Sunday, November 26, 2006

11262006 - Detroit PD Officer Eugene Williams - Unjustified Shooting/Killing Of Brandon Martell Moore



Detroit PD Officer Eugene Williams: Above The Law














On November 26, 2006, while moonlighting as a security guard at the Detroit  Bel-Air Mall, Officer Eugene Williams shot and killed 16-year-old Brandon Martell Moore in the back. Williams was never charged for Moore's death. If not for reporter Diane Bukowski, Brandon's death would have gone unnoticed.
 
"Were it not for Bukowski, who pursued the case relentlessly, Brandon would have died without a trace. Thanks to her reporting, the community demanded answers."
[Gary Young. The Nation]









Detroit Officer who Killed Unarmed 16-year-old has Killed two Others
Black Press USA -
Diane Bukowski
Special to the NNPA from the Michigan Citizen
December 20, 2006

DETROIT — The Detroit police officer who shot and killed 16-year-old Brandon Moore at Detroit’s Bel-Air Mall Nov. 26 is Officer Eugene J. Williams.

A 35-year veteran of the force, Williams has killed two others during his tenure with the department, in 1971 and 1979.

Informed sources have independently identified Williams, whose badge number is 4174, although the police department has refused to do so while an investigation proceeds.

According to published articles and court records, Williams also shot and wounded his police officer wife in 1984 in a domestic dispute, and wrongfully knocked out four front teeth of an innocent 16-year-old Cody High School student in 1989.

“I want to address Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings,” said Moore’s father John Henry Moore, Sr. “Why is this man still on the force, after doing all this damage to people’s lives? If my son had shot him, he would be in jail or where he is now, deceased. Brandon was only starting his life, and he had a promising career, but this officer can still go home and take care of his family.”

Earlier reports indicated that the officer who shot the younger Moore was on administrative leave.

However, Williams answered the phone Dec. 12 at the Traffic Enforcement Unit on Mt. Elliott, where he is assigned. He would not confirm that he is the officer involved, but he did not deny it. He would not discuss whether he worked on or off-duty at the National Wholesale Liquidators store.

Moore was killed there after he and a group of friends were ejected from the store, got in a dispute with Williams, and then ran after the officer produced a gun.

“No, we don’t speak to people on the phone about things like this, according to department policy,” said Williams. He declined a personal interview.

Second Deputy Chief James Tate had not returned a call for comment about Williams before press time.

Bobby Pidgeon, a media spokesman for National Wholesale Liquidators, said the chain was waiting for the results of the police investigation in the case.

“We understand six young men attacked the off-duty officer,” said Pidgeon. He hung up when asked whether the officer was working for the chain at the time.

Desiree Stinson, a friend of the Moore family, said her children frequent the store and have seen Williams working there since Moore’s killing. A former 911 operator, she said that police department employees are not allowed to moonlight on security jobs because such jobs represent a conflict of interest.

The source who identified Williams said he did not have department permission to work at the store, which is required for any off-duty work.

“I don’t understand why he hasn’t been charged,” said Stinson.

“If it had been one of us, we would have been under the jail. But they figure it’s just another Black kid who’s probably a hoodlum. Now they’re finding out he was a good kid who had never been in trouble. Where is the outrage about a grown man shooting a kid in the back?”

According to a Detroit Free Press article published in 1984, Williams, who was hired in 1970, was fired from the Detroit police force in 1971 after being involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident while under the influence of alcohol.

After he appealed, the department reinstated him in 1974.

On June 5, 1979, Williams shot and killed 31-year-old Glenn C. Grace while off-duty, during a neighborhood dispute on the southwest side, according to a lawsuit filed by the Grace family. Grace was an auto mechanic with four children.

Both sides in the suit agreed that Grace and a friend, Lloyd Woolfolk, who was a Ford autoworker, had gone to the home of Carolyn Broadnax on Liebold, to confront her brother about an earlier ejection from a party.

Both sides also agreed that Grace was armed and under the influence of alcohol.

According to court documents, Williams provided one version of the killing. He said he was visiting Broadnax at the time and both were standing on her front porch when Grace shot at the house across the street. Grace then confronted the two on the porch, pulling out his gun and threatening to kill them.

Williams shot Grace in the head and shoulder, killing him.

In a different account of events, Woolfolk said the conversation he and Grace were having with Broadnax had taken a friendly turn, and that Grace never displayed or pulled his gun or threatened the two on the porch. He said Williams never identified himself as a police officer, instead crept behind Broadnax, and fired at Grace without warning.

Due to legal technicalities, a judge refused to admit a plaintiff’s witness list including Woolfolk, and the case appears to have been dismissed.

A city attorney defended Williams in the case.

On June 4, 1984, Williams shot his wife, Pamila Hatter Williams, in the side during a domestic dispute, according to the Detroit Free Press and court records involving their 1987 divorce. Her right leg was at least temporarily paralyzed as a result.

His wife was also a police officer who had been preparing to return to work along with 125 others called back from lay-off.

Williams was suspended with pay, but it is unclear whether he was ever charged in the incident. His wife said she used a pair of scissors to cut up William’s police uniform and never intended to harm him. Williams said she lunged at him with the scissors. His divorce records claimed it was a knife.

Williams sued his wife for divorce in 1987, and expelled her from their Rosedale Park home. Wayne County Register of Deeds records show that she quit claimed the home to him in 2004, and that there have been several tax liens on the property, including an IRS attachment of nearly $40,000. A contact number for Hatter Williams was unavailable.

In 1989, 16-year-old Robert Valentine was walking down the halls of Cody High School in Detroit, when Williams and his partner accosted him, according to a lawsuit filed by Antonia Walker. The officers mistakenly thought Valentine had been involved in the incident for which they had been summoned to the school. A school investigation later said he was not connected.

“Officer Eugene Williams took him, flung him head and face first against a wall, where plaintiff struck his face, mouth and head . . . breaking off four front teeth with the impact,” says the suit.

“Then he fell to the ground and was struck by the officers again without reason or provocation.”

