Detroit police commissioner: My grandfather's murder remains unsolved | Letters to the Editor
My grandfather was a victim of homicide in 1984. He was gagged, beaten and stabbed in his Detroit home. He was 76. My mother and I found his body, and notified the police.
Four years after the crime, the Detroit Police Department told us they caught my grandfather’s killer.
A few days later, they contacted us and said they had to let the murderer go.
We were victimized twice: Once by the perpetrator, and againby police who didn’t seem to prioritize finding his killer.
My grandfather’s homicide wasn’t in the media every day. Nor was the ineptness of the investigators in charge of his case. I’m sure the police chief back then didn’t get a weekly update on my grandfather’s case.
The saddest part was that the killer admitted to others that he had committed the crime, but the DPD couldn’t corroborate the story.
Many crimes in Detroit go unsolved. This appears to be an accepted practice of the Detroit Police Department.
This experience causes me to be sensitive to victims and their families — like the families of Devon Hoover, killed in April, and Samantha Woll, slain just last month. I understand what these families are going through.
As a member of the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners, I wanted to change my bad experiences, and to ensure no other family had to go through this type of trauma. I wanted to improve the quality of policing in Detroit by demanding honesty and transparency from police leadership.
But our requests are oftentimes ignored by Chief James White, and the “normalcy” of unsolved crime continues.
As of this week,we have been waiting six months for Corporation Counsel Conrad Mallett to honor our subpoena requests on two dozen issues, from missing persons to facial recognition.
We request information for purposes of transparency, and to provide the public confidence in the police.
But the Detroit Police Department is not being transparent. Chief White touts transparency, but ultimately, it seems, hides behind task forces, attorneys, expensive FOIA requests and the statement that information can’t be released due to open investigations in what I can only conclude is a bid to silence the truth. The chief, it seems to me, is stonewalling justice.
Detroit Mayor Michael Duggan is aware of the issues with the Detroit Police Department. His focus has been on reducing our budget for investigators and not allowing us to research and hire our own attorney — but the mayor has been available to take photo ops around town for what many of us believe is his upcoming bid for governor.
I want the friends and family members of victims of unsolved crimes to know that the fight for transparency continues. I stand with you.
Ricardo R. Moore
The writer represents Detroit's District 7 on the Board of Police Commissioners
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Unsolved Detroit murders like Samantha Woll, Devon Hoover too common
