Detroit Police reported zero arrests during last Monday's Detroit Ford Fireworks — a rarity throughout the 65-year history of the event that annually draws hundreds of thousands of visitors downtown and has been the site of multiple infamous incidents.
Police officials reported that officers had made no arrests and issued 18 curfew ticket violations Monday during the event that was marked by a steady drizzle.
"This is one of the few times in my 28-year career that I can remember no arrests being made at the fireworks," said Detroit Police Chief James White.
The last time there were zero arrests reported at the downtown fireworks show was 2008, according to Detroit News archives and other media reports. In 2015, one arrest was reported.
White said the rain was likely a factor in this year's arrest number, but also credited "the hard-working men and women of the Detroit Police Department," along with the community "and our federal, state and local law enforcement partners (and) our business partners."
During last year's Ford Fireworks, six people were arrested, including four who were cited for carrying a concealed weapon and one other who was accused of an aggravated assault of a police officer.
The fireworks show has previously been the site of infamous incidents. In 1976, after 30% of the police officers assigned to work the fireworks detail called in sick with "the blue flu," The Detroit News reported, "roving gangs of hoodlums ... mugged, pistol-whipped and purse-snatched their way through the throngs on the riverbank and in the downtown area, leading to 30 arrests."
The mayhem prompted a controversy after a spokesman for the Stroh Brewing Co., which had co-sponsored the fireworks, gave statements to the media saying the rampant crime was prompting the Detroit beer-maker to pull its sponsorship. Company officials the next day retracted the spokesman's statement, saying it had been made without authorization.
Two people were shot and three stabbed during the 1989 fireworks, and police made 30 arrests. In addition, minutes before the fireworks started, a 43-year-old man jumped from the fifth floor of the downtown YMCA building and died.
In a 1991 case that made national headlines, sisters Cassandra and Cossandra Rutherford were among six Black women charged with beating Joanne Was of Farmington Hills, a White woman, during that year's fireworks. The beating was captured on videotape — a rarity in the days before ubiquitous cellphone videos — stoking racial tensions and animosity between the city and suburbs.
Cassandra Rutherford was acquitted of wrongdoing, although Cossandra Rutherford, 17, and Tangela McLemore, 19, were convicted of robbery and assault and sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.
In 2011, a 16-year-old girl was shot in the leg while walking with friends near the Renaissance Center, while in 2004, at least two gunmen opened fire in Hart Plaza, wounding eight people and killing 47-year-old Donald Murphy, who died weeks after the shooting.
In the 2004 case, officers arrested Daron Caldwell, who was jailed for three months before Wayne County prosecutors dismissed the charges because his DNA didn't match items found at the crime scene; and because ballistics tests determined more than one gun was used in the carnage.
Caldwell sued the city for $100 million in federal court, claiming his rights had been violated, although the lawsuit was dismissed in 2007. The shooters were never arrested, and the case remains open.
Three people were wounded in two shootings downtown during the 2017 fireworks show.
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