The suit said Valentine was suspended but later readmitted after an investigation showed he had nothing to do with the original incident. The suit was dismissed after a settlement for an undisclosed amount.

For years, the Detroit Police Department has allegedly been developing a computerized system to monitor officers like Williams, who have had repeated incidents involving possible brutality.

The U.S. Justice Department monitor has also required that such a system be instituted. The most recent report available, however, indicates that the system is not operational.

HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
Eugene J. Williams:
  • Fired from force in 1971 after a fatal hit-and-run accident while under the influence of alcohol. Reinstated 1974.
  • Shot and killed 31-year-old Glenn C. Grace while off-duty, during a neighborhood dispute, June 5, 1979.
  • Shot wife, Pamila Hatter Williams, in the side during a domestic dispute, June 4, 1984.
  • Flung Cody student Robert Valentine against a wall, where he struck his face, mouth and head . . . breaking off four front teeth, 1989
  • Killed 16-year-old Brandon Moore at Detroit’s Bel-Air Mall Nov. 26, 2006.













Killings by Cops on the Rise as Detroit DA Refuses to Prosecute
Four killed in July alone; Green candidate to challenge Worthy in November
The Michigan Citizen
News Report, Diane Bukowski
Aug 12, 2008

DETROIT — Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy appeared solo on the Aug. 5 primary election ballot, and families of children and men killed by the police during her tenure are asking why.

Two Democratic Party contenders, defense attorney Portia Roberson and Detroit Medical Center executive Maurice Morton, withdrew from the race in April.

Roberson, who cited the “changed political climate” in Detroit as the reason for her withdrawal on her website, later became chief assistant corporation counsel for the Detroit Medical Center, headed by former Wayne County Prosecutor Mike Duggan. Morton, previously deputy chief of drug operations under Duggan, moved to another position out of state, according to a fellow church member.

‘Worthy needs to go’

“Worthy needs to go,” said Rayfield Moore, Shelton Bell, Sr.’s next door neighbor. Bell’s only child, 16-year-old Shelton Bell, Jr. was the first of four men killed by law enforcement officers in Detroit this past July.

Moore was elated to learn that in November, Detroit criminal defense attorney Matthew Abel will run against Worthy on the Green Party ticket.

Worthy has not charged a single Detroit police officer with murder since — as an assistant prosecutor — she prosecuted Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn for killing Malice Green in 1992. There have been dozens of killings during her tenure.

She did unsuccessfully prosecute Michigan State Trooper Jay Morningstar for the 2004 killing of Eric Williams, a homeless man, in Detroit’s Greektown.

“We must charge based on facts we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law,” Worthy said in a statement. “We do not have a quota system for charging police officers. Each case is evaluated on its own merits.”

The July killings are still under investigation, Worthy said.

She did not comment on the June 2 killing of 54-year-old Tommy Staples, Sr., a community mentor who regularly mediated when youth were stopped by the two officers who killed him. According to his autopsy report, Staples was shot two times in a front shoulder, two times in a back shoulder, once in a foot, and once in the top of the head. When his wife and son arrived at the scene, they found him under the officers’ car.

Worthy defends record
“In 2006 and 2007 we charged 36 Detroit Police Officers with felonies and misdemeanor offenses,” Worthy said. “Currently in 2008 we have charged officers with crimes. These cases reflect both on and off duty misconduct. The crimes range from felonies such as involuntary manslaughter, criminal sexual conduct, child sexual assault and domestic violence assault offenses.”

That is small comfort for Bell, Sr. His son, the father of a two-year-old boy and a six-month-old girl, was killed July 1 at a BP gas station at West Chicago and Schaefer by an off-duty Detroit police officer. The autopsy report shows that Bell, Jr. was shot ten times, five in the chest, three in the back, once in the head behind his right ear, and once in his left arm. None of the shots were at close range. Bell, Jr. had no intoxicants in his system according to the toxicology report.

The police department said that Bell, Jr. demanded the keys to the unidentified officer’s car. Police said the teenager had a gun, but his uncle said that an officer he knows told him that Bell never had a chance to pull it.

Videotape shows teen running away from cop
A blurry gas station videotape of the scene shows a figure running up to the officer’s car at the pump, then immediately running a good distance away towards the street, turning to face the officer and collapsing. Bell’s companion was later released without charges.

Bell, Sr. said he rode his bike to the scene and saw his son’s body directly behind the back of the officer’s car, not at the site shown in the videotape. He said the body lay there for five hours while police and coroner officials laughed and joked. Bell said the family plans to ask their pastors, the Rev. Jim Holley and the Rev. Keith Butler respectively, for assistance in obtaining justice for their nephew.

Bell, Sr. said his son had a “fascination with the streets” and was released from a youth detention facility only three weeks before he was killed. But he said that he was kind-hearted, and looked up to by the youth in the facility, many of whom attended his funeral at New Light Missionary Baptist Church.

DeAngelo, a friend of Bell, Jr’s., who asked that his last name not be used, said, “He was a good person who was trying to stay out of trouble, although he did get into it. He always talked to me and asked for guidance. It was just a tragedy. I don’t know why the officer to emptied his whole clip into him.”

Other police killings include:
- On July 14, police killed a man they claim emerged from a house at Indiandale and 14th streets, pointing a gun at them. They alleged that he and three others were involved in an earlier drive-by shooting and carjacking. They said they arrested the three others, and tracked the fourth man with a dog to the house where they killed him.

- On July 18, 35-year-old Robert Hill, backpack strapped on, rode his bicycle to an apartment building at Appoline and Buena Vista. Hill and his bicycle were rammed by a police car into another vehicle. The officers claimed that Hill pulled a gun, and when they ordered him to put it down, he pointed it at them and they shot him to death.

- On July 20, at 4:30 a.m., an off-duty Wayne County Deputy Sheriff shot two men, killing one, who allegedly began firing their guns into a southwest side party the sheriff was at. According to published reports, Victor Akrawi, owner of the house, said that the two men wore masks and that when he removed the mask on the dead man, who was from Clinton Township, he did not know who he was. No one at the party was hurt.

