The police officer pulled over the 2011 Cadillac on a cold, darkened street. And then everything went wrong.

The cop stepped out, and with the aid of his partner, muscled the driver out of his car, riding the man’s back to the pavement. Pinning the man down, the officer hooked his powerful left arm around his throat, then began pummeling him in the head with a gloved right fist. Once. Three times. Sixteen punches in all, in 10 seconds.

The beating in January 2015 of motorist Floyd Dent in Inkster came at the hands of William Melendez, an officer known widely as “Robocop.”

The bloody encounter was avoidable.

Robocop, an officer with a checkered history, never should have been on the streets that night.

A Detroit Free Press investigation found he’s a prime example of how lax oversight of police officers in Michigan puts citizens at risk by allowing cops to slip from community to community despite alarming conduct, criminal histories and lawsuits that cost taxpayers millions.

The problems uncovered by the Free Press extend from urban departments to the suburbs. There’s no telling how many officers like Melendez might be on the job in Michigan.

No one is keeping track.

The Free Press investigation found:

A stunning recurrence of problem cops left on the street because they are protected by a system of city officials, labor arbitrators or sympathetic chiefs who don’t end officers’ careers when given the chance. This allows them to move to other communities with no state intervention.

Police officers are among the most protected public employees in the state. Laws, unions, judges and city leaders where the cops work often shield their disciplinary records and, in some cases, basic information like their names. Judges overseeing civil lawsuits routinely agree to seal records.

Poor communities, some with heavily minority populations, are magnets for problem cops. In competition with more affluent communities, these departments lose out, in part, because jobs are sometimes part-time and lower paying. The Detroit enclave of Highland Park, for example, has employed a litany of these types of officers.

Profiles:How 12 problem officers landed new police jobs

Editorial:State and local officials, officers need to do more

About this report:How we found problem cops and information about them



In the wake of the Melendez episode, the Free Press investigated the departments that hired him, then branched out to other departments who have harbored problem cops. Reporters dug through court files, gathered documents from agencies, mined old news stories and sparred with cities that refused requests for public records about officers. The investigation — which sought information from more than 50 agencies, primarily in southeast Michigan — pinpointed about two dozen officers, many of whom jumped from department to department in recent years like Robocop.

The officers were involved in misconduct, including having sex on duty and crimes like assaults. Here’s a sampling:

The officer involved in an off-duty crash where he left the scene after severely injuring a motorcyclist. That cop was charged criminally and fired from Southgate, and then landed another police job.

The officer who lit up his own partner with a Taser in Hamtramck — while she was driving their patrol car. Hamtramck forced him out, but that didn’t stop him from hiring on somewhere else.

The deputy in Oakland County whose conduct during a narcotics investigation led to his firing and prosecutors dropping 17 criminal cases. The deputy landed another job.

The officer who repeatedly had sexual relations with a female college student while he was supposed to be patrolling the streets of Ferndale. The suburb rid itself of him, but cut a deal that allowed him to work elsewhere.

The deputy in Eaton County who resigned following an aggressive run-in with a motorist that was caught on video, then was hired by another sheriff's office aware of the earlier incident.

Nationally, police-citizen interactions have resulted in major headlines, from shootings of unarmed black men to attacks on unsuspecting officers. With relations simmering and cell phone videos going viral, police officer behavior has drawn increased scrutiny.

David Harvey, the former executive director of the Michigan agency that licenses police officers — says the majority of the 18,500 officers in Michigan do a good job.

But the damage left behind by some stains others.

“The problem is that one officer affects the entire profession,” Harvey said. “While I think they’re in the minority, it does affect the majority. The majority of police officers in this state do a fantastic job every day.”

Harvey has since left the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards, but in February, while still running the agency, he acknowledged that MCOLES does not know how many problem cops there are in Michigan, let alone how many jump from job to job. He conceded that it is a concern, and could be getting worse because of widespread cuts to police pay and benefits in recent years.

“No agencies are born the same,” Harvey said in a separate interview. “Some pay more. Some pay less. Some have better benefits. Some have no benefits. Some went part-time. There’s a lot of jobs out there in law enforcement right now. So the cream of the crop can pretty much pick where they want to go — which makes it difficult.”

The state has tried to get tougher — last year the Legislature gave MCOLES a marginal gain in authority. Despite these efforts, 25 states have a stronger hand than Michigan to stop problem cops.

