Bill Laitner and Matt Helms

Detroit Free Press

Roman Gribbs, who was mayor of Detroit from 1970 until 1974 and a state Appeals Court judge from 1982 to 2000, died Tuesday morning of complications of esophageal cancer, family members said.

Gribbs, a resident of Northville, was 90. He had been receiving hospice care in Livonia.

As mayor in the 1970s, Gribbs struggled with the already-ongoing exodus of residents and businesses to the suburbs, a pattern that had begun in earnest at least two decades earlier, according to “The Detroit Almanac,” a 300-year history of the city published by the Free Press in 2000. Those two trends ultimately led to devastating losses of people and revenue that forced the city into the nation’s largest municipal bankruptcy decades later.

After Gribbs was elected, he declined to move his family into the Manoogian Mansion, the official residence of Detroit’s mayors, “because he and my mother wanted their children to grow up in a normal environment,” said his daughter Carla Brisbois-Gribbs, 58, of Rochester.

“They felt one way would be to keep us in the Detroit Public Schools we’d been going to and keep us in the neighborhood where we’d been for 12 years” — North Rosedale Park, Brisbois-Gribbs said.

The family did get to visit the mansion, said Gribbs’ son Chris Gribbs, 56, of Falls Church, Va.

“It was a great place to hang out on overnights as kids. There was a swimming pool out back, and we’d go there each year to watch the Gold Cup races,” he said. The brother and sister also recalled that the mayor’s seats at Tiger Stadium “were right at the edge of the field, and right in front of the on-deck circle, so we could almost reach out and touch Al Kaline and all those guys,” Brisbois-Gribbs said.

Difficult years as mayor

Gribbs was mayor at the launch of the controversial anti-crime unit called STRESS, an acronym for Stop The Robberies — Enjoy Safe Streets, that became a rallying cry among African-American Detroiters who said the undercover decoy units were too aggressive. More than 4,000 Detroiters staged a protest downtown in September 1971.

The STRESS unit began under the leadership of John Nichols, a longtime Detroit cop whom Gribbs named police commissioner in 1970. Nichols’ hired hundreds of officers, including many African Americans. But his tough-on-crime approach included STRESS, which resulted in the deaths of 20 civilians — 17 of whom were black — and three police officers.

Gribbs said in later interviews that he was sensitive to the changing demographics of the city, which was about 45% black when he was elected. He narrowly defeated Richard Austin to become mayor; Austin went on to become a long-serving Michigan Secretary of State.

Previous Mayor "Jerry Cavanagh left me with a $20-million deficit," Gribbs said in a 2013 interview with the Free Press. "I laid off 500 people that first year to help balance the budget. It was a tough time. But I balanced the budget each of the four years I was in office. I also left Coleman (Mayor Coleman Young who followed him) a $15-million surplus."

Mayor Mike Duggan said Gribbs "was the textbook definition of a dedicated public servant."

"Through a career that stretched nearly half a century, and in his roles as an assistant prosecutor, a respected judge and as sheriff and mayor, he admirably served Detroit — a city he loved dearly," Duggan said. "I am grateful for his service, and my heart goes out to his family."

Former Mayor Dennis Archer also said Gribbs’ legacy is of public service.

“He cared a lot about our city,” Archer said. “He gave his best to serve the people of the city of Detroit and then he made a conscious decision to step down after one term” and went on to come a respected judge. “Public service was in his veins and he wore it well.”

Until Duggan’s 2014 election as mayor, Gribbs was the last white mayor of Detroit, a city that became predominantly African American in the years after Gribbs’ time in office. Gribbs had been a Wayne County sheriff and an assistant prosecutor before he became Detroit’s first mayor of Polish descent (his last name at birth was Grzyb, and he changed it as a young adult).

Gribbs worked closely with auto baron Henry Ford II, the grandson of the Ford founder, and other city leaders in laying the foundation to build the Renaissance Center, construction on which began during his tenure.

Shortly after Gribbs took office, he encouraged the founding of Detroit Renaissance, a nonprofit group formed by Henry Ford II, philanthropist Max Fisher and Detroit Edison chairman Walker Cisler, aimed at rebuilding Detroit after the riots of 1967. During Gribbs’ one term in office, he and the Detroit Renaissance leaders broke ground on the construction of the Renaissance Center.

They hoped that the complex of four office towers encircling a hotel tower would jump-start the economy of downtown Detroit, Carla Brisbois-Gribbs said.

After leaving office, Gribbs returned to private practice as a lawyer, but in 1975, he was elected a circuit court judge and, in 1982, elected to the Michigan Court of Appeals. Before moving to Northville about 20 years ago, he had been a longtime resident of the North Rosedale Park area of Detroit, family members said.

Gribbs' early years

Gribbs was born in Detroit in 1925. His parents were poor, Polish immigrants who moved to a farm in Michigan's Thumb when Gribbs was 3. His father commuted to his farm on weekends from his weekday job as a foundry worker at Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn.

Gribbs graduated as salutatorian from Capac High School in 1944 and served in the U.S. Army as a sergeant from 1946 to 1948 and then attended the University of Detroit.

He graduated magna cum laude from U of D with bachelor's degrees in economics and accounting in 1952, then enrolled in law school at the University of Detroit.

After a short stint in a law practice and some part-time teaching at U of D, Gribbs took a job in the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office.

He worked cases every day for nine years until he accepted an appointment in 1966 as a traffic court referee, a municipal judge position. There he learned about city ordinances and departments, which led to his appointment as county sheriff.

"While his tenure as Sheriff was brief (1968-1969), he continued to pursue a life serving the public, as Mayor of Detroit and later as Circuit Court Judge and on the Michigan Court of Appeals," Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon said Tuesday in a prepared statement.

Besides his daughter and son, Gribbs is survived by his wife, Leola Gribbs, and by three other daughters: Paula Rewald-Gribbs, Rebecca Lawson and Elizabeth Gardella-Gribbs; and by stepdaughter Michelle Barr O’Connor. His first wife, Katherine Stratis, died in 2011 at age 78.

Visitation is 3-9 p.m. Thursday with a 7 p.m. prayer service at L.J. Griffin Funeral Home, 19091 Northville Road in Northville. A funeral service will be at 11 a.m. at Our Lady of Victory Church, 133 Orchard, in Northville. Contributions may be sent to the North Rosedale Park Legacy Project via www.nrpca.org or to the church.

Contact Matt Helms: 313-222-1450 ormhelms@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @matthelms.

Mayor Roman Gribbs

1925: Born, Detroit, Mich.

1944: Graduated salutatorian Capac High School.

1946-48: Served as sergeant in U.S. Army.

1952: Earned a bachelor’s degree in economics/accounting from University of Detroit.

1954: Received law degree from University of Detroit School of Law.

1954: Married Katherine Stratis; divorced in 1982.

1966: Appointed traffic court referee.

1970: Sworn in as mayor of Detroit.

1971: As mayor, Gribbs advocated a constitutional amendment making possession of

handguns illegal.

1971: Launched STRESS, (Stop The Robberies – Enjoy Safe Streets) a police department street unit.

1975: Elected Wayne County Circuit Court judge.

1982: Elected to the Michigan Court of Appeals.

1990: Married Leola Young.

2000: Retired from Michigan Court of Appeals.