-On Dec. 26 last year, Rose Cobb was shot to death outside a CVS pharmacy on East Jefferson as she sat in her car, waiting for her husband, Detroit police Sgt. David Cobb, to come out of the store. Vincent Smothers, a self-admitted hit man, later confessed to the killing, saying that Cobb hired him to kill his wife, and that Cobb’s girl-friend’s son, Marzell Shawn Black was also involved. Black has also been charged, but Worthy refused to press charges against Cobb, despite police officials’ contention that they had enough evidence to charge him.

Worthy said, “We cannot comment on this matter due to an ongoing investigation regarding the death of Rose Cobb.”

Earlier cases
It is not uncommon, however, for the prosecutor’s office to claim an investigation is ongoing when it is actually over.

Police records showed that the case against officer Eugene Williams, who was moonlighting off-duty as store security when he shot 16-year-old Brandon Martell Moore in the back at the Bel-Aire mall in November, 2006, was closed in January, 2007. However, Worthy’s office continued to claim long afterwards that the investigation was ongoing.

Moore’s father, John Moore, Sr., said, “The investigation into my son’s case was incompetent and a decision was made too quickly. Williams had already shot his own wife and slammed a little boy at Cody High School into the wall. How can you pay someone to represent the people when they allow cops to get away with shooting us? Pretty soon, we’re going to start shooting back, and there’s going to be an all-out war.”

Williams also killed two other men previously while off-duty.

Worthy later refused to prosecute officers in the 2007 deaths of Jevon Royall, 30, outside his apartment complex on 12th and Euclid, and Artrell Dickerson, 18, outside the Cantrell funeral home, despite abundant eyewitness testimony that the killings were unprovoked.

Worthy refused to prosecute killer cop Eugene Brown
In March, the families of the three men killed by Officer Eugene Brown in 1994, 1996 and 1998 confronted Worthy’s representative James Gonzalez, chief of the homicide unit, with the recently-released results of the Shoulders Report investigation into Brown’s conduct. The Report recommended that Brown be charged in the killings. Gonzalez said their office had had the report all along.

In response to the families’ demands for charges, Worthy’s office issued this statement: “Under the previous two administrations, there were investigations into the shootings that involved former (sic) Detroit police officer Eugene Brown. All of these investigations resulted in no charges being brought against him. Since taking office, there has been no new evidence submitted to Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy by any attorney or civilian.”

Arnetta Grable, Sr., mother of Lamar Grable, killed by Brown in 1996, later told Gonzalez that all his office needed to do was look at the civil trial transcripts in her son’s case, which showed conclusively that his killing was unjustified. The Grable family won a $6 million award in the case after both state appeals and the state Supreme Court upheld the verdict. The family of Darren Miller, killed in 1999, reached a $3 million settlement.













A WOMAN AGAINST THE SYSTEM
The Nation and by Agence Globale
December 19, 2008
(Nov. 17, 2010 – This article is being re-published due to a recent attack on Bukowski related to her conviction in this case.)


On election day James Willingham, 42, was driving home from the polls in Detroit around 3:30 pm on his motorcycle when he was allegedly hit by a police car with such force that he struck and killed a pedestrian, Jeffrey Frazier, and then crashed into a pole and died from the impact.

When Diane Bukowski, a white journalist for the black newspaper Michigan Citizen, heard the news on a black radio station, she rushed to the scene on the corner of Justine and East Davison. The first print reporter to arrive, she showed her credentials and started taking photographs. A female state trooper yelled at her from across the street, “Who the fuck do you think you are?” Bukowski again identified herself as a journalist. “I didn’t cross any police tape,” says Bukowski. “I was just doing my job.” The trooper grabbed the camera, deleted the photos, handcuffed Bukowski, arrested her on a single misdemeanor count of obstructing an investigation and took her to state police headquarters, where she was held for about an hour.



And so it was that as the polls were closing in Michigan and the nation began to bask in the warm glow of a post-racial society, a white woman was cuffed and fingerprinted because she tried to tell the world about two black men who had just been killed.

For all the dreamy talk of the journey we are on to transcend race, only a handful like Bukowski are actually paying for the ticket. Not just because she’s a white woman who works for a black newspaper and got arrested, or because the victims she was writing about were black, but because she is a white person who is prepared to take on the mess that white supremacy has built.

Detroit
Extinguishing race as a meaningful category demands that we first get rid of the racism that gives it meaning. In that respect, the symbolic resonance of election night in Chicago — joyous as it was — can be understood only within the systemic neglect and harassment of that fateful afternoon in Detroit. The two scenes do not contradict but complement each other. A black man in the White House seemed so unlikely precisely because a black man in prison or dead at the hands of the police is so much more likely. What individuals do in the privacy of the polling booth pleasantly surprised some of us; but the outrageous things institutions do in plain sight no longer turn heads. Race describes the protagonists; power shapes the narrative.

“I’m happy that Barack Obama got elected,” says Arnold Reed, Bukowski’s attorney. “It’s a start. But he’s not the savior. He’s not standing on the corner of Justine and Davison. The battle that transcends race in this country is between those who have and those who have not. Diane’s reports have given a voice to those who have not.”

Bukowski cuts an intriguing figure. An insatiable gum-chewer, she strides through the roughest areas of black Detroit in single-minded pursuit of her stories. She is 60 years old and stands at around 5 feet 4 inches. A few days after her arrest, her charge was ramped up to five felony counts of assaulting, wounding, battering, resisting, obstructing or endangering five troopers, carrying up to ten years in prison. The idea of this small woman single-handedly battering five armed troopers would be funny if it weren’t so absurd. The charges were reduced to two troopers following a preliminary exam.

The police claim they didn’t hit Willingham. They say the accident on election day occurred when Willingham raced away from them on a stolen motorcycle after they tried to pull him over for speeding.