More: Michigan has tried to get tougher on bad cops, but ...



More:Background checks could keep some cops off streets, but don't

According to a national survey released in 2016 by Matthew Hickman, an associate professor of criminal justice at Seattle University, those 25 states can yank police officer licenses for behavior that doesn’t rise to the level of a crime.

In Michigan, an officer who misbehaves must be convicted of a felony or — as of the new legislation — a handful of misdemeanors. That leaves lots of room for bad behavior.

Local police chiefs and sheriffs are most responsible in Michigan for handling problem cops. That's the way labor leaders say it should be.

James Pasco, a senior adviser in Washington for the Fraternal Order of Police, said the task should not fall to states, which he said already struggle to deal with issues like roads and education. The "very small minority" of problem cops, he said, should be handled decisively by local officials, who should "man up and make it known and make it clear why they’ve been fired and why they shouldn’t be rehired.”

In general, Michigan revokes few licenses of police officers.

A Free Press review of MCOLES meeting minutes found 118 license revocations during a 10-year period. In a 2011 study, the most recent data available, only 10 of the 44 states that reported decertifying officers did so at a lower rate than Michigan.

The identities of decertified officers could not be determined via a Freedom of Information request filed by the Free Press. MCOLES referred the request to the Michigan State Police, which refused to provide the names, personnel histories and justification for decertification against officers. Although the vast majority of officers were decertified after felony convictions, State Police cited “an unwarranted invasion of an individual’s privacy” and a desire not to name officers.

Roger Goldman, a professor emeritus at St. Louis University who has studied monitoring of police across the U.S., said local control just doesn't work. Tighter oversight of police officers is needed in more states, including Michigan. He said it’s as important as overseeing the medical profession.

“Do you want a doctor who takes out the wrong lung or kidney? Obviously not. Life and death,” Goldman said. “With the cops, same kind of thing. Who else has the power to arrest, to search, to use deadly force?”

The City of Ferndale had a problem with Officer James Ture: He made a big mistake with a college student in July 2007 while he was supposed to be on patrol.

She had signed up for a ride-along. Ture spent two weeks with her, having sexual encounters on as many as three occasions while he was on-duty.

After an internal investigation found Ture “brought ill-fame and disrepute and discredit to himself, this department and law enforcement in general,” Ferndale officials decided he had to go. But how best to do it?

Because of arbitration, firing a cop in Michigan can be complicated, costly and can result in a cop winning his or her job back. Arbitration is designed as an independent mediation between parties — in this case, a unionized police officer and his employer.

“If you fire somebody, remember one thing: The arbitration process is a roll of the dice,” said Ferndale Chief Timothy Collins, who was the No. 2 man in the department at the time and helped negotiate Ture’s ouster.

Within about a month, the two sides had a deal: Ture agreed to never work for the city again and Ferndale officials let him resign.

The Free Press discovered the city enticed Ture by agreeing to tell prospective employers he quit for “personal reasons,” according to the written agreement obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

If a police department came calling for a reference, the agreement included a provision that allowed the city to release his personnel information, including details of the sex-on-duty incident — but only if a signed authorization from Ture was produced. Collins, who said last year he stands by the agreement, said the intent of the deal was to allow Ture to move on with his life, but not to another police job.

But Ture did pursue police jobs, and several departments called Ferndale to check on him, Collins said. He shared all the information he had with them about Ture and several cities passed.

Not Highland Park.

A deputy chief from that community came to Collins’ office and reviewed Ture’s files, including the sex-on-duty allegations that forced him out.

Collins said he did not recall the deputy chief’s name, but “he spent his time, due diligence, and went through the whole thing and he went, ‘It’s not criminal behavior.’ And I went, ‘I would agree. I would say that it kind of sets the tone of what kind of a guy he is, but I agree that it’s not criminal behavior in any way, shape or form, that that is certainly a violation of rules, regulations and standard procedures of a law enforcement agency, but you’re right. It’s not illegal.’

“He goes, ‘OK, thanks!’ And off he went and hired Jim Ture.”

Collins in an interview said he was aghast that someone would hire Ture, knowing of his behavior in Ferndale.

“It gives you that position where you don’t look at Jim Ture, you look at those other agencies and go … ‘What are you folks thinking? What in God’s name can’t you take seriously about this profession?’”

Inkster hired Ture, too, and he worked for both departments — for awhile.

In the early morning hours of June 13, 2014, Ture did something that cost him his job in Inkster.

