DPD officers upset at detention center pat downs in front of criminals

DETROIT (WJBK) - Operations have slowed down at the Detroit Detention Center after police officers refuse to follow a new policy. The State of Michigan wants security to pat down police officers at the Detroit Detention Center just like the prisoners they bring in. It is in the name of safety, and to make sure an officer's weapon doesn't end up in the wrong hands. Assistant Chief James White says, though, that the way the state wants to handle his officers is wrong.

"I just want my officers treated professionally," he says. White believes his professional officers who put their lives on the line every day don't deserve to be treated that way.

"I want them treated with dignity," he says. "And I don't think exposing them to a pat down with their prisoner present is a dignified way of dealing with police officers."

The former Mound Correctional Facility opened as the Detroit Detention Center in 2013, operating under an agreement between the Detroit Police Department and the Michigan Department of Corrections. Everything had been fine until Wednesday night when the MDOC implemented its pat down policy for police officers. Officers refused and sources say the employees at the DDC didn't like that.

So with each criminal an officer brought in, FOX 2 learned detention center workers retaliated by causing a long-time wait to process the prisoner, causing the major slowdown.

Detroit Police Chief James Craig is working with the state to resolve this stalemate and White is monitoring the prisoner take in process.

"From a service standpoint, nothing will change," he says.

"But Detroit makes a lot of arrests?" FOX 2's Taryn Asher asks him.

"And they are going to be arrested and brought to jail," White says. "Processed even if I have to stay here and watch the process myself. Tonight they will be arrested, they will be processed."

White says he is fine with officers going through metal detectors to determine if they have a weapon on them, but the pat down method - especially in front of the prisoners - he says is unacceptable.

FOX 2 has attempted to reach the MDOC for comment but is still waiting to hear back.