LANSING, Mich. (WXYZ) — State lawmakers on Thursday are taking up a package of bills that they hope will put an end to troubled police officers circulating throughout departments across Michigan.
The legislation was introduced following more than a year of reports from 7 News Detroit, showing how problem officers have been allowed to jump from department to department, leaving scandal, lawsuits or criminal charges in their wake.
“It’s a huge breach of trust,” said State Sen. Stephanie Chang (D-Detroit). “We shouldn’t be cycling through bad cops when someone clearly knew that this was someone who should not be in law enforcement.”
In Michigan, the agency that helps police the police is the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards (MCOLES). Its small investigations staff has an enormous responsibility: to ensure that every officer who leaves a department to join another meets the standards to be an officer.
“The vast majority of people who leave agencies do so in good standing,” said Tim Bourgeois, the MCOLES executive director. “However, there’s 18,500 officers in Michigan. Even if 1% of them don’t, that’s a significant number.”
But as 7 News Detroit has shown, officers with troubling histories have been hired by new departments without state watchdogs noticing.
Examples include officers deemed to be untruthful, a Detroit officer seen punching a citizen in the face, a Highland Park officer found to have improperly tased a homeless man, an Oakland County Sheriff’s deputy caught buying narcotics on duty and using racist language and officers accused of harassment by multiple women or engaging in sexual acts or sexting with women they’d pulled over.
Watch below: A Detroit cop faced firing for Greektown punch—until Eastpointe gave him a badge
State Sen. Sarah Anthony, a Democrat from Lansing, said the instances are appalling.
“What you just named are some egregious examples of individuals who violated the public trust in one department,” Anthony said, “and because of the lack of bills like what we have before you now, they’ve continued to be able to violate our citizens.”
It wasn’t supposed to work this way. When an officer leaves a police department—even if it’s just to take another job— their department is supposed to report to MCOLES exactly why they left. Any department looking to hire them needs to conduct a thorough background check of the officer on their own.
Watch below: Michigan sheriff’s deputy bought drugs, used N-word on duty. Then Holly police hired him
But too often, that didn’t happen. In numerous cases, 7 News Detroit found that police chiefs hired officers without even knowing why they left their last police department.
In other cases, departments claimed that an officer left in good standing when they were actually under investigation or facing internal charges.
Sometimes, it was state investigators who dropped the ball…failing to flag problem cops before another agency could hire them.
“This is where this bill is important,” Sen. Anthony said. “To finally put an end to this practice, and to give MCOLES…finally giving them additional tools to reign this stuff in.”
Watch below: Fired after 2 harassment claims in Dearborn, cop found new badge in River Rouge
In November, Senators Anthony, Chang and others introduced a package of bills designed to help plug some of the holes that allowed problem officers to slip through.
If signed by the governor, they would allow MCOLES to set standards for department background checks.
The bills would also require departments to fully disclose why an officer left and whether they were ever under investigation during their final year of employment.
The bills would also give the state greater authority to revoke a law enforcement license and would provide MCOLES a 90-day window to revoke an officer’s license if it was activated in error.
What the bills don’t address — at least right now — is any discipline for departments that give false information about why an officer left, or don’t perform a complete background check at all.
Watch below: Cop fired for 'outrageous' sexting with suspect got second chance in Dundee
“When you have police chiefs who say that an officer left in good standing who did not leave in good standing, or a police chief who said they did a background check and they did not do a background check, how do you guard against that?” asked Channel 7’s Ross Jones.
“I’m aware of other states where if an agency head does not follow their versions of the MCOLES Act, that action is taken against their law enforcement license,” said Tim Bourgeois, the MCOLES Executive Director.
“In certain cases, these are criminal offenses.”
Senator Anthony says she’s open to adding more teeth to the law down the road, but first she wants to get these fixes on the books.
Her legislation already has the endorsement of major law enforcement groups, including the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police, whose executive director says Channel 7’s reporting has provided a public service and a warning to police chiefs.
“Because now we see in a very public matter, the types of repercussions that can happen when you take a chance on somebody,” said Robert Stevenson. “A lot of good has come from these stories, as painful as it is for me to watch these because it's embarrassing to the profession which I obviously care about.”
For the Democrats pushing the bills, time is of the essence. In the House, Republicans become the majority party in January. Today, there are just weeks left in the current legislative session, meaning the clock is ticking for lawmakers to act on the new bills. Senator Anthony says the stakes are too high not to.
“I don’t want to be sitting here in a year, listening to another laundry list of incidents in which a bad apple went to the other side of the state and violated someone in their community,” she said.
Contact 7 Investigator Ross Jones at ross.jones@wxyz.com or at (248) 827-9466.