A 911 caller had reported gunfire coming from a red Dodge van. Ture and another officer spotted a van matching the description parked at the pumps in a gas station.

One officer put the driver — not handcuffed — in the back of a patrol car and Ture went for the passenger, who, as he exited the van, dropped an ammo clip for a pistol. Ture pulled a Taser and subdued the passenger, who was then handcuffed.

As the other officer escorted the second man to the patrol car, Ture left them and went toward the gas station store to investigate people looking out at the scene, he later said, according to police records.

A surveillance video obtained by the Free Press under the Freedom of Information Act shows Ture rushing into the store with his gun drawn. Three men, apparently innocent bystanders, are standing in the cramped space near the cashier. They immediately drop to the floor on their stomachs and clasp their hands behind their heads.

There is no audio on the security-camera footage, but Ture appears to be giving orders to one man, who is curled up in a space not big enough for him to stretch out. The man has his hands behind his head when Ture reaches for his Taser, his gun still trained with his right hand on the prone man.

Just as the man straightens out, Ture walks over him and drives the Taser into the man’s back, delivering painful volts of electricity.

After a few seconds, as the man’s legs begin to kick, Ture backs away, then walks up and straddles the man again, backs off, looks outside, then races out to help the other officer.

While Ture had been inside using his Taser on the bystander, the other cop had become engaged in “hand-to-hand combat” outside with both the passenger and driver of the van, records say.

The driver broke free and ran. Ture chased him, but it was too late. The driver got away.

An internal investigation later was critical of Ture using his Taser “without justification or cause” on the man in the gas station, a report shows. The man in the station, who wasn’t identified in the report, is described in records as an “unknown subject.” Nothing in the report connects him to the crime being investigated by Ture and the other officer.

Among other findings, the Inkster Police Department ruled that Ture failed to report using his Taser on the man, and then later lied about the circumstances.

Reached by phone late last summer, Ture said he needed to call back at a different time, but never did. He said he was on his way to work the night shift in Highland Park. He did not respond to recent attempts to reach him.

Much of the misconduct by Ture and other officers reviewed as part of the Free Press investigation gets police officers fired, and even decertified, in some other states.

In 2014, after a police officer in Plainfield, N.J., was found to have had sex on-duty in his patrol car, the city fired him.

The Free Press found situations in Michigan in which local officials excused significant issues — in at least one officer’s case, possible crimes — to make it easier for the community to rid itself of the officer.

In Southgate in 1999, then-police chief Donald Calvin kept notes from personnel meetings with an embattled young officer named Ronald Dupuis, who had been accused of harassing multiple women — sometimes while on-duty — including pulling over some who felt he wanted to date them.

Calvin’s handwritten notes show the chief offered to end an internal investigation into possible “improper/illegal conduct” by Dupuis if the officer would just quit, less than a year after he started there.

“He was told if he chose to resign then, obviously, there was no reason for us to continue any investigation into improper/illegal conduct on his part, and his file would be closed,” Calvin wrote.

Before he accepted Calvin’s offer, Dupuis inquired as to what information would be released to other agencies, should he quit. Calvin answered that prospective employers would be told: “That he was here and left for whatever reason he wrote” in his resignation letter. “I wasn’t saying that he couldn’t be a good officer somewhere else if he chose to and didn’t deserve a second chance.”

State records show Dupuis continued working as a cop in other communities and in 2001 started a job in Hamtramck. That department’s background investigator later said that he looked into Dupuis’ history before the hiring and received a thumbs-up from Southgate, despite the problems Dupuis had there.

Hamtramck ultimately also had trouble with Dupuis, and ended up trying to fire him in 2005 — after Dupuis lit up his female partner with a Taser while she was driving their patrol car. She had refused to pull over to a gas station so Dupuis could buy something to drink.

Dupuis was charged with a misdemeanor and acquitted. Hamtramck fired him, and his union appealed the termination, calling the episode “horseplay,” court records say. An arbitrator deemed the misconduct worthy of a firing, but gave Dupuis a break.

“An officer should not use a weapon designed to subdue recalcitrant criminals and animals against a fellow officer, even if it was part of horseplay,” the arbitrator wrote. “However, Officer Dupuis should be given the opportunity to resign in lieu of discharge, to save his career.”

In 2007, Dupuis went back to Highland Park, a community in which he had worked earlier.