Given a choice between their account and Bukowski’s, I know which one I would believe. She reported on the murder of Brandon Martell Moore for the Michigan Citizen. Brandon, 16, was shot in the back by an off-duty cop as he left a mall. Brandon had never been in trouble with the law before. But the cop who shot him had. In 1971 Eugene Williams, who is black, was involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident while under the influence of alcohol. In 1979 Williams shot and killed a 31-year-old man during a neighborhood brawl. Five years later he shot his wife, but she lived. Williams stayed on the force. The senseless death of a black teenager at the hand of a wayward cop is clearly not a newsworthy story in Detroit. The city’s two main newspapers needed less than 200 words to write up the whole story in which they failed even to mention Brandon’s name and quoted only the police.

Were it not for Bukowski, who pursued the case relentlessly, Brandon would have died without a trace. Thanks to her reporting, the community demanded answers.


So there is a reason the Detroit police don’t like Bukowski. She refuses to let them do their job the way they see fit. During her years at the Citizen she has broken several stories, including one about the “Booty Boys” — police on Detroit’s Southwest side were conducting illegal cavity searches of black men in public on city streets. She also broke the story of Eugene Brown, a cop who ran amok in black areas during the ’90s. Her work was used by federal authorities when they imposed a consent decree on Detroit police. Nonetheless, all these police officers, most of whom are black, remain on the force. “This is clearly an attempt to intimidate me,” says Bukowski of her arrest. “They are trying to cover up what happened.” Without her, they would get away with murder, literally.

At Detroit’s 36th District court, where Bukowski’s preliminary exam was heard, almost everyone is black — the public defenders, judges, security guards, defendants, cashiers, stenographers, ushers. Once the system is up and running, the race of those who operate it is as secondary as the race of those who fight it.

Gary Younge, the Alfred Knobler Journalism Fellow at The Nation Institute, is the New York correspondent for the Guardian and the author of No Place Like Home: A Black Briton’s Journey Through the Deep South (Mississippi) and Stranger in a Strange Land: Travels in the Disunited States
                         

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Thursday, November 16, 2006

11162006 - Buena Vista State C.O. Ronald Mielcarek - Appeal - Conviction Affirmed














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Wednesday, November 1, 2006

11012006 - Officer Ronald Dupuis - Dupuis filed civil rights employment lawsuit - Hamtramck PD

November 01, 2006: Officer Ronald Dupuis filed a lawsuit against the City of Hamtramck: Civil Rights / Employment. Police Chief refused to reinstate him. [November 2005 taser incident of Officer Graham].


























*Scroll down to bottom of page for Dupuis' law enforcement history*










Michigan cop with troubling history accused of imprisoning two women for days with no charges
byWalter Einenkel
FRI APR 24, 2015 AT 11:50 AM PDT
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/24/1380049/-Michigan-cop-with-troubling-history-accused-of-imprisoning-two-women-for-days-with-no-charges#


Highland Park Officer Ronald Dupuis is in trouble—again. This time it is a lawsuit from 2 women claiming he detained them for 4 days without charging them. The 2 women, Rhianna Turner and Kera Hill are domestic partners, they are represented by attorney Robert Morris:

Morris says in September of 2013 – Turner was working as a uniformed Detroit Parking Enforcement Officer.  While she was stopped in front of the old Detroit police headquarters at 1300 Beaubien, Hill showed up.  They were playfully wrestling over a set of keys when a nearby by Sheriff’s deputy feared that Hill was assaulting Turner.

Officer Dupuis came in to see what was the problem. Well, that sounds reasonable.

Despite the couple’s explanations that were was no assault – Morris says Dupuis arrested them.

“The fact that he actually took them to Highland Park, which has no jurisdiction with anything that could have occurred in Detroit, and he was able to convince his supervisors, who were already skeptical and didn’t understand why my clients were locked up – he was actually able to override their authority and keep my clients for four days,” Morris says.

They were never charged with a crime – but Morris says getting locked up cost Turner her job with the city.

That's not good. But, it's a he said she said situation here, right? Here's a video that was posted by Emma Craig on her Facebook page back in January. It shows Officer Dupuis beating a handcuffed suspect, facedown in the snow.

The suspect in that video may very well be a pretty crap human being but it isn't up to police officers to deal out punishment. Here is a report from when Officer Dupuis accidentally shot himself.

And here is Ronald Dupuis's history as a law enforcement officer, care of Detroit Free Press:

■ In 2012, a woman sued Dupuis, alleging he refused to let her use the restroom while she was in a jail cell — thus forcing her to urinate in her cell — and later "began to choke her" and began to call her vulgar names. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2013 because the plaintiff did not provide sufficient documents to the defense.

■ In 2004, while working as a Hamtramck police officer, Dupuis was sued by a man who alleged Dupuis wrongfully arrested him and had him jailed for no reason. The man was released without being charged. His lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount.

■ In 2006, Dupuis sued the city of Hamtramck after a female officer accused him of assaulting her with a Taser. He was fired as a result of the accusation, but was later acquitted on the assault charge. He ended up suing the city over his firing and its handling of the assault accusation. The case was settled.

■ In 2008, Dupuis sued the city of Hamtramck a second time over the Taser complaint, alleging the city had a duty to defend him in that lawsuit. That case was dismissed.

■ In 2012, Dupuis filed an employment discrimination lawsuit against the city of Highland Park, alleging he was treated unfairly compared to his African American counterparts and that he was unfairly demoted in the police department. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2013.

Oh yeah, he resigned from the Southgate Police department back in the 2000s. It was in that same department he was reprimanded, in 1998, for allegedly assaulting a mentally disabled man...and stalking a woman, repeatedly pulling her over.

Innocent until proven guilty. But the police employment system that keeps him employed seems very guilty.


















VIDEO: What Does It Take To Fire A Bad Cop? Just Ask Ronald Dupuis
By MintPress News Desk
Minneapolis, MN
April 17, 2015
http://www.mintpressnews.com/what-does-take-to-fire-a-bad-cop-just-ask-ronald-dupuis/204481/

Ronald Dupuis, a police officer from Highland Park, Michigan, has a record of questionable -- and even outright bad -- behavior dating back to the 1980s. These decades of missteps don’t seem to be hampering his career, though.

With almost daily reports of brutality and fatal shootings of unarmed black people by police, activists in America are asking why officers so rarely face lasting consequences for their actions.

