Lawsuits: White officers at RenCen have harassed, assaulted Black visitors for years

Federal lawsuits paint a picture of a private security police force at Detroit’s iconic Renaissance Center that is rife with racism and regularly abuses Black people, with numerous allegations dating as far back as 2011.

One Black hotel guest, Demarko Brown, says white officers assaulted him so severely he suffered a brain injury, an incident his lawyer alleges is a part of a pattern that has gone unchecked for years at the Renaissance Center Management Co.

The security company was created by General Motors Corp. to patrol the property and is majority-owned by G4S Secure Solutions, an international security company based in Florida, according to court documents filed last year.

Other alleged incidents include the experience of a Black woman who, like Brown, says officers illegally held her in a cell in the basement of the Renaissance Center, detaining her so long that she urinated on herself, according to Brown's attorney, Danielle Safran, and his lawsuit against the company, which was filed earlier this year.

In a second lawsuit Safran filed late Tuesday, one of the security firm’s own current Black employees — a senior use-of-force instructor named Robert Barnes Jr. — details even more allegations of racism, excessive force, assault, harassment and false imprisonment against the company.

Barnes says that in one incident, a white officer, who was then-president of a union representing security officers, passed around a photo of the decapitated head of a Black man, laughing and making racist jokes about it.

"Black hotel guests and visitors to the RenCen are in extreme danger and risk for their lives," Safran wrote in Barnes' lawsuit.

Safran is seeking to make the lawsuit a class action to represent other Black employees, and is asking for monetary damages.

The two lawsuits cite more than two dozen incidents, some with specific details and others with approximate dates, where white officers allegedly harassed or abused Black visitors or fellow Black employees.

The Detroit Free Press has been investigating allegations since August. A 61-year-old, mentally ill Black woman told the Free Press that in August a white officer struck her in the face and beat her after an argument over whether she could bring her bicycle inside the building. She was hospitalized for a month, she said.

A Detroit Police Department official said that the woman allegedly attacked a Renaissance Center officer with a tree branch. A court check found that no criminal charges have been filed against her.

Michigan State Police confirmed last week they are investigating the conduct of officers at the Renaissance Center Management Co.

Valerie Mock, an attorney for the defendants listed in Brown's lawsuit, including RCMC, G4S and GM, declined to comment on the abuse and racism allegations when contacted this week by the Free Press.

In court documents, Mock has argued her clients did not act discriminatorily and properly investigated complaints of racism and excessive force.

She also argued in court filings that Brown’s injuries were the fault of his own actions and that the companies and individual employees involved are entitled to governmental immunity.

“Plaintiff engaged in threatening and intimidating behavior,” Mock wrote of Brown.

“Any damages Plaintiff claims to have suffered were the result of Plaintiff’s own actions.”

Brown's lawsuit is ongoing.

Allied Universal, which acquired G4S in April 2021, declined to comment on specific allegations of excessive force and racism against Black people on RenCen property.

"Allied Universal is dedicated to the safety of its team members, its clients, their customers and the public. The incidents occurred approximately three years ago and prior to Allied Universal’s acquisition of G4S. Allied Universal does not comment on allegations that are resolved during private mediation or on pending litigation," the company wrote in a statement.

When asked about more recent incidents, the company said it does not comment on pending litigation. Calls and emails to G4S were returned by an Allied employee.

The Renaissance Center, commonly called the RenCen, is a sky-scraping complex of glass towers completed on Detroit's riverfront in 1977. GM bought it in 1996 and it has served as the automaker's world headquarters since. The maze of buildings also is home to smaller businesses and a Marriott Hotel.

Renaissance Center Management Co. has a state license to operate as a private security police agency through the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards under Public Act 330, giving their officers the legal authority to carry weapons and make misdemeanor arrests.

GM contracts with G4S to provide the security services through the company, according to an affidavit from the GM employee whose name is on the license.

When reached for comment, Kevin Kelly, a GM spokesperson, wrote in a statement: “While we are not able to comment on the specifics of the case cited, GM has zero tolerance for harassment or discrimination in any form.”

Barnes testified last year, as part of another Black officer's lawsuit against the companies, that he repeatedly warned managers and told one supervisor that “someone is going to get killed,” describing the company as having a history of racism.

“I'm trying to find the word to describe the responses. Dismissive and mocking,” Barnes said in a 2022 deposition obtained by the Free Press characterizing how two managers reacted on the “multiple occasions” he reported violations.

“Every instance was always a Black civilian or a homeless person.”

