Grosse Pointe Park officials today signed an agreement to reform the city's police department, which was wracked last fall by a cell phone video making fun of a mentally impaired man.
Image from last fall's cell phone video taped by Grosse Pointe Park police.
The agreement partners the city with the U.S. Justice Department, Michigan Department of Civil Rights and local groups, The Detroit News reports.
"There were actions taken by some of our officers that were not appropriate and needed to be dealt with. And it has been dealt with," Police Chief David Hiller said.
Five public safety officers involved in the controversial videotaping of a mentally impaired man were suspended in November for two months without pay and were placed on probation for a year. The officers involved have also been reassigned to different shifts so they're not all working at the same time, The News reports.
The video was first reported by Steve Neavling on Motor City Muckraker.
Grosse Pointe Park agreed to reassign supervisors, reorganize patrol groups and increase training for officers in dealing with the elderly and people with mental illness.
A Detroiter, Michael Scipio, subsequently identified himself as the man in the video. He lives in a group home near the Grosse Pointe Park border.
Because Scipio is African American and the officers are white, the incident also took on racial overtones. The police force is overwhelmingly white, and Grosse Pointe Park is bordered by mostly black Detroit on two sides, and has a growing minority population within its borders.