With almost daily reports of brutality and fatal shootings of unarmed black people by police, activists in America are asking why officers so rarely face lasting consequences for their actions.

 When Darren Wilson left his post with the Ferguson Police Department, crowdfunding efforts raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the man who killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown. Investigations into Wilson’s past revealed that he’d first been employed by a Missouri police force that was disbanded for corruption.

A similar pattern emerged in the recent slaying of Walter Scott. Writing for Counter Current News, Jackson Mariana reported that Scott’s killer, North Charleston Police Officer Michael Thomas Slager, had a history of violent incidents:

“Back in 2013, Mario Givens, an African American North Charleston man, had been ‘roughed up’ when Slager came to his door, demanding to be let in ‘as part of an investigation.’”

North Charleston Police have faced 46 federal lawsuits since 2000.

But few cops can match the checkered past of Sgt. Ronald Dupuis, the officer from Highland Park, Michigan, who remains employed despite a string of incidents that have followed him through multiple departments. Highland Park is the seventh police force to employ Dupuis.

A new lawsuit alleges that Dupuis held two women in jail without charges for four days. Shockingly, the incident didn’t even begin in Highland Park, where Dupuis is employed as a cop and where he allegedly imprisoned the two women, “Rhianna Turner and her domestic partner Kera Hill.” Instead, Dupuis is accused of intervening in an incident in Detroit.

In September 2013, a sheriff’s deputy witnessed the pair “playfully wrestling over a set of keys,” and intervened because he feared an assault had occurred. Although both women denied a crime had occurred, Dupuis arrived on the scene, arrested the two women, and took them to jail in nearby Highland Park. Though no charges were filed, Turner lost her job as a Detroit Parking Enforcement Officer.

Just this past January, Dupuis made headlines when he was videotaped beating a man suspected of carjacking.

“The video of the arrest, which was recorded by Detroit resident Emma Craig on Monday on the city’s northwest side and posted on Facebook, shows Dupuis striking the suspect several times while apparently trying to handcuff him and administering a final blow after Jackson’s hands were secured behind his back,” reported George Hunter in The Detroit News.

In 2012, Dupuis was hospitalized for shooting himself in the leg with his own gun, which discharged accidentally outside a cell block. Another incident involved him choking a woman he had in custody.

He was previously fired from the Hamtramck, Michigan, Police Department for using a taser on his own partner. Although a jury declined to convict him for it, courts refused to force the city to reinstate Dupuis, which is how he ended up employed by Highland Park.

Reneé Harrington, creator of the Michigan Officer Involved Domestic Violence Project, compiled a lengthy timeline of Dupuis-related incidents dating back to 1997. According to the timeline, the Southgate, Michigan, Police Department fired him in 1999 for stalking a woman and repeatedly pulling her over.

Because there is a lack of national data on police violence in general, it is difficult to determine how often police face consequences for their crimes. But in 2013, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey estimated that 90 percent of officers fired from the Philadelphia Police Department force were later rehired through arbitration with police unions — even those accused of crimes including shoplifting and sexual assault.


















Michigan police officer with history of abuse arrests two women, holds them in jail four days without charges
Tom Boggioni
Raw Story
Thu, 16 Apr 2015 11:37 UTCMap
http://www.sott.net/article/295336-Michigan-police-officer-with-history-of-abuse-arrests-two-women-holds-them-in-jail-four-days-without-charges



A Michigan police officer with a string of lawsuits and accusations filed against him over the years - including Tasering his partner and assaulting a disabled man — has now been accused of arresting two women and holding them in jail without ever filing any charges. 

Highland Park police officer Ronald Dupuis — already under investigation for beating a suspected car hijacker — has been accused by two women of arresting them and holding them in jail for four days without every charging them with a crime, according to WXYZ. 

According to Robert Morris, attorney for Rhianna Turner and her domestic partner Kera Hill, Dupuis arrested the two women when they were playfully wrestling over a set of keys in front of the old Detroit police headquarters in 2013. Despite the women's insistence that they were not assaulting each other, Dupuis took them into custody before driving them to the Highland Park station where they were held in a cell for four days before being released without charges ever being filed. 

"The fact that he actually took them to Highland Park, which has no jurisdiction with anything that could have occurred in Detroit, and he was able to convince his supervisors, who were already skeptical and didn't understand why my clients were locked up - he was actually able to override their authority and keep my clients for four days," Morris explained. 

According to the attorney, Turner lost her job with the city as a Detroit Parking Enforcement Officer because of her jail stay. 

Dupuis, already under investigation for the beating of the alleged car hijacker earlier this year, has been in the spotlight for the past decade, having worked for seven different police departments, leaving either under a cloud or in a flurry of lawsuits. 

According to the Detroit Free Press, since 2004 Dupuis has been accused of unlawfully locking up suspects, choking a woman in her jail cell, stalking a woman, and assault, — including using a Taser on his partner. 

In 2012, a woman sued Dupuis, alleging he refused to let her use the restroom while she was in a jail cell — thus forcing her to urinate in her cell — and later "began to choke her" and began to call her vulgar names. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2013 because the plaintiff did not provide sufficient documents to the defense. 

In 2004, while working as a Hamtramck police officer, Dupuis was sued by a man who alleged Dupuis wrongfully arrested him and had him jailed for no reason. The man was released without being charged. His lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount. 

In 2006, Dupuis sued the city of Hamtramck after a female officer accused him of assaulting her with a Taser. He was fired as a result of the accusation, but was later acquitted on the assault charge. He ended up suing the city over his firing and its handling of the assault accusation. The case was settled. 

In 2008, Dupuis sued the city of Hamtramck a second time over the Taser complaint, alleging the city had a duty to defend him in that lawsuit. That case was dismissed. 

In 2012, Dupuis filed an employment discrimination lawsuit against the city of Highland Park, alleging he was treated unfairly compared to his African American counterparts and that he was unfairly demoted in the police department. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2013. 

Dupuis has also sued several of the various police departments that have employed him, claiming discrimination, failure to defend him against accusations from the public, and for terminating him. 