Dupuis found more controversy in January 2015 when a citizen with a cell phone captured him and another officer aggressively arresting a carjacking suspect.

Reached by phone recently, Dupuis declined to comment.

The Detroit enclave of Highland Park, which hired Melendez and still employs Dupuis, is one community that embodies in dramatic fashion many of the issues the Free Press found.

In recent years, the downtrodden city has employed a number of officers who had troubles while working for other departments, including 13 the Free Press confirmed were fired or forced out from other police agencies — seven of those 13 still work there, according to a recent check.

In addition, the department employs an officer who was laid off from Redford Township just before a recommendation he be fired after being accused of endangering a witness, and it also hired an officer while she was on probation for a federal theft conviction.

The city also employs a former Detroit police officer who agreed to surrender his police license in 2015 as part of a plea deal after he was charged with submitting 29 fraudulent overtime pay requests to the City of Detroit. Prosecutors agreed to a diversion program and his charges were expunged. Highland Park then hired him to investigate citizen complaints against police officers.

Highland Park, a city of 11,000 people, with a median household income of $17,000, employs seven full-time and about 21 part-time officers. New officers are paid about $15 an hour.

Police Chief Chester Logan said the state should help weed out problem officers.

“The officers that we have here, I just want you to know they are all, in fact, all licensed police officers. I don’t know what their transgression might be. But their license to police in the state of Michigan hasn’t been revoked.”

Logan, who became chief in 2016 and inherited the officers the Free Press identified, praised some of them for their work since joining the department.

He said the city took “definitive action” against an officer last year. The Free Press had inquired about the officer’s assault conviction with the mayor. The officer told the Free Press he no longer works as a cop.

Mayor Hubert Yopp also is a strong supporter of decertification of disciplined cops.

“I think if the background is that horrendous, the state should know about it. They should act on it,” Yopp said.

Before landing in Highland Park, these officers had problems in other departments, including those in Ferndale, Ann Arbor, Redford Township, Bay City, Southgate, the Wayne County Sheriff, Wayne State University, Detroit, the Detroit Board of Education, Inkster, Erie Township, Schoolcraft and Hamtramck.

Last year, Highland Park officials denied Free Press requests for personnel records of specific officers. City Attorney William Ford rejected the request made under the state Freedom of Information Act, writing that a release would “interfere with law enforcement proceedings.”

Just this month, the city rejected another request for disciplinary records, providing only a handful of citizen complaints with no information about whether any of them were founded.

Yopp and Logan said they consider Highland Park a place where cops can earn a second chance.

“We believe in redemption,” Logan said.

Nationally, tensions have created a sometimes-dangerous environment for both cops and citizens. Shootings of civilians have drawn major protests and led to prosecution of some officers, while cops have found themselves literally under fire on the job. Just last week, an officer was fatally shot through the window of her police vehicle on the streets of the Bronx.

In Detroit, since June 2016, police say nine officers have been shot, two fatally.

In May, Detroit Police Chief James Craig said: "This is once again a sobering reminder of the dangers that our officers face each and every day."

At the other end are citizens who say not enough is done to weed out problem officers.

Emma Craig, no relation to the chief, stood at the front door of her home in January 2015, watching Highland Park Sgt. Dupuis and another officer kick and punch a carjacking suspect on the sidewalk of her neighborhood on Detroit's west side. She pulled out her cell phone and captured the arrest, which was widely viewed on the Internet.

The officers weren't charged, but the prosecutor criticized them.

In an interview, Emma Craig said people she knows have lost their trust in police. She said closer monitoring and harsher penalties for problem cops would help rebuild the relationship.

"I mean, how many chances do you get? I mean, what's going to be next?" she asked. "When are they going to actually look at it and say, 'Oh, well, we should have got this guy off the street a long time ago.' When is that?"

She said her neighborhood is on edge.

"There needs to be a common ground between the officers and the citizens of all of these cities around here. People need to not get afraid when they see officers," she said. "We have a lot of seniors around here that actually feel that same exact way. That's just as afraid of the police officers as they are the crooks out here. ...

"It's no way to live."

Law enforcement leaders say hiring quality officers is a growing challenge because of the attack on pay and benefits, and the high-wire tension that police actions are increasingly second-guessed because of video. In Michigan, the pool of candidates has been shrinking.

Hazel Park Police Chief Martin Barner said he hired an officer in 2013 while aware of the man's earlier misdemeanor assault conviction. Barner said he investigated the case and decided it wasn't a pattern of abuse.

