by Scott McClallen
Detroit taxpayers forked over $56 million in police settlement payouts between 2020 and four months of 2023.
Those payouts are a record amount in recent history, but public officials won’t explain why.
That’s an increase of $38 million compared to the Detroit Police Department’s settlement payouts from 2018-2020, which totaled $18 million, according to documents obtained through records requests.
A police payout doesn’t admit guilt or wrongdoing. A police cruiser hydroplaning into another vehicle, or an error, such as police raiding the wrong apartment and kicking down a door, are examples of settlements.
However, continual, high police payouts could indicate cities with problem police officers who regularly violate rights and abuse power. Detroit’s most significant police payouts resulted from former officers framing people for first degree murder or, in one instance, committing up to four homicides.
Of the 209 new settlements obtained through records requests, five payouts totaled $42 million in compensation for wrongly imprisoning people who were incarcerated or nearly 132 combined years.
The Center Square has contacted Detroit police commissioners, members of the Detroit City Council, lawmakers representing Detroit, and Mayor Mike Duggan’s office to ask why police payouts increased by $38 million, but none responded.
DPD says its “risk mitigation strategies include utilizing technology and employee data to identify certain trends that may warrant supervisory intervention, additional training opportunities, and supervision.”
Police commissioner Bryan Ferguson resigned on Thursday after allegedly being caught with a prostitute and asking deputies if they could “help him out.”
Between 2020 and 2023, Michigan cities footed police settlement payouts ranging from $380 for a damaged bicycle in East Lansing, population 47,000, to Detroit, population 672,000, which paid $56 million.
Grand Rapids, population 197,000, spent $102,454 on police settlement payouts during the same time, while Lansing, population 112,000, paid $115,000.
Flint rejected requests seeking every police payout during the same three-year period, saying they haven’t yet compiled the information.
Flint paid a 2022 settlement of $40,000 for handcuffing a seven-year-old boy for about an hour. In January 2023, Flint paid $360,000 to settle sexual harassment and racial discrimination claims.
From 2018-2020, Michigan cities’ police payouts ranged from a few thousand dollars to nearly $18 million. During those years, Detroit paid $18 million, Grand Rapids paid $455,000, Lansing paid more than $87,000, Ann Arbor paid nearly $15,000, and East Lansing paid $3,409 for police settlements.
Police are fallible like all humans, but “bad cops” cost taxpayers millions of dollars and are rarely financially liable, University of California, Los Angeles Law Professor Joanna Schwartz wrote in the New York University Law Review.
After studying more than 81 law enforcement agencies, Schwartz found governments paid “approximately 99.98% of the dollars that plaintiffs recovered in lawsuits alleging civil rights violations by law enforcement.”
Schwartz isn’t against indemnification – she pointed out doctors, lawyers, and even businesses have insurance.
The goal of police settlements is to compensate people whose rights have been violated and deter future illegal conduct, Schwartz previously told The Center Square.
The Wrongful Imprisonment Act passed in 2016, requires those wrongfully imprisoned to be paid $50,000 for each year incarcerated.
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Scott McClallen is a staff reporter at The Center Square.
Photo “Detroit Police Car” by Detroit Police Department.
