DETROIT — The Detroit Police Department is conducting "multiple criminal and administrative investigations" into the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners, the 11-member citizens panel that's charged with overseeing the city's police department, according to an email the board chairman sent Monday.
Two sources familiar with the investigation said they are focusing on whether the board paid one or more "ghost" or nonexistent employees and allegations that board officials shredded documents to cover up the alleged payroll scam. Two board staffers have been placed on leave with pay during the probes, prompting criticism from at least one commissioner who called the move "unprecedented."
In his email to the board obtained by The Detroit News, Chairman Bryan Ferguson wrote: "Exigent actions were taken Friday, March 24th to guard evidence from being and/or further being altered, stolen and/or destroyed ... I would advise Commissioners not to involve yourselves in these investigations other than being fully cooperative."
Ferguson's email follows a message sent Friday by board Secretary Victoria Shah, who advised commissioners: "Executive Manager Melanie White and Supervising Investigator Lawrence Akbar are on Administrative Leave with pay while an investigation continues. They are not permitted to access any BOPC or (Office of the Chief Investigator) offices or operational systems while on leave."
Phone calls to Ferguson and Shah were not returned Monday, and attempts to reach Akbar and White were not successful.
Commissioner Willie Bell said Ferguson "overstepped his authority" by putting Akbar and White on leave.
"The chairperson isn't in an executive position," said Bell, who served two terms as the board's chair. "The City Charter doesn't give the chair the authority to put board employees on leave. This is an unprecedented action."
Commissioner Ricardo Moore said the investigation is distracting the board from its work.
"We're supposed to be the oversight board for the police, but we can't be watching the cops when we're dealing with our own problems like this," said Moore, a former Detroit police officer who in 2014 called for an audit of the board's administrative process. "I'm concerned that some commissioners might be involved in this, and I look forward to getting this whole thing resolved."
The investigation is the latest in a long string of scandals and probes involving the police board, which was established in 1974 to provide oversight of a troubled police department. The board's Office of the Chief Investigator, which looks into non-criminal allegations against cops, has been the focus of much of the recent rancor.
The Office of the Chief Investigator, which is dealing with a backlog of hundreds of citizen complaints and an exodus of employees, is also under investigation by the Office of the Detroit Inspector General. Last month, the Inspector General seized files covering two years of investigations into complaints against Detroit police officers. The action was part of an ongoing investigation into the police board and the Office of the Chief Investigator, Detroit Inspector General Ellen Ha wrote in a letter to the board. Ha declined to comment on specifics of the investigation.
The current Inspector General probe is the office's second investigation into the Board of Police Commissioners since 2019, when Ha issued a scathing report lambasting the board for its hiring practices and for violating the Open Meetings Act.
In her report, Ha concluded that the board had improperly hired three employees — including White, the executive manager who, according to Shah's Friday email, is currently under DPD investigation and barred from the board's offices.
White and Akbar were also at the center of a squabble last year involving the Detroit Law Department which claimed their employment violated the City Charter. In November, Deputy Corporation Counsel Charles Raimi sent an email to the board, threatening to fire Akbar and White if they weren't replaced by Dec. 15. Raimi said their employment violated the charter because they had worked for the city within three years of their current appointments.
During Thursday's board meeting, Ferguson requested the board to consider discipline for Akbar and White, but no action was taken. Although Ferguson mentioned the two employees' positions and not their names, Bell told the chairman he was "inappropriate" for publicly asking for their discipline.
On Monday, Bell told The News he's tired of all the problems that continue to plague the board.
"In my 40-plus years in law enforcement, and in all the years I've been on the board, I've never seen a mess like this," said the retired Detroit cop, who has been a police commissioner since 2013. "We need to start following proper procedures."
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