In the minds of many black Detroiters, police brutality was worse after the Rebellion than it was before. Within two months of the Rebellion, black Detroiters increasingly began to believe that the police were taking revenge for the Rebellion out on everyday average black Detroiters. Newspapers widely reported that police were joining the Nationl Rifle Association (NRA) in droves and purchasing carbines in case another outbreak occurred. Newspapers also reported that the Detroit Police and Fireman’s Association for Public Safety was a sponsoring organization of several white self-defense rallies held in Northwest Detroit and in Detroit suburbs. By October 1967, these developments made many black Detroiters believe that the police were planning to place them in concentration camps.

A little more than a month after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Detroit police exploded on Detroiters who participated in the Poor People’s Campaign. In coordination with local organizers, the national movement came to Detroit in May of 1968 on its way to set up an encampment in Washington, D.C. While the Cavanagh administration welcomed the demonstration and march, the Detroit Police Department felt differently.

Gathering outside Cobo Hall for a permitted march and demonstration, marchers were charged at by Detroit police officers and beaten. Samuel J. Dennis, who was a field representative of the United States Department of Justice reported, “I saw police officers ride horses into a crowd which I judged to be under control. In addition, I saw officers strike individuals in that crowd with night sticks.” An additional observer from the justice department confirmed Dennis’s statements, “The actions of the horsemen on the crowd were, in my judgment, uncalled for. The crowd was just standing there observing, walking in and walking out. I observed no provocation on the part of marchers, marshals, or the crowd for officers to behave in that manner.” Because the police acted with no provocation, many black Detroiters believed that the police planned their attack on the demonstration in advance.

Less than a year later, the police again attacked an organized protest gathering in ways that further fueled suspicion they were actively taking revenge on blacks for rebelling. In March of 1969, the Republic of New Afrika (RNA) gathered to celebrate it’s one-year anniversary at New Bethel Church on the city’s West Side and, in response the threat of police brutality, the meeting itself was protected by armed members of the RNA. Following the meeting of approximately 200 people, a Detroit Police Department squad car pulled up to RNA security forces. Two officers, Michael Czapski and Richard Worobec got out of the car and in the confrontation that followed, Czapski was killed, Worobec was injured, and four civilians were injured. As police flooded the surrounding area, they began firing indiscriminately and rounded up over 150 civilians. RNA leader Brother Giadi (Milton Henry), who had left the meeting before the shootout, contacted State Representative James Del Rio about the chaos, and Del Rio contacted George Crockett, a black judge.

Crockett arose from bed, went to police headquarters, and found complete chaos when he got there. Although the police had rounded up more than 150 people and not taken a list of their names, they had questioned, fingerprinted, and administered nitrate tests to all 150 to see if they had fired a gun. Denied their right to legal counsel, Judge Crockett, set up court right there in the station. After Crockett demanded that all those held captive be freed or formally arrested and charged, the police called in Wayne County Prosecutor William Callahan. When Callahan promised that all irregular police procedures would be abandoned Crockett adjourned court and went home. The next day all but a few of those rounded up were set free without charges.

In the weeks that followed, Detroit was embroiled with tension between the police and black activists. Appalled that a black judge would interfere in their racist practices, the Detroit Police Officers Association (DPOA) organized a campaign to get Crockett removed from the bench. Their main complaint was that Crockett was acting out of solidarity with black people rather than following the law. Conservative politicians responded by ordering a full investigation into Crockett’s fitness to stay on the bench. Black activists responded by formally creating a Black United Front (BUF), made up of 60 black organizations. While the DPOA took out a full-page ad in the Detroit News, the BUF organized a demonstration in support of Crockett, drawing upwards of 3,000 people. The Detroit Commission on Community Relations issued a report favorable to Judge Crockett and the controversy eventually came to rest.

Despite Crockett’s intervention and the activism of black Detroiters, police brutality continued to climb after the Rebellion and by 1971 the police in Detroit killed more civilians than police in any other city. Most of these killings were the product of a program of the Detroit Police Department called STRESS, or Stop the Robberies Enjoy Safe Streets. STRESS was the product of the promise Mayor Gibbs made to his white constituents to restore “law and order” after the Rebellion. STRESS often employed a decoy tactic in an attempt to catch would be robbers. One STRESS officer would act as an easy target of a robbery while two officers hiding nearby would jump out and arrest would be robbers. Not only a police tactic of questionable legality, it also resulted in the deaths of ten suspects in the first nine months on 1971, nine of whom were black. By September 1973, STRESS officers killed twenty-two suspects, 95 percent of which died in decoy operations.

Black Detroiters organized against STRESS almost as soon as it emerged. In September 1971, more than 5,000 demonstrated against it, demanding that it be abolished. Similar demonstrations occurred until the mayoral election of Coleman Young who abolished the program.

References

Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin, Detroit: I Do Mind Dying, Boston, South End Press, 1998

Heather Thompson, Whose Detroit? Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 2001