His lawsuit details numerous alleged incidents in which white officers falsified records to justify using force, including deleting surveillance footage.

MSP Lt. Mike Shaw said his agency, which by state law can investigate alleged criminal activity by licensed private police, hasn’t taken any past enforcement actions against the company.

Officers from the security company in 2017 made headlines with the alleged assault of another Black man in a high-profile incident. Detroit rapper Obie Trice III said he was maced, handcuffed, beaten and dragged through the Marriott inside the RenCen to a small room where water was poured over his nose and mouth, choking him.

In a lawsuit he filed, Trice said he had planned to get a room in the hotel when officers began harassing him. He said he believed he was targeted because of his race.

Renaissance Center Management Co. and G4S settled the suit with Trice in 2021, Trice’s lawyer said. He would not comment on details of the settlement.

'Why is it that none of you look like me?'

Brown, 31, is the only plaintiff named in Safran’s lawsuit filed in January, although the lawyer has petitioned the court to also make this case a class action, possibly representing other victims.

Brown was staying in a room at the Marriott located in the high rise in October 2020 to celebrate his birthday with his girlfriend, according to court records. Six white security officers wouldn’t let him back in the hotel without a mask after he left to get a birthday cake from his car.

Surveillance video viewed by the Free Press shows Brown talking with the officers in the Marriott driveway before an officer jumps him, joined by several other officers who hold him down. During the incident, Brown’s head was slammed against the concrete. The video did not include audio of the incident.

The lawsuit alleges a supervisor stood by watching, and did nothing.

Brown, whom the Free Press couldn’t reach for comment, was never charged with a crime in the incident, according to the lawsuit.

Moments before the alleged assault, Brown feared for his life, his lawsuit states. The lawsuit says he posed no threat to the officers and did not refuse to comply with them.

When the white officers surrounded Brown, he asked, according to the lawsuit,  “Why is it that none of you look like me?” and whether this was a “Black Lives Matter” situation.

After the incident, Brown was handcuffed, pushed through the doors with such force that glass shattered, and held for five hours in a basement cell, where he urinated on himself, the lawsuit alleges.

While detained, Brown told the supervisor who had stood by without acting that they had treated him “less than human,” and asked to call the “real police,” according to the lawsuit.

The supervisor responded: “We are the real police,” Brown alleges.

Brown was never given medical care, which they were required to provide, the lawsuit states. He had injuries to his body and head, the suit says.

Safran said she is concerned there will be more victims.

“I lose sleep at night worrying that someone is going to get killed if excessive force is allowed to continue. That’s how bad it is,” Safran said.

Brown's lawsuit also says an unnamed use of force instructor reviewed video surveillance of the incident and told managers, including Gregory Jenkins and Larry Payne, that the officers involved had used “unwarranted and excessive use of force.” No disciplinary action was taken, the lawsuit alleges.

Brown has also sued Jenkins, who holds the state license for the private police force, and Payne, who was a security director at the time of the Brown incident. The Free Press tried to reach both men but was unable. Mock, who represents them, declined to comment.

In addition, the lawsuit lists six unnamed officers and Marriott International as defendants. An attorney for Marriott, Dora Brantley, did not return a call from the Free Press.

Another officer, who is Black, was on-site at the time of the incident and left right before the officers allegedly assaulted Brown, in order to try to get Brown a mask. The Black officer stated in a sworn affidavit submitted in the lawsuit that one of the officers involved in the incident later falsified the arrest report.

“I believe these officers used excessive force as this incident could have been diffused simply by handing him a mask and asking him to wear it,” the officer testified in the affidavit.

“The Caucasian officers then tried to have me write the report of this incident but I refused as there was no evidence that any use of force was warranted in this case. (An officer) then wrote and falsified the arrest report, concealing the unwarranted use of excessive force.”

The Marriott did not have a mandatory mask requirement in effect during the incident, according to the lawsuit.

The Black officer reported the incident to management “but nothing was done in response,” he said in his affidavit. The officer said he was fired in the summer of 2021, after requesting to go on light duty or part-time under the Family Medical Leave Act.

The firing also happened several months after four employees were overheard by another employee saying they wanted to “get rid of all the n-----s” in the department, the officer said.

White officer beat Black woman 'like a man' in August, she says

More recently, on the night of Aug. 14, a white security officer allegedly beat a Black woman who suffers from mental illness. The woman recently told the Free Press she was hospitalized for about a month.

Video reviewed by the Free Press shows the security officer slamming the woman into a concrete pillar before forcing her to the ground and punching her in the face repeatedly while on top of her. There is no audio in the video.

