Now things were running smoothly, though. Levon slotted personal interviews with each of the possible new officers. Each was slotted for ten minutes. Meanwhile, Levon worked with a committee, appointed by Mayor Burns but confirmed by Levon, to rewrite the use-of-force policies within the department. The mayor insisted that his civilian commission was blue ribbon, and that its recommendations be adopted.
Levon carefully crafted the new language. “The community expects,” the manual now read, “and the Detroit Police Department requires that officers use only the force necessary to perform all duties, and that multiple areas of consideration be assessed before any force is used. When force is used, it must be proportional. Such areas of consideration include, but are not limited to: medical condition, mental illness, physical limitation, drug use, emotional instability, and race.”
Under the “race” definition, Levon wrote, “Racial and cultural stereotypes have been utilized to dangerous effect in the past by members of this department. Racial profiling has led to disproportionate stops of those of African-American descent, and to disproportionate arrests and use of force against those of African-American descent. To that end, officers must take into account the prevailing cultural norms of any area they police, and respond to the cultural sensitivities of both suspects and the more general community.”
When told of the new strictures, dozens of officers quit right away. “Good riddance,” Levon told the mayor. “Less pensions for you to pay.” When Billy Barton walked into Levon’s new office and slapped down a list of four hundred officers willing to quit over the new standards, Levon looked him dead in the eye. “Well,” he said, “I supposed it can’t be helped. Change has casualties.”
The media embraced Levon’s new standards as groundbreaking. Racial sensitivity, they said, had never been used as an actual policing criterion, but nowhere was that criterion more necessary than Detroit. “Had Ricky O’Sullivan been taught and held accountable under these standards,” Levon said, Regina standing beside him, “perhaps Kendrick would still be alive today. Showing attitude to police officers is something a Detroit cop should have understood, had he been properly trained. Don’t call our kids thugs just because you don’t understand the experiences they’ve had growing up. They’ve seen cops pull over their dads, drag them off to jail. We have an entire generation of missing men in our community. Sensitivity is the key.”
More officers dropped out.
And Levon began to build his force. He began with those nearest to him. At first, he thought to use only men and women with no criminal record. That would prevent anyone from claiming that he wanted to undermine the nature of the force. But he soon realized that too many young black men had spent time behind bars. He quickly changed the rules, with the mayor’s approvaclass="underline" now anyone who had been convicted of a nonviolent felony—most of these were drug crimes—could be considered for employment.
“Policing only works,” Levon told CNN, “if the police reflect the community. It just isn’t effective to say that our law enforcement ought to be clean as the driven snow. Given the amount of racism against our community, and the disproportionate imprisonment of young black men, we cannot insist that everyone have a clean record. It’s just not realistic. We’ve ensured that nobody with a violent criminal past can join the force, but as our country becomes more tolerant of marijuana, and as we reexamine the legacy of the failed war on drugs that has robbed so many black sons and daughters of their fathers, we see this program as a way of both rehabilitating young black men and strengthening law enforcement. Think of it as converting people from criminality to standard-bearers for a new, more tolerant America.”
More plaudits. More resignations.
The final blow to the police enrollment standards came in the area of education. The standard for the department had always been a high school degree or an equivalent. Now, with the applications pouring in, Levon had to face the fact that not enough applicants had graduated from high school—many had dropped out. Again, he cited racial disparities in changing the policy, explaining that every trainee would be given remedial education necessary to do the job. “How can you expect people to work their way up the ladder if we don’t give them the chance to get on the first rung?” he asked.
Within a week of the new policies going into effect, the constituency of the police academy had turned over by 40 percent. The old department had been more than 60 percent black; now it was nearly 90 percent black. It had also grown younger by approximately ten years on average. It would take a few months to siphon in the new recruits, but the force would change dramatically.
When Levon made the cover of Time, his picture emblazoned over the headline “THE NEW FACE OF LAW ENFORCEMENT,” he knew the time had come to make the next move.
That move came against Detroit Energy, which supplied most of the power to the entire southeastern Michigan area. For years, thousands of Detroit customers had failed to pay their bills. They simply assumed that the city would pick up the tab—which, for years, the city did. But as the tax base shrunk, DTE took it on the nose, and began enforcing its own rules, cutting off the power to some 25,000 customers per month, many of them in the Detroit metropolitan area.
The mayor understood his new role now. Levon knew that. The mayor knew that. He had become a rubber stamp, content to receive media paeans for pushing Levon’s prescriptions into law. When Levon told the mayor that the next step would have to come in the form of energy fairness, with winter approaching, the mayor acquiesced.
Mayor Burns held a press conference, Levon at his side. “Detroit Energy,” the mayor said, “has been defrauding its customers for years. Leaving them at nature’s whim instead of working with them to help them through tough times. For years, the people of Detroit have paid their taxes and their bills, and the money has made its way north of Eight Mile, outside the Detroit city limits. We’ve got thousands of kids here getting ready to bunk down in freezing homes, just because a hard-working single mother can’t afford the bills this month. Who are we as a society? Are we going to give each other a hand up? Or are we going to give way to our baser natures, our greed?”
That bright and sunny Tuesday morning, the CEO of Detroit Energy, Gerald Montefiore, found himself accosted by dozens of cameras. Montefiore was an overweight, well-tailored, shorter, elderly gentleman with a Monopoly-man mustache. Glaring into the cameras, he told the mayor and the city of Detroit, “No one has the right to steal, even if they vote to steal. And the mayor’s new paramilitary force, his new police force, they can’t violate the law just because they have the guns.”
Levon responded on behalf of the mayor’s office. “Our new police force represents the community of Detroit,” he said solemnly. “And we can’t be bought by any corporation. The city of Detroit is not for sale. America is all about the fair shake, all about caring for the least of us. Every citizen has a right to running water, clean air, and electricity. If Detroit Energy refuses to make its product available to everyone, we will be forced to take measures to enforce the rights of the people of Detroit.”
Montefiore refused to attend a meeting with Levon and Mayor Burns. Instead, he sent his lawyers. Levon refused bluntly to even get in a room with them. “Eels,” he told Burns. “You just let me take care of this.”