And shoots the unarmed teen in the face. In each case, the officer was exonerated. A 4-month Free Press review found that police shootings in Detroit have become a cause for deadly concern. But more than that, the Free Press found that the system intended to monitor police shootings has become a scale out of balance. The city doesn't know how much it spends on shooting lawsuits and doesn't carefully track officers who fire their weapons.
Prosecutors hesitate to second-guess the police.
And investigators often accept the word of officers over civilians, overlook witnesses with damaging evidence and fail to get basic, scientific tests to evaluate some shootings. Critics say the department's reluctance to aggressively investigate and discipline officers encourages lethal force in Detroit, which leads the nation's largest cities in per capita fatal police shootings. Police Chief Benny Napoleon said the department, with about 4,200 officers, doesn't gloss over questionable shootings to protect its own. We put anybody in jail who violates the law. But, we are not going to railroad some innocent person, whether they're civilian or a police officer.