Half of her time in the hospital was spent treating injuries related to the beating, the woman told the Free Press. The other half was in the psychiatric ward, she said.

“First he called me a b----. Then grabbed me by the neck and started beating me like a man,” the woman said. The Free Press is not naming the woman due to her fear for her safety.

She said the beating followed an argument she had with RenCen officers about her bringing a bike inside the building, and evolved into officers alleging she was impersonating a police officer.

The woman told the Free Press she was trying to explain that she was a volunteer police officer, which the Free Press could not independently confirm.

With the weight of the security officer on top of the woman, she feared for her life, she said, thinking she would be raped.

Handcuffed, the woman said, security officers then dragged her to a holding cell in the basement of the RenCen.

Officers with the Detroit Police Department arrived a little after midnight to transport the woman to the hospital, the department confirmed to the Free Press.

Detroit police spokesperson Officer Jordan Hall said an officer with Renaissance Center Management Co. did strike the woman in the face and neck area with a closed hand, and detained her for impersonating a police officer. The woman was accused of attacking the security officer with a tree branch, he said.

The woman acknowledged to the Free Press she had a stick in her hand and said she tried to fight back after the security officer began “whaling” on her face.

Detroit police also confirmed that police sought a mental health evaluation for her.

Like Brown, she has not been charged with a crime, according to a search of court records.

The department's Hall said he did not know what prompted the incident and could not say Tuesday whether Detroit police are investigating it.

Former employee says he faced racism on the job

Donald Gambrell, who is Black and is also represented by Safran, said he approached his new job as a RenCen security officer with pride and integrity.

He was hired in March 2017. Every morning he’d shine his shoes and iron his uniform, he said. He thought he could provide safety to RenCen guests.

But starting in October that year, colleagues began calling him a “b----,” “b---- ass n----r,” “black jackal,” “rusty,” “n----r,” according to a racial discrimination lawsuit Gambrell filed in 2021.

In October 2020, the lawsuit alleges, two white employees cornered Gambrell at work and told him to “touch his toes” and perform “lewd and degrading acts.”

In the lawsuit, Gambrell compared the harassment to what was known during times of slavery as “buck breaking,” in which Black slaves were raped by white slaveowners.

And in December 2020, Gambrell said, two colleagues allegedly asked him if he would perform fellatio if they were naked in the men’s locker room, according to an internal complaint. Gambrell demanded they stop, walked out and filed a police report with Detroit police soon after, according to the police report.

The workplace became so toxic for Gambrell, he had to take medical leaves for anxiety he had developed, the lawsuit states. His human resources representative had allegedly told him that medical leave is “not a get out of jail free card,” according to internal complaints obtained by the Free Press.

“They’re running this place like the mafia,” Gambrell wrote in an internal complaint to G4S.

Gambrell stayed in his position until he couldn’t anymore, he said. He said he stayed to protect the other Black colleagues who had been experiencing the same racism he had.

“I wanted justice. I didn’t want them to continue to do this to other people of color. Other people period,” Gambrell told the Free Press.

But it eventually became too much. He went on stress leave in May 2022 and never came back, Safran said.

Attorneys for the companies in Gambrell's court case denied many of the allegations and argued that Gambrell failed to exhaust all remedies under his collective bargaining agreement. The companies eventually settled the case in December 2022, Safran said. She would not comment on the details of the settlement.

Renaissance Center Management Co.’s attorney in the Gambrell case, Jennifer Pope, did not return a call or email for comment.

The Free Press asked Mock about Gambrell’s allegations but she declined to comment.

State oversight of private security police

According to the law, PA330, which deals with the licensing of security police officers, the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards has the authority to revoke an agency's license if there are findings of dishonesty, impersonating a law enforcement officer and assault, among other acts.

Joseph Kempa, deputy executive director of MCOLES, confirmed to the Free Press that there was a May 2022 complaint of racial discrimination and excessive force against Black people by RCMC’s security police officers, but admitted the complaint “fell through the cracks” due to staffing shortages.

Kempa said MCOLES asked Michigan State Police to investigate earlier this month, only after the media began asking questions.

“As MCOLES is not a law enforcement agency, it does not have the authority to conduct a criminal investigation into alleged assaultive acts,” Kempa wrote in an email to the Free Press.

Andrea Sahouri covers criminal justice for the Detroit Free Press. She can be contacted at 313-264-0442 or asahouri@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: RenCen officers accused of racism, assault against Black visitors