DETROIT – Members of the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners said they were not informed until this week that at least 32 Detroit police officers had been working without a license.
“We should have been made aware of this immediately and we are deeply disturbed that we wasn’t. We demand answers,” Detroit Board of Police Commissioners Chair Darryl Woods said.
According to the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards, state law prohibits anyone from serving as a police officer whose “license is rendered void by a court order or operation of law, or is inactive, lapsed, or revoked.”
“It poses a lot of questions as to what that person, who was acting as a police officer, had been doing in that timeframe, making arrests, writing traffic tickets. Those things come into question. It could pose a serious problem,” Local 4 Crime & Safety Expert Darnell Blackburn said.
Detroit police said this appears to be the result of not submitting required paperwork to MCOLES.
The department said the officers involved have undergone appropriate training and human resources is working toward updating each member’s respective file.
MCOLES said it’s also checking to ensure the department’s entire roster is certified to be officers.
“I am deeply concerned, but I have full confidence in Chief Bettison in getting to the bottom of this to make sure don’t ever happen again,” Woods said.
While the matter is being sorted out, the impacted officers are on desk duty.
“This is manpower that’s been removed from the city of Detroit and the citizens of Detroit don’t have these people working in a police capacity,” Blackburn said.