Detroit police launches $500K ad blitz seeking new recruits

DETROIT » The Detroit Police Department has launched a $500,000 advertising blitz for its latest recruiting campaign as the department seeks to add 400 new officers to the city’s police force.

The department’s campaign features two video ads, 30 seconds and 40 seconds long, but it also includes digital media, posters and billboards. Since the campaign began in late January, applications are up 35%, said Lashinda Stair, first assistant chief.

“We’re hoping that people within the city see those things because they’re all within the parameters of the city of Detroit,” Stair told The Detroit News.

The cash crunch that drove Detroit into bankruptcy in 2013 also took a toll on paying and retaining police officers. The department’s recruiting effort is aiming to show prospective candidates that Detroit has emerged from financial hardship and can afford to better pay its law enforcement officers.

Police Chief James Craig said officers’ starting pay was $29,000 annually when he became chief in 2013.

But Mayor Mike Duggan said that since then starting salaries have increased to $40,000 and will jump to $42,000 in July.

“That’s still below suburban departments,” he said. “But we’re hoping to bust the myth that we don’t have resources. We are making huge investments in the department. I wish I could give every precinct commander another 10 or 15 officers to put on the street.”

Craig said the force has already lost 10 officers this year to regional police departments, but he noted that the city can now better compete with communities throughout Metro Detroit.

“In a suburban department, you might not ever get to work in an investigative unit, or on surveillance, fly a helicopter, work a marine unit, or be a K-9 or SWAT officer,” he said, while acknowledging that policing in Detroit “is a dangerous job.”

Moody’s Investors Service adjusts outlook on Detroit’s debt

DETROIT » The outlook on Detroit’s debt has been upgraded from “stable” to “positive” by Moody’s Investors Service.

The adjustment means the city’s finances are pointing in a positive direction and there is a higher chance the city will be upgraded in the next year or two, Moody’s said in a news release.

The rating and new outlook applies to $135 million of general obligation debt. Moody’s affirmed the city’s Ba3 bond rating and added that the rating remains three notches below investment grade.

Moody’s said the revised outlook reflects the city budget’s ability to finance service improvements, capital investments and accommodate an increase in pension contributions.

Moody’s upgraded Detroit in 2018 to Ba3 with an outlook of “stable.” The city faced $14 billion in long-term debt and a $327 million budget deficit in 2013, when it became the largest city in the nation to file for bankruptcy.

The city emerged from bankruptcy in December 2014, having restructured or wiped out $7 billion in debt.

“While we’re making extensive progress, we have to continue to plan for financial contractions and set-aside funds for our pension obligations while making investments that improve quality of life in the city,” said David Massaron, Detroit’s chief financial officer.

Police: Suspect in multiple Detroit-area slayings has died

DETROIT » A police informant who was charged in two Detroit-area slayings and named a suspect in at least four others — all six of which occurred after he was released from custody in October — has died, police said Saturday.

Kenyel Brown died Friday, said Detroit police spokesman Sgt. Nicole Kirkwood, who added that she couldn’t provide further details.

Brown, 40, had been hospitalized in critical condition after authorities say he shot himself in the head Monday while fleeing from police in Oak Park, just north of Detroit.

He was charged Feb. 4 in the fatal shootings of two people and wounding of a third two days earlier in River Rouge, southwest of Detroit. He was also suspected in a Jan. 8 killing in River Rouge, a Feb. 18 killing in Highland Park, and separate slayings on Feb. 21 and Feb. 22 in Detroit, as well as two carjackings in Detroit on Feb. 21.

Despite numerous arrests and probation violations over the past few years, Brown was released from custody “at the behest of a federal law enforcement agency,” David Ashenfelter, a spokesman for the U.S. District Court in Detroit, told The Detroit News this week. The agency was not named.

That revelation raised questions about whether Brown should have been in custody when the slayings occurred in January and February.

U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider said Thursday that his office has found no evidence that a federal agency asked a judge to release Brown months before he was charged in the two Detroit-area slayings and named a suspect in at least four others. Schneider said his office was working to get to the bottom of the matter.

Federal Judge Bernard Friedman told Brown during an Oct. 29 probation violation hearing that he was going to give Brown a break, but that Brown had to “stop doing this,” The Detroit News reported, citing a transcript of the hearing. Brown was released that day.

Woman gets probation for burying mother, church embezzlement

LEROY TOWNSHIP » A woman convicted of burying her mother’s body in the yard of a southwestern Michigan home and embezzling money from a church has been sentenced to three years of probation.

Marcia Lutz, 46, pleaded guilty in January to charges of concealing the death of an individual and embezzlement. She was sentenced Friday to probation and ordered to pay more than $34,000 in restitution and nearly $3,000 in fines and costs, the Battle Creek Enquirer reported.

The body of 74-year-old Phyllis Lutz was found in January 2019 wrapped in blankets and buried in a hole in an area used as a burn pit at her home in Leroy Township, about 110 miles (160 kilometers) west of Detroit. Police believe she had died of natural causes.

Marcia Lutz had also embezzled between $20,000 and $50,000 from the First Christian Church, where she had worked as treasurer.

The church’s former pastor, Rev. Kingery Clingenpeel, told Calhoun County Circuit Court Judge Sarah Lincoln on Friday that the church was unable to recover from the embezzlement and has since closed.

Clingenpeel, 73, told the judge Marcia Lutz often reported to the congregation about the progress of her mother, even after Phyllis Lutz was dead.