By Police1 Staff
DETROIT — Forty-five years ago, Detroit Officer Ulysses Brown was murdered in the line of duty. Today, his daughter is working to make the city a safer place.
Detroit Deputy Chief Ulysha Renee Hall was only six months old when her father was gunned down while working a special unit, according to WXYZ.
“My father not being there meant the same thing as every other child in Detroit or around the world growing up without a father,” Hall told the station. “It has an impact.”
Wanting to make the city a safer place, Hall followed in her father’s footsteps and began to work for Detroit police at age 29.
“That’s why I sit here today as deputy chief of the city of Detroit. My brother is a chief warrant officer of the Navy station in Florida. My sister has been an educator for 25 years,” Hall said.
Hall oversees the chief’s neighborhood policing program and works to build positive relationships between police and the community. She also created a “spirit of service” program where rookie officers feed the homeless and interact with the elderly and youth.
She attributes her success to her mother and channels her anger about her father’s death into her work.
“I channel that anger into passion about joining the police department. With the community, we want to make sure we are very aggressive in our homicide investigations and that we’re very active in our apprehension because we do know what it feels like,” Hall said.
Her work is a tribute to her father who made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty.
“Closure is very important for myself and my family. We would like to know what happened. I believe I’m finishing what my dad started.”