In 2012 , Dupuis accidentally shot himself in the leg while standing outside a jail cell at the Highland Park station. 

















Officer seen in video has troubled past
By Gina Damron and Tresa Baldas
Detroit Free Press
11:18 a.m. EST January 15, 2015
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2015/01/14/officer-arrest-video/21771801/

One of the police officers involved in an arrest caught on video has had a career embroiled in controversy, with accusations of using a Taser on a former partner and assaulting a mentally disabled man.

The video, which surfaced on Facebook and is now under investigation by the Michigan State Police, shows police punching, kicking and handcuffing a 51-year-old parole absconder, who is accused in the carjacking of a mother and her two children Monday. One police official has called the officers' actions on Detroit's west side "proper."

One of the officers in the video is Highland Park Sgt. Ron Dupuis, Highland Park city attorney Todd Perkins confirmed to the Free Press today.

According to U.S. District Court records, Dupuis — listed as Ronald Dupuis II — is no stranger to the courts, though he has never been convicted of any crimes.

Over the last decade, his tumultuous law enforcement career has triggered a half-dozen civil suits in U.S. District Court — half of them he filed himself over employment disputes; the others involve police brutality accusations.

An attorney who has previously represented Dupuis in civil lawsuits, could not be immediately reached for comment today.
His legal troubles include:
■ In 2012, a woman sued Dupuis, alleging he refused to let her use the restroom while she was in a jail cell — thus forcing her to urinate in her cell — and later "began to choke her" and began to call her vulgar names. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2013 because the plaintiff did not provide sufficient documents to the defense.

■ In 2004, while working as a Hamtramck police officer, Dupuis was sued by a man who alleged Dupuis wrongfully arrested him and had him jailed for no reason. The man was released without being charged. His lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount.

■ In 2006, Dupuis sued the city of Hamtramck after a female officer accused him of assaulting her with a Taser. He was fired as a result of the accusation, but was later acquitted on the assault charge. He ended up suing the city over his firing and its handling of the assault accusation. The case was settled.

■ In 2008, Dupuis sued the city of Hamtramck a second time over the Taser complaint, alleging the city had a duty to defend him in that lawsuit. That case was dismissed.

■ In 2012, Dupuis filed an employment discrimination lawsuit against the city of Highland Park, alleging he was treated unfairly compared to his African American counterparts and that he was unfairly demoted in the police department. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2013.

Also, the Free Press reported in 2006 that, in 1998, Dupuis was reprimanded by the Southgate Police Department after being accused of assaulting a mentally disabled man. Also while in Southgate, Dupuis was accused of stalking a woman and repeatedly pulling her over. He resigned from the department after being told he would be fired.

On Monday, officers with ACTION, a stolen vehicle task force, arrested a man suspected in a carjacking that occurred earlier that day.

Police have not named the man, but the Michigan Department of Corrections identified him as Andrew Jackson, Jr., who, according to the state's online offender system, was sentenced to prison in 2004 on charges of conspiracy to commit armed robbery, assault with intent to rob while armed and fleeting police. According to the corrections department he absconded from parole in April 2014.

The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office said today it received a warrant request for a 51-year-old man, whose name was not provided, in connection with a carjacking that occurred on Evergreen on Monday. According to the office, the warrant is being reviewed and a charging decision has not yet been made.

Attorney Ben Gonek, who said he is representing Jackson, said his client has a "serious eye injury."

Gonek declined to discuss the carjacking accusations. Of the arrest, he said "it's pretty outrageous."

"There's no doubt in my mind that it was excessive force," said Gonek, who previously sued Dupuis, his partner and the city of Hamtramck on behalf of a man who said he was beaten during a traffic stop in 2002. The lawsuit was settled for $20,000.

The task force that made the arrest in Monday is made up of officers from Detroit, Grosse Pointe Park, Highland Park and Harper Woods. Detroit police have said none of their officers were involved in the incident. Detroit police spokesman Sgt. Michael Woody said Tuesday that the officers involved were from Highland Park and Grosse Pointe Park.
On Tuesday, Chief David Hiller, with the Grosse Pointe Park Department of Public Safety, told the Free Press that the actions of the officers in the arrest were "proper."

Hiller declined to comment when reached today. Highland Park Police Chief Kevin Coney could not be immediately reached for comment.

Highland Park city attorney Todd Perkins said that, in addition to cooperating with the state police investigation, Highland Park is also looking at the arrest, which has drawn scrutiny since a citizen posted a video on Facebook.

In the video, one officer yells at the man after he calls for "Jesus," telling him "Don't you dare," and another officer can be heard saying "that's a justified ass whooping."

Perkins said the city will look into the incident.

"I represent the people of the city of Highland Park and, in representing the people, you have to give them transparency," he said.

The incident drew out about a dozen protesters earlier today, who gathered outside of the Grosse Pointe Park police headquarters.

"This is the kind of thing that can ignite something," said Ron Scott, with the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality. "We're here on a peace mission. We're saying, 'If you don't deal with us, then there are a lot of people out here who are not gonna take the time to demonstrate.'"

"We also call for criminal and civil penalties for officers who have engaged in these actions," Scott said in the statement, adding, "We are calling for suspension of these officers until this matter is resolved."

















Suburban Robocops like those involved in Jackson beating on the loose in Detroit for years
Posted on 01/15/2015
Diane Bukowski
Voice of Detroit
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/01/15/suburban-robocops-like-those-involved-in-jackson-beating-on-the-loose-in-detroit-for-years/

Protest Jan. 14 at GPP headquarters: “No Justice, No Peace, Stop Racist Police;” end federal, state tax funding of multi-jurisdictional police forces
Highland Park cop involved in Andrew Jackson, Jr. beating has long record of assaults

DETROIT – Detroit Police Chief James Craig has washed his hands of involvement in the brutal beating of Black Detroiter Andrew Jackson, Jr., 51, by white Highland Park, Harper Woods, and Grosse Pointe Park cops Jan. 12, saying no Detroit officer was involved.  The police claim Jackson carjacked a woman and her two grandchildren at gunpoint.

