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To: Wayne County, Michigan Prosecutor Kym Worthy

End the Corruption: Hold the Detroit Police Narcotics Unit Accountable!

On December 11, 2019, news broke of a corruption scandal within the Detroit Police Department Narcotics Unit. Upon this startling revelation, local and national groups created a list of demands to ensure the integrity of the investigation and highlight the broader impact of the accusations.

Decades of corruption, abuse of power, falsifying evidence and embezzlement. This is only a fraction of what the public has recently learned about the Detroit Police Narcotics Unit. The Detroit Police Internal Affairs unit began investigating this unit about four months ago and has recently released a portion of what they’ve found. They found that cops planted drugs on innocent citizens, robbed people, embezzled funds meant for informants, stole from arrestees, falsified evidence, and made faulty search warrants.

We demand that every single one of the prosecutions brought against people from the narcotics unit are dropped immediately. There is no proof that the narcotics unit ever operated legitimately. This revelation means that hundreds of innocent people could be sitting behind bars for crimes they did not commit, and countless others serving disproportionate or enhanced sentences based on lies and deceit at the hands of law enforcement.

Will you stand with us in calling on the Wayne County Prosecutor Worthy to take the necessary steps to ensure no innocent person sits behind bars?

Why is this important?

We know that police departments are ground zero for abuses of power, but this investigative probe into the Detroit narcotics unit provides uncontroverted proof of undeniable misconduct and deeply entrenched state violence against Detroit citizens in our local police departments.

We are calling on Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy to take the following actions to ensure no innocent person sits behind bars due to the narcotics unit’s atrocious misconduct:

1. An independent probe into these damning accusations. The police cannot be trusted to investigate themselves. Anything less than a full and thorough independent investigation is a miscarriage of justice.

2. Immediate release of information involving cases implicated in this corruption scandal: specifically, exactly how many cases handled by the Detroit Police involving the narcotics unit officers and a timeline of events and internal decisions, beginning with when the corruption was initially discovered.

3. The Office of Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy must immediately cease to prosecute cases reliant on evidence from this unit.

4. The creation and publication of a list of officers that will be banned from providing evidence and/or testimony at hearings and trials.

5. Dismissal of cases involving the officers named in the scandal, both open and closed.

6. The appointment of an independent factfinder

Detroit, MI, USA

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Updates

2020-04-14 09:18:58 -0700

1,000 signatures reached

2020-02-20 21:46:38 -0800

500 signatures reached

2020-02-09 07:28:47 -0800

100 signatures reached

2020-02-03 06:38:59 -0800

50 signatures reached

2020-02-01 08:36:17 -0800

25 signatures reached

2020-01-31 09:30:10 -0800

10 signatures reached