“Compared to what’s out there, you almost have to take a chance on somebody who may have a less-than-stellar record,” Barner said. The officer has performed well, he said.

Kenneth Grabowski, legislative director for the Police Officers Association of Michigan, said chiefs are in a bad spot as they hire officers. Communities need to make it more attractive to be a cop, including better pay, retirement plans and health care.

"It's the old saying: You get what you pay for," said Grabowski, who is also a member of the MCOLES board.

Collins, the Ferndale chief, said the state could be stronger in its regulation of officers, including in situations where misconduct led to a firing.

“I think past behavior," he said, "is the best predictor of future behavior.”

For William Melendez, signs of trouble emerged nearly two decades before he beat up Floyd Dent.

In the late '90s, still a young cop on the beat in Detroit, Melendez managed to stay on the force even after being charged with felony and misdemeanor crimes, the Free Press discovered.

In 1997, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office alleged, among other things, that he falsely accused a citizen he arrested of possessing drugs — an accusation Melendez would face multiple times in his career.

The felony charge against Melendez in the 1997 case was dismissed for insufficient evidence. Court records from that time are unclear, but indicate he was given probation on misdemeanor charges.

Asked for comment, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office told the Free Press that the case was old and prosecutors who worked on it don’t recall the details.

Despite his convictions, Melendez continued his career in Detroit.

Several years later, in 2003, the federal government indicted him and several other Detroit cops on charges of planting evidence, filing bogus reports and lying under oath to justify a series of illegal arrests.

Melendez and others were acquitted of the charges. Jurors told the Free Press at the time that prosecution witnesses — admitted drug users and prostitutes — weren’t believable.

Records show Melendez was on suspension from Detroit for years, and eventually was forced out. In 2007, his dismissal was upheld by an arbitrator, but records indicate he claimed retirement benefits from the Detroit department. In records, Melendez has said he retired.

A few years later, Inkster and Highland Park hired him despite his trouble in Detroit.

The Free Press discovered that the state itself could have stopped Melendez before either city had the chance to put him back on the streets.

Turns out, Melendez’s police license had lapsed in 2005 while he was on suspension from the Detroit Police Department.

He applied to an MCOLES program in 2007 to have it reactivated.

The agency notified Melendez in 2008 that his application was denied because he did not meet the good moral character standard — an attribute Harvey said can be considered during such a reapplication process. The agency had examined his disciplinary history and spoken to a Wayne County prosecutor, who said Melendez “had a poor reputation for being credible,” records obtained by the Free Press show.

But Melendez appealed the denial and, ultimately, got what he wanted. In April 2009, the then-executive director of MCOLES wrote to Melendez that his appeal was granted.

Harvey, who was not the executive director at the time Melendez was approved for the program, said he can't say how he would have handled the Melendez situation. But he said he had probably denied people with fewer issues.

Was another chance to stop Melendez missed? “It certainly was,” Harvey said.

Then came that night the officer stopped Dent on a road in Inkster. Melendez’s assault of Dent eventually cost the impoverished community $1.4 million, a lawsuit settlement so large that city leaders imposed an extra tax on citizens just to raise the cash.

Melendez also was charged and convicted of two felonies: misconduct in office and assault with intent to do great bodily harm.

Wayne Circuit Judge Vonda Evans sentenced him to prison in February 2016 for 13 months to 10 years. He was released from prison in January, and has lost his police license.

The Free Press tried to reach Melendez, but his lawyer, James Thomas, said the former cop is appealing his conviction and had no comment.

In 2016, as Melendez appeared before the judge for sentencing, she asked a question:

“I wonder,” she said, “what would one-half of that $1.4-million settlement awarded to Mr. Dent have done for the Inkster Police Department, training officers that wanted to serve, and not hiring officers that didn’t belong?”

Contact Jim Schaefer: 313-223-4542 or jschaefer@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @DetroitReporter

Contact Gina Kaufman: 313-223-4526 or gkaufman@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @ReporterGina

About this series

Police violence against civilians. Officers targeted in random attacks. Cell phones, dash cams and security cameras often capturing the violence. Amid this tense national atmosphere, and in the wake of the local high-profile beating of an Inkster motorist, the Detroit Free Press investigated policing in Michigan. In this installment of Disorderly Conduct, we look at how problem cops stay on the streets, sometimes even hopping from job-to-job after being fired or forced out.