LANSING, Mich. (WXYZ) — Lawmakers in Lansing hope that a bipartisan push to improve policing practices will help clamp down on problem officers job hopping across Michigan.
Watch Ross Jones's video report:
The legislation follows nearly two-years of reporting by 7 News Detroit, detailing how officers throughout Michigan were able to jump from department to department, leaving scandal, lawsuits or criminal charges behind.
FOLLOW OUR YEARS-LONG INVESTIGATION: SHIELDED
A package of bills shepherded by Democrats, but with the support of three Republicans, was introduced in the state senate last month, tackling a whole host of issues in policing.
The eleven-bill package aims to limit no-knock warrants, require departments to have duty to intervene policies and more.
Similar legislation introduced back in November died during lame duck in December.
“The good officers want this so that they can take the bad officers out of their ranks,” said Sen. Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield), a co-sponsor of several bills.
In Michigan, the agency that helps police the police is the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards (MCOLES).
Its small investigative staff has an enormous responsibility: to ensure that every officer who leaves a department to join another meets the standards to be an officer.
But as 7 News Detroit has shown, officers with troubling histories have been hired by new departments without state watchdogs noticing.
Examples include officers deemed to be untruthful, a Detroit officer seen punching a citizen in the face, a Highland Park officer found to have improperly tased a homeless man, an Oakland County Sheriff’s deputy caught buying narcotics on duty and using racist language and officers accused of harassment by multiple women, engaging in sexual acts or sexting with women they’d pulled over.
“You’ve detailed these reports year after year after year,” said Sen. Moss. “This is not a one-off problem in our communities.”
It wasn’t supposed to work this way.
When an officer leaves a police department—even if it’s just to take another job— their department is supposed to report to MCOLES exactly why they left. At the same time, any department looking to hire them needs to conduct a thorough background check of the officer on their own.
But too often, that doesn't happen. In numerous cases, 7 News Detroit found that police chiefs hired officers without even knowing why they left their last police department.
RELATED: Highland Park police hid officer's first violent tasing. Years later, he was charged over another.
“We know that when there are bad cops hired at agency after agency,” said Sen. Stephanie Chang (D-Detroit), “because they literally did not know what happened at the previous agency with this misconduct that that hurts the entire profession.”
In other cases, departments claimed that an officer left in good standing when they were actually under investigation or facing internal charges.
Sometimes, it was state investigators who dropped the ball, failing to flag problem cops before another agency could hire them.
If signed by the governor, the legislation would allow MCOLES to set standards for department background checks.
The bills would also require departments to fully disclose why an officer left and whether they were ever under investigation during their final year of employment.
The bills would also give the state greater authority to revoke a law enforcement license and would provide MCOLES a 90-day window to revoke an officer’s license if it was activated in error.
RELATED: How a troubled Michigan cop moved from department to department, leaving scandal in his wake
Democrats, who hold a slim majority in the senate, believe they have the votes to advance at least some of the bills. But if the legislation makes its way into the House—where Republicans are in the majority—the bills are likely to face serious headwinds.
Back in April, while calling for additional funding for police statewide, Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Twp.) said he would not be supportive of police reform bills like the ones that died in lame duck.
“Too many of these radical left Democrats, all they want to do is handcuff police and make it harder to be a police officer,” Hall said.
The Speaker declined to talk about specific bills from last session and whether he would support them, but said adding funding to police is his top priority.
“Rather than focus on making it more difficult to be a police officer, I think we need to be investing in our local police,” Hall said.
Senator Moss says reigning in rogue cops is good for policing, and shouldn't become a "political tool every campaign cycle."
Moss insists that the legislation enjoys broad support from the public as well as law enforcement agencies.
“We’re trying to do the work in Lansing to make sure that if there is a bad officer, they don’t just take a bad record and pollute another agency with it,” he said.
Contact 7 Investigator Ross Jones at ross.jones@wxyz.com or at (248) 827-9466.