Recently, I attended a conversation circle with Michigan Public, facilitated by my friend Ru Sade. There we discussed the complicated nature of managing mental health crises in a carceral context where police departments have far too many responsibilities. There, grassroots caretakers and community organizers opened up about not only our politics, but our personal experiences managing the needs of loved ones suffering from mental illnesses.
Experiences like this can be incredibly affirming as we tend to hide that dimension of our families out of fear of alienation. We fear that folks might intrude upon us with unsolicited advice, but also that our loved one will be seen differently. All the while, we are all managing mental health crises of our own. I am a little brother to Kimathi, an adult facing challenges with autism and schizophrenia that have been textures of his life since adolescence.
Last night at a charter mandated meeting at Kingdom Apostolic Ministries, Mayor Mike Duggan uplifted Detroit’s Police Chief James White who will now be serving as CEO of Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network (DWIHN)-- the state’s largest mental health organization in the state. This new role is not only a promotion, but also a considerable bump in pay for Chief White as the last DWHIN CEO made more than $300k. The room applauded.
I wondered if Kimathi would also applaud. He would not. For someone like my dear brother, they will not notice the difference. They will not join in the fallattion of James White’s “expertise.” Technocratic solutions do not provide care and restoration to our loved ones who are bounced from hospital beds when their presence is no longer profitable. They are instead pressed with harder questions such as:
Why are there not enough places where I can get help?
Who can I trust?
Why does it seem like nobody’s listening to me?
Families know the mental health crisis & carceral state are inextricably linked. John Engler was one of the Michigan right’s biggest strategists and broadscale asshats. Under his 1991-2003 governorship, MDOC opened 10 more prisons and 10/15 state mental hospitals closed. This was part of a broader shift to austerity, where corporate actors push the government to take less responsibility for the safety net of communities.
Many of Engler’s policies would be in lines with the machinations of the Reagan Administration and would serve as building blocks for Rick Snyder's slashing of public services. The prevailing thought of the time was that mental health should be resolved at a more private scale, leaving families more responsible for the care of folks who need around the clock care.
20 years later, we have a crisis. For folk battling mental illness. For their families. But also those tasked with resolving crises.
Just this past week 2 DPD officers shot & killed an off duty member of DPD’s Special Response Unit who was facing a mental health crisis.
“The worst call I get is one that says officers have been shot,” Detroit Mayor Duggan said. “And we are so fortunate today that the two officers who were responding, heard that their injuries are not life-threatening. But it is a reminder of the courage that the officers of this department show everyday”
“They went to that scene knowing that they were going to be confronted by a highly-trained and armed officer in the department who having a significant mental issue”
I found this quote from our mayor disturbing. They were so quick to reinforce the expertise of our police department that they entirely disembodied one of their own.
“Between 2016 and 2022, 1,287 public safety personnel – including first responders and police officers – died by suicide.” (First H.E.L.P.) Retired officers are battling Depression, PTSD, and many other conditions induced by years of managing dangerous conditions. (Freep, 2024)
I’m weary about Chief White’s tenure as CEO of DWIHN. Under his leadership, our police department has been shrouded in stories like Porter Burks and an absurd backlog of 1600+ citizen complaints that haven't been resolved. The Office of Inspector General concluded hundreds of cases were administratively closed without being properly investigated. (Outlier, 2024)
Some would argue that Chief White has fostered progress, having served as police chief during a historic pandemic. The pandemic radically changed communities and their perceptions of safety, yet we put full absolution in institutions that have not changed their praxis to accommodate those changes. If anything, they've just responded with more investments into predictive policing and technology.
I do think they are signals of progress for the city of Detroit in regards to public safety. Last night, Chief White once again named decreases in car theft and violent crime as some of those improvements. I suggest those have many contributing factors, many of which do not fall under the apparatus of the police. There are frontline and grassroots organizations doing preventative work, both with and without the financial support of DPD. There is a rapidly changing city population that has reconfigured neighborhoods in very real ways. But furthermore, there are increasing challenges in surrounding edge cities as low-income populations are forced to leave Detroit.
I'd also say that Chief White was not…quite the public authoritarian tyrant his predecessor James Craig was per se. He was more political, being able to present himself as a benevolent actor willing to hear out difficult questions. Often these questions were met with selective statistics and under-prepared appeals to people's fears. I think these proclivities offered fruitful organizing terrain for folk looking to peel back the mystique of law enforcement. Put more simply, there were many times where White’s inability to manage a public relations crisis allowed for marginal narrative progress. I however, question what those opportunities gained our communities.
This would be a key tension in our Stop Shotspooter campaign reallocating $7M in ARPA funds from Shotspotter back into more preventative projects in 2022. The blowback of that organizing campaign would also foster Mayor Duggan and Chief White’s ShotSTOPPER program where violence prevention organizations would be provided more funds for their work. As one of the organizers who led the Shotspotter campaign, I think that these marginal wins have not fostered a better Detroit in the way that we’ve wanted, for a mix of reasons. The Mayor and DPD were successful in splitting the community on the issue of public safety in ways that we had to restore following this campaign. That emotional labor costed us some foresight around how the opposing side would leverage narrative for future investments into policing.. This allowed for false solution projects that expand the powers of police but don't guarantee safety such as license plate readers and increased camera presence in struggling corridors.
We have not fostered true accountability from our police department. We have not yet redistributed resources in the way we want to address root causes of crime. We have made some progress, but such is not felt by everyone. As White’s time as “Top Cop” comes to an end, we should be asking everyone for their analysis. Mayor Duggan is now responsible for appointing a police chief that stands to be in power even beyond Duggan’s time as mayor. This will set the tone of how both policing and mental health crises are managed in Detroit.
I don’t believe his promotion will provide any relief to folk facing mental illness. They will not celebrate yet another lateral movement of Detroit’s elite. The reality for many families is that the difference between death and underwhelming hospitalization depends on the particular officer, and your relationship with them. If those prerequisites aren’t met, you may be in for life-threatening circumstances.
But furthermore our state government has forfeited the responsibility for providing adequate care to our families. If you’re ever a bit curious, check out some Google reviews of DWIHN. Talk to families like mine who know that it’s more of a “dog and pony show” than an actual organization. The last CEO of the organization made more than $300k yearly which is twice as much as I will be paying off on my home for the next 30 years. These are funds that are not being invested into care, restoration, and preventative work. It is simply a promotion for someone who has built their resume enough to switch roles.
While these large institutions and the misleadership class misallocate funds irresponsibly, frontline organizations fill in the gaps. Folks like Motor City Mobile Wellness are building immediate solutions, resources and respite homes with other like-minded organizations so that our families have true safety nets. Organizations like Detroit Disability Power are setting a new political floor where collective care is embedded in political strategies. Folks like Justin Dale in our Ginger Root group are building real tools for black men to develop mental, emotional, and spiritual wellness. These are but a few changemakers that come to mind most immediately for me, but there are so many more folk prioritizing localized, place-based solutions. Those will be the folk our families know personally. Our families will seldom get to sit down with Chief White, but at least he feels important for the moment. *shrug
Per usual, I want to leave us with a series of critical questions to sit with:
Are you or anyone you know facing mental health challenges? Do you/they feel celebratory about Chief White’s promotion?
Do you have a safety or de-escalation plan for yourself or your loved one? What are some of its limitations and challenges?
Have you felt safer in these past few years? Why or Why not? What would make you feel safer?
What is your big bold vision for mental health in our city/state?
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