But the question arises: why have Craig and previous chiefs allowed suburban cops free rein in Detroit for years?

The earliest news accounts of Jackson’s beating, caught on cellphone videotape by Detroiter Emma Craig, implied the carjacking took place in Grosse Pointe Park. However, the carjacking he is alleged to have committed took place far from that 99 percent east side white suburb, in west-side Detroit near Fenkell and Evergreen.

“You don’t become a criminal to catch a criminal,” said Ron Scott of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, Inc. during a protest outside the Grosse Pointe Park police headquarters Jan. 14.

“Those cops violated their own standards of safety when they beat Mr. Jackson before searching him. That beating had no place in a civil society; people are innocent until they are proven guilty. It’s sickening the Grosse Pointe Park Police Chief said it was justified, and that Chief Craig cares so little about Detroiters that he said he isn’t concerned about Detroit cops not being residents, and allows suburban cops into Detroit.”

Jackson’s attorney, Ben Gonek, told the Detroit Free Press that Jackson has a “serious eye injury,” and that the police were guilty of excessive force. The videotape shows Jackson being punched and kicked on the ground by two cops, as he calls out imploringly, “Jesus.”  An officer kneels on his back and says, “What did you say? Jesus? Are you calling Jesus? Don’t you dare! Don’t you f—king dare!”

The officers then bump fists to congratulate each other, and the Harper Woods officer says “that’s a justified ass whoopin.” (See full video with commentary below.)

Scott expressed doubt about Grosse Pointe Park Police Chief David Hiller’s statement that the cops found a gun in Jackson;s waistband. The full version of the  nine-minute videotape, cut short by most news outlets, contradicts that. It shows a white female and a white male cop stand Jackson up to search him, beginning from his feet on up. The white male declares as he is halfway up Jackson’s leg, “Oh, HERE’s the gun.” There is a slight note of sarcasm in his voice. 


Jackson is being held by Grosse Pointe Park police on parole violation matters. His record includes four very long sentences imposed for one incident in 2003 involving armed robbery and fleeing police in Oakland County,  two cases of receiving stolen property in 1995 and 1997, and two other “inactive” 1999 sentences of fleeing police and receiving stolen property. The Michigan Department of Corrections website says he absconded from parole April 3, 2014.

The Wayne County Prosecutor’s office has not yet approved a warrant for his arrest on the carjacking incident. The victim of that incident said in two interviews that she supports police actions in beating Jackson, although she does not say whether she identified him in a line-up as the man who carjacked her.

Since the protest, the Detroit Free Press has named Highland Park Sgt. Ronald Dupuis as one of the cops. Their article says he has a long history of assaults in various suburban departments, including tasering a female partner, beating a disabled man, refusing to allow a woman in a jail cell access to a bathroom, forcing her to urinate in the cell, and stalking another woman, repeatedly pulling her over. He was fired from the Hamtramck Police Department for the taser incident, and resigned rather than being fired from the Southgate Police Department for the incidents involving the women.

Dupuis was also sued for beating a man in 2002, with a settlement, and false arrest in 2004. In 2012, he accidentally shot himself in the foot in a police station. (Click on Ronald DuPuis record DV Project for full accounting from a domestic violence project.)




The protest was attended by Dawud Walid, Executive Director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI), and over a dozen others.

They  included Eric Taylor, who told VOD he was the victim of a carjacking in Grosse Pointe Park on June 12 last year. “I had my wife call the police for help,” Taylor said.

“My friend and I were at a gas station getting a sandwich when my car was taken as I walked back to it. When the GPP police got there, they cut me off when I was explaining, and told me I matched the description of a carjacking suspect. Then they threated to “blow my f—king head off,” told me I was nothing but an animal, called me a n—-r, and told me if I sued they would come and kill my family.”


He showed VOD a cellphone photo taken by his daughter of his head a few days after the beating. He said he still suffers from headaches and other effects of the beating.

Grosse Pointe Park police were involved earlier in a racist incident where they forced a developmentally disabled Black Detroiter, who used to go into the Pointes to collect bottles, to sing and perform for them, then circulated several cellphone videos of the actions.

Grosse Pointe Park founded A.C.T.I.O.N. (Arresting Car Thieves in Our Neighborhoods) about ten years ago, using an initial $350,000 grant from the state of Michigan and funds from state car insurance companies. It originally included only the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department, and police departments from Grosse Pointe Park, Grosse Pointe City, and Harper Woods. Since that time, other departments including Warren and Detroit have been added according to news reports.

Hiller included names of the Chiefs from all those departments on his press release on the incident, although Craig said he had not seen it.

Detroit has its own task force, however. The Detroit One Partnership announced the formation of a carjacking task force in April 2014, including the Detroit Police Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshal’s Service, Homeland Security Investigations, Michigan State Police, Michigan Department of Corrections, Wayne County Sheriff’s Department, Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office and U.S. Attorney’s Office. 

Emma Craig, who videotaped Jackson’s beating, said she also saw officers at the scene with I.C.E. (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) jackets.

In addition to the Detroit One and ACTION Task Forces, the State of Michigan has run an anti-carjacking task force called H.E.A.T. (Help Eliminate Auto Thefts) for the past 23 years.

Numerous protesters of the Michael Brown killing in Ferguson, MO. Aug. 9 have condemned federal provision of military equipment including tanks, assault weapons, flash-bang grenades, flak vests, and other equipment to city police to carry out raids like the one that resulted in the death of seven-year-old Detroiter Aiyana Jones on May 16, 2010, and assaults on anti-police brutality marches.

“We resent that our public tax dollars are being used to fund such programs,” Scott said. Others noted the money would be far better spent on programs to provide jobs, end homelessness, build decent schools, and repair the infrastructures of the nations’ cities.

















Officer Ronald Dupuis' past law enforcement history:


Feb. 17, 1997: Officer Ronald Dupuis written up for careless driving while on duty. Ecorse Police Department.



Between 1997 and 1998: Officer Ronald Dupuis leaves the Ecorse PD and becomes an officer with the Southgate PD.



