Brown Urges Use Of Police Moonlighting Program
DETROIT (WWJ) - Detroit City Council President Pro Tem Gary Brown says the city can no longer afford to keep assigning large numbers of police officers to events when the organizers of those events are making money.
"When you assign an officer out to work those events that means he takes off another day during the week," said Brown. "That's probably a day when the response time goes way up instead of way down."
Detroit's secondary employment program, instituted late last year, allows uniformed police officers to work part-time as security at a cost to the organizer of the event or business owner.
Brown says the moonlighting program can help offset the cost of policing special events downtown. He wants reports on the costs and an explanation on why organizers of these events aren't the program.
"I know that the Hoedown generated enough revenue to be able to pay for that service," said Brown.
"The Tiger baseball game -- 132 police officers were assigned to that. But, the secondary employment ordinance that this body passed, was done in order to give the administration a tool so that when you're in the neighborhoods and you're calling for the police, you have enough of them to show up," he said.
Brown plans to send a memo to Mayor Dave Bing's administration, letting them know that he wants to know the cost of police presence in advance of approving permits for special events.
"I hate to be voting no on every special event until I find out exactly what the cost of that is," Brown said.
