The Detroit Board of Police Commissioners (BOPC) is slowly making progress toward hiring a new secretary. On Thursday, the board voted to publicly interview three candidates during its May 2 meeting.
The position has been vacant since Victoria Shah resigned in December after less than a year in the role . The secretary supervises all but one board employee, keeps a public record of citizen complaints and is responsible for training the commissioners . Robert Brown is currently serving as acting secretary.
“I feel very happy with just the process and just the support that we’ve had from a variety of different stakeholders from across city government and BOPC staff,” said Commissioner Jesus Hernandez at Thursday’s meeting. Hernandez chairs the board’s Personnel and Training Committee.
The city’s Human Resources Department and a firm hired to help with the secretary search whittled an initial field of 65 candidates down to seven, Hernandez said. The Personnel and Training Committee selected the top three candidates.
The BOPC also voted Thursday to hire an executive administrative legal assistant, pending salary negotiation and a background check.
Meanwhile, the board continues work to fill vacancies in the Office of the Chief Investigator, which looks into citizen complaints against police. As of April 19, the office had 1,860 open citizen complaint cases. It’s looking to hire six investigators and one supervising investigator to help clear the backlog.
Hanging over the meeting was news of a $10 million wrongful termination lawsuit filed by former BOPC staffer Melanie White. The board fired White in January .
The lawsuit , filed in Wayne County Circuit Court, alleges that former Board Chair Bryan Ferguson and others undermined White’s efforts to clear a backlog of citizen complaints filed with the board. The suit alleges Ferguson “launched a campaign of vitriol, verbal bullying, harassment, character assassination, (and) unequal treatment,” and that he and the City of Detroit discriminated against her when they treated a male colleague more favorably.
At the time of White’s dismissal, she had been on paid leave for about nine months and the subject of multiple investigations. The Detroit Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report in February that said White engaged in abuses of power by investigating citizen complaints, instructing staff to “administratively close” complaints against police officers in an improper manner, and more. A November OIG report found that White abused power by submitting raises for two staffers to Human Resources without proper support from the full board.
Board Chair QuanTez Pressley told Outlier Media he’s not worried that the lawsuit will impede the BOPC’s ability to fill the open secretary position or other openings like citizen complaint investigators.
“All that this shows is that we’re in need of competent workers who really need to serve the citizens,” Pressley said.
The location of the BOPC’s next full board meeting on Thursday is currently up in the air, as the board voted to find a location away from downtown due to the NFL draft . Pressley said the meeting location will be communicated to the public “as soon as possible.”
Detroit Documenters Amanda Absher and Heidi Penix contributed to this story.
Outlier Media · BOPC Watch: Board inches closer to filling secretary position; former staffer sues for wrongful termination
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