October 08, 1998: Officer Ronald Dupuis allegedly beat up a mentally disabled man. Southgate PD.



November 04, 1998: Officer Ronald Dupuis reprimanded by the Southgate Police Department for the October 8th beating incident.



Dec. 24, 1998: Officer Ronald Dupuis accused of falsifying overtime slips. Southgate PD.



March 16, 1999: Officer Ronald Dupuis accused of stalking a woman and repeatedly pulling her over while he was on duty. Southgate PD.



March 30, 1999: Officer Ronald Dupuis was informed that he would be fired from the Southgate PD [Stalking incident].



April 02, 1999: Officer Ronald Dupuis resigned from the Southgate PD, to avoid being fired for stalking incident.



Sometime after April 02, 1999: Officer Ronald Dupuis was hired by the Highland Police Department [after resigning from the Southgate PD, to avoid being fired for stalking incident].



Nov. 7, 2000: Officer Ronald Dupuis was laid off by the Highland Park Public Safety department.



Sometime after November 07, 2000: Officer Ronald Dupuis was hired by the Hamtramck PD, after being laid off by the Highland PD.



April 21, 2002: Officer Ronald Dupuis was accused of assaulting a man during a traffic stop. Hamtramck PD. Resulted in a lawsuit, which was settled for $20,000 on November 05, 2005. Dupuis was not fired from the Hamtramack PD. for this incident.



2004: Hamtramck police officer Dupuis was sued by a man who alleged Dupuis wrongfully arrested him and had him jailed for no reason. The man was released without being charged. His lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount.



Nov. 3, 2005: Officer Ronald Dupuis was accused of discharging a Taser stun gun and striking his female partner, Officer Prema Graham, in the leg with the weapon. [Hamtramack PD]



Nov. 10, 2005: Officer Ronald Dupuis was fired from the Hamtramck Police Department for tasering Officer Prema Graham.



Sometime after November 10, 2005: Officer Ronald Dupuis won legal challenges related to the tasering incident Officer Prema Graham, and the Hamtramck PD's firing of him.



Sometime after November 10, 2005: Officer Ronald Dupuis returned to duty at the Highland Police Department [previously laid off from department in November 2000].



Dec. 7, 2005: Officer Ronald Dupuis charged with misdemeanor assault and battery in connection with the Taser incident.



April 01, 2006: Officer Ronald Dupuis found not guilty at trial of November 2005 taser incident against Officer Prema Graham



June 16, 2006: Officer Ronald Dupuis won an unemployment claim dispute against the City of Hamtramck for their firing of him after the November 2005 taser incident Officer Prema Graham. Chief of Police also refused to reinstate Dupuis.
2006: Officer Ronald Dupuis filed a lawsuit against the City of Hamtramck and Officer Prema Graham [November 2005 taser incident]
August 2006: City of Hamtramck lost appeal on Officer Ronald Dupuis' unemployment.



November 01, 2006: Officer Ronald Dupuis filed a lawsuit against the City of Hamtramck: Civil Rights / Employment. Police Chief refused to reinstate him. [November 2005 taser incident of Officer Graham].



January 2007: Officer Ronald Dupuis filed suit to be reinstated to Hamtramck PD, following his being terminated after November 2005 taser incident against Officer Prema Graham.



October 31, 2008: Officer Ronald Dupuis filed suit against City of Hamtramck.



2012: Officer Ronald Dupuis was accused of choking a woman who was in custody.



February 28, 2012: Officer Ronald Dupuis filed a suit against Highland Park: Civil Rights / Employment.



May 22, 2012: Officer Ronald Dupuis' gun "accidently" went off outside the department's cell block. Dupuis was shot in the leg. Sources at the Highland PD said there would be no disciplinary action taken against Dupuis.



September 19, 2013: Highland Park Officer Ronald Dupuis arrested uniformed / on duty Detroit Parking Enforcement Officer Rhianna Turner and her girlfriend Kera Hill, in front of Detroit PD. Dupuis transported them back to Highland PD and had the women jailed for four days - without charges. Turner lost her job due to the unlawful arrest and imprisonment.



January 12, 2015: An online video from Emma Craig surfaced, showing Officer Dupuis beating a handcuffed Andrew Jackson during an arrest. "Highland Park city attorney Todd Perkins said he's aware of Dupuis' checkered past, although he said he will "draw no conclusions" from it." In April 2015, Highland Park Police Chief Kevin Coney stated that Officer Dupuis was not facing discipline for the beating of Andrew Jackson.



January 14, 2015: Michigan State Police investigation of Officer Ronald Dupuis and other officers for the January beating of Andrew Jackson. Officer Dupuis was not suspended from duty during this criminal investigation.



February 09, 2015: Officer Ronald Dupuis was shot in the leg during a raid. Officer Dupuis was still on active duty despite an MSP investigation of the beating of Andrew Jackson during a January 2015 arrest.



February 13, 2015: Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy began criminal investigation of Officer Ronald Dupuis and other officers for the January 2015 beating of Andrew Jackson. Officer Dupuis was not suspended from duty during this criminal investigation.
"According to the office, it received a warrant request from the Michigan State Police, which investigated the arrest of Andrew Jackson Jr. on Jan. 12 by officers...One of the officers shown in the video making the arrest is Highland Park Sgt. Ron Dupuis..."



February 25, 2015: Lawsuit filed by Andrew Jackson against Officer Ronald Dupuis for January 2015 beating.



April 15, 2015: Lawsuit filed by Rhianna Turner and Kera Hill against Officer Ronald Dupuis for unlawful arrest and false imprisonment [September 2013]



April 20, 2015: Officer Dupuis cleared by Prosecutor Kym Worthy of criminal charges in the January 2015 beating of Andrew Jackson.
"Worthy did not defend some of the officers’ conduct.  She said some of Sgt. Dupuis’s behavior was improper and warrants possible punishment from his superiors. Still, Worthy said, charges aren’t warranted."



April 20, 2015: Highland Park Police Chief Kevin Coney announced that Officer Ronald Dupuis was not facing disciplinary action for the January beating of Andrew Jackson.

















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