A black gym owner in Detroit said racial profiling led police in Grosse Pointe Woods to falsely accuse him of robbing a bank more than a year ago, and he's still fighting the smear on his reputation.

Mike Fox spoke to the Free Press an hour before his lawyers filed a lawsuit Friday in Wayne County Circuit Court, demanding damages from Grosse Pointe Woods police and its public safety director for sending a SWAT team to his fitness studio to make the arrest, then jailing him for 48 hours.

Yet, a lawyer for the east-side suburb of Detroit said that because the bank robbery was never solved, Fox must remain labeled "a person of interest," even though law-enforcement experts in facial identification could not confirm his identity as the robber..

Fox said he was standing at the counter of Detroit Thrive, his busy workout studio in Detroit just over a mile from Grosse Pointe Woods, in April 2018 when his stunned clients saw four officers surround him in riot gear, brandishing weapons and leading a German shepherd police dog, as shown on his firm's surveillance video.

It seems the Grosse Pointe Woods police got a tip that Fox might be a bad guy. A day earlier, a black man with a similar build robbed the Chemical Bank branch in Grosse Pointe Woods. Shortly after, the public safety department in the upscale Detroit suburb — whose residents are 89.6 % white and 4.9% black, according to the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG) — released a description of the suspect: “African-American male, 45-50 years of age, approx. 6(-foot) tall and 220-230 lbs.”

Fox is 44 years old, 5-foot-11 and 260 pounds. Photos of the suspect from the bank's video system went out with the police description. In this age of social networking, police said someone saw the photos on Facebook and told them, “Hey, that might be a gym owner just down Mack Avenue from you in Detroit” — or words to that effect.

Fox and his lawyers said he clearly isn’t the man in the photos. But the Grosse Pointe Woods police apparently thought he was, jailing him for two days in April last year. They also ransacked Fox’s house in Harper Woods, where he lives with his wife and their 11-year-old son.

After 48 hours, police released him without filing charges. Now, "it's been more than a year and they still refuse to clear my name,” Fox said. He said that he lost 20% of his clients when word of his arrest spread through Facebook and other social networks.

Last summer, Fox hired lawyers who said they contacted Grosse Pointe Woods Detective Ryan Schroerlucke, suggesting that facial-recognition software possessed by the Michigan State Police be used to confirm that Fox did not commit the bank robbery. Grosse Pointe Woods declined to do so, the lawyers said.

The Grosse Pointe Woods director of public safety referred a reporter's calls to a lawyer in Troy, Gus Morris, who specializes in defending police departments in court.

Defending police is a busy field for lawyers, especially in today's era of numerous videos that capture controversial law-enforcement tactics, Morris said.

In Fox’s arrest, Detroit Thrive’s surveillance video clearly shows a SWAT team in riot gear, marching into the fitness studio with a German shepherd police dog, which upon reaching the gym owner did what dogs can do. It bit him in the leg, a minor injury, Fox said.

That video is evidence that Fox’s lawyers could use in his lawsuit against the Grosse Pointe Woods police and Public Safety Director John Kosanke. Fox’s lawsuit demands cash compensation for five counts: assault, for the arrest; battery, for the dog bite; false imprisonment, for the two days in jail; defamation of Fox’s character — first labeling him a suspect, then continuing ever since to call him a "person of interest"; and finally, false light — a legal term for causing serious damage to someone's reputation.

A crime that hasn't been solved

For each count, Fox's lawsuit asks for "a judgment in excess of $25,000" plus court costs and attorney fees.

Morris, who was retained by Grosse Pointe Woods to negotiate with Fox's lawyers in recent weeks, and who now is expected to defend the city in court, said he's unsure what would satisfy the other side.

"I sat in his attorneys' office for two hours and they never did get around to specifying a dollar amount" to settle Fox's grievances, so "I really don't know what they want," Morris said.

But why won't the suburb clear Fox's name? Why keep calling him a "person of interest"?

"This is a crime that hasn't been solved," Morris said. "There's certainly no evidence now to support arresting him. But what if, hypothetically, we were to stand up and say he wan't involved? And then, the investigators were to find new evidence that would make him a suspect?" he said.

Despite perpetuating the hint that Fox might still be somehow linked to the robbery on April 18, 2018, Morris said that Grosse Pointe Woods police lacked probable cause even from the outset when, a day after the robbery, they hauled Fox off to jail.

"The arrest was made on a separate warrant, so they could bring him in and question him about the robbery. Police do that all the time," Morris said.

And the basis of that separate warrant? An unpaid parking ticket. It was for a violation that Fox incurred a year earlier in Harper Woods, where he'd illegally parked overnight in front of his own house, then failed to pay, and late fees accrued. When Fox was arrested, "as soon as my wife found out, she went over and paid" the $130 debt, he said.

After his arrest, Fox was made to wear an orange jump suit and reside in a cell with a toilet, the use of which was visible to employees passing by, he said, something he found "personally degrading."

A robber's strange ear

At that time, public safety officers of Grosse Pointe Woods shot photos of Fox. They submitted them alongside the surveillance views of the bank robber to crime analysts at the Detroit Police Department and the Michigan State Police, Morris said.

"They could not say it was the same person," so Fox was released, Morris said.

Perhaps one reason the analysts realized they weren't looking at the same person is that, as a plastic surgeon has told Fox's lawyers, the bank's surveillance photo reveals something unusual about the man seen standing at the teller's window demanding money. He has a strange-looking ear, a condition that doctors call a lop ear deformity. Fox has normal ears.

So Fox was released after two days in the police lockup — far too long, his lawyers argue.

"At the very least, he should've been able to post bond and be released immediately," said attorney Peter Alle, who is representing Fox.

"Instead, they held him for 48 hours, like this was a felony arrest. Remember, the pretext for taking him in was an unpaid parking ticket," Alle said.

Before his arrest, Fox had been active in coaching youth football, baseball and lacrosse teams in Harper Woods, the Grosse Pointes and Detroit, he said. Fox has trophies of appreciation on display at his business. All of that went on hold, and as word of his arrest spread, he lost clients. At school, "one kid addressed my son as he was leaving, ‘Hey, n----- bank robber.’ Can you believe that?" he said.

It's the loss of Fox's standing in the community that "really hurts," said Gerald Evelyn, another lawyer handling his case. Fox is one more example in the long history of white people falsely accusing black people in criminal cases, sometimes intentionally but often through sheer mistakes in identity, Evelyn said.

"We've tried to resolve this. We've indicated that, for Mr. Fox, this is not about money. We just asked them to clear his name, Evelyn said, adding: "They know he's not the guy."

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Contact Bill Laitner: blaitner@freepress.com