By The Associated Press
DETROIT -- Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick, no stranger to criticism, faces a firestorm over discharging Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown last Friday.
Mr. Brown, who headed the internal affairs division, has said he was investigating accusations against people close to Mr. Kilpatrick. Mr. Brown said he was dismissed because he was investigating drunken-driving accidents, reports of falsified overtime records and a possible cover-up involving members of the mayor’s security detail.
Mr. Brown also said he was looking into reports of an incident at the mayor’s mansion that involved Mr. Kilpatrick, his family, a party with nude dancers and an assault that was concealed from the police.
Mr. Kilpatrick has denied the accusations. A spokesman, Jamaine Dickens, said he could not comment on the ouster because it was a confidential personnel case.
On Wednesday, the City Council passed a resolution asking the Justice Department to investigate the dismissal and forwarded the request to United States attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, Jeffrey G. Collins. A spokeswoman for Mr. Collins, Gina Balaya, said that her office was reviewing the request and that she did not know when a decision would be made.
Mr. Brown’s lawyer, Michael Stefani, said on Wednesday that Mr. Brown discussed an unrelated inquiry with Police Chief Jerry A. Oliver Sr. a week before being dismissed. At that time, Mr. Stefani said, Chief Oliver asked Deputy Chief Brown to write an outline of the investigation into Mr. Kilpatrick’s security force. He did so, and two days later Deputy Chief Brown was fired, Mr. Stefani said.
“He knew he was on the hot seat,” Mr. Stefani said. “The chief told him the people in the mayor’s office were not happy with them investigating the security detail.”
A memorandum drafted in April but not sent to Chief Oliver includes a more detailed account of the inquiry, including the party at the mansion. Chief Oliver said the lengthier memorandum, which he first saw on Monday, justified the dismissal.
“Clearly the fact that this memo exists, which is contrary to the memo that Gary wrote to me, signals that something was amiss and that he had a personal agenda, an agenda separate and apart from the official agenda of the department,” Chief Oliver told The Detroit Free Press.
On Tuesday, the mayor called Mr. Brown’s assertions “very troubling and totally false” and asked Sheriff Warren C. Evans of Wayne County to investigate. Sheriff Evans declined, saying his office lacked the resources for such an effort.
Complaints about the size of Mr. Kilpatrick’s 20-member security detail and his giving city jobs to friends and relatives have dogged him for much of his 16 months in office.
Fewer than 12 officers protect the mayor of Philadelphia, and the mayor of Dallas has two.
The Police Department here is the subject of a Justice Department investigation that was prompted in 2000 by officers’ fatal shootings of civilians. The review seemed to be nearing its end last month, when Chief Oliver said an independent monitor would most likely be hired to oversee the department. The department did not return requests for comment.
Mr. Kilpatrick has politics in his blood. His father was a former Wayne County commissioner. His mother is Representative Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, a Democrat. Kwame Kilpatrick was elected to the Michigan House in 1996, taking the spot vacated by his mother.
After being elected mayor in November 2001, he said his first mission would be rebuilding the Police Department.
“Corruption,” he said, “cannot be tolerated in any form.”