DETROIT – The inaction of a police sergeant the night officer Rasheen McClain was killed has Detroit Police Chief James Craig furious.
Officer McClain, a 16-year veteran of the force, was fatally shot Wednesday after responding to a scene on Wyoming Avenue. Craig said Sgt. Ronald Kidd should have been at the scene where McClain and his partner, Officer Phillippe Batoum-Bisse, were shot.
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Kidd has been suspended after a review of his car cam and body cam found that he never made it to the scene where McClain was fatally wounded. Instead, he stayed a block away and suggested to his partner they take cover.
Kidd’s past history with the department has people asking how he was on the job in the first place. In 2014, he was fired for standing by while his female partner took a beating. He entered into a plea arrangement, had around 65 days off work and then returned.
Kidd’s union defended him after he was fired for cowardice and got him back on the job. He had no further disciplinary issues for two years and took the promotional exam and had to be promoted.
Police Commissioner Willie Bell, who spent decades on the force, cannot believe what they now have to confront over Kidd’s accused actions.
“For a supervisor not up respond that is just unbelievable,” Bell said.
Bell, along with other commissioners had a briefing with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and Craig on Tuesday about the issue about what exactly is on the body cam and the in-car video.
“The Department has to be reeling,” former assistant chief Steve Dolunt said.
Dolunt shares the chief’s disgust. McClain did what his supervisor did not.
“Maybe McClain thought, ‘I got this’,” Dolunt said. “The officers trusted him because he had been there and he’s a cop and a leader and you can’t always teach leadership. You don’t learn leadership from a book, you learn from being out there and he was out there.”