detroit neighborhoods, which gets little attention from politicians or media.
Two weeks ago, I raised troubling questions about whether Detroit police, who have lost hundreds of officers, were investigating, or even reporting, many crimes. The response from Detroit Police was virtual silence, other than to stand by their discredited statistics. When I asked for the number of murders that were committed in Detroit so far this year, I was told to submit a formal Freedom of Information Act request. That’s not the transparency that Detroiters deserve, or Bing should aim for.
There’s no good reason people in this city shouldn’t know how many Detroiters were killed last year. Initially, Detroit police reported 306 homicides for last year. They later revised the number to 339. But Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy told me the figure was closer to 400. A Detroit News review of police and medical examiner records, reported this week, put the number of slayings at 368 and concluded that Detroit police routinely underreport homicides.
How can the city solve a problem that its leaders don’t fully acknowledge? Asked for a response, Bing’s office declined to comment, referring reporters to the mayor’s police department. That's not leadership or accountability — and I say this as someone who lives in the city of Detroit and voted for Bing. He ought either to defend his department’s crime stats and operations, or declare that he will get statistics he can count on and fix the problem.
Bing, who lived in the suburbs before campaigning for mayor, cannot afford to be perceived as disengaged or out of touch. More than 10,000 people a year continue to leave the city, partly because they don’t believe Detroit Police can protect them. It’s time for the mayor to call for the ball on the issue of neighborhood safety and stop passing to the perimeter.




I'll say one thing, he's consistent. He didn't care to talk to people before the election and he doesn't care now.