The Place Where Ludington Talks

Of Reserve Officers and Rental Inspections

Reserve Officers are Irresistable

An interesting ruling on reserve police officers by the appeals court of Michigan, leads to an interesting analogy in Ludington regarding the proposed rental inspection program.

As you may know, Ludington has a reserve force of police officers as big as their regular force. They come complete with guns, badges, and ambiguous authority. Nowhere in state law or local law, are these reservists authorized for Ludington, they exist as Chief Barnett's personal police force, with our own Mayor Ryan Cox serving as a sergeant, and former Councilor Wally Taranko who served proudly on the council and also on the reserves .

But when our officials are pressed about the conflicts of interest, the lack of any legislative authorization, and the incompatibility of offices inherent, they brusquely tell you to move along, there's nothing to see here.

A summary of this recent Detroit Freep article on the ruling is supplied below, with the doom and gloom predictions of law enforcement officials heavily invested in reserve officers omitted until the analogy is made:

"Resisting or obstructing a reserve police officer in Michigan isn't a crime, according to a recent Michigan Court of Appeals ruling.

The appellate court ruled 2-1 in a Livingston County case that reserve police officers are not police officers under the state's resisting and obstructing statute. The court said reserve officers are not specifically mentioned in the law and therefore are not covered by it.

The decision affirmed two lower courts’ dismissal of a resisting charge against Ryan Scott Feeley, who in 2014 was accused of failing to follow a Brighton reserve police officer’s command when the officer responded with a full-time officer to a report of a bar fight. Feeley allegedly was causing problems and ran when the reserve police officer approached to speak with him. The reserve police officer identified himself as a police officer and ordered Feeley to stop.

Feeley stopped on the second command to stop, told the reserve officer “(expletive) you,” while reaching behind his back. Fearing Feeley had a weapon, the reserve officer drew his gun and ordered him to the ground. Feeley complied and was taken into custody.

A district court judge denied the prosecution’s request to send the resisting charge to circuit court on the grounds a reserve police officer was not covered under the statute. The statute defines a police officer, including those at colleges or universities, a sheriff or deputy, constable or firefighter. It does not specify reserve police officer among those persons whose lawful orders must by obeyed in order to avoid criminal liability, according to the ruling.

The prosecution appealed, and the circuit court affirmed the district court decision. The prosecution took the matter to the state appellate court, which ruled the statute doesn’t apply to a reserve police officer."

Here is the complete decision in the appeals court.

Analysis:

Our officials are very high on both the rental inspection program (RIP) and the reserve officer program (ROP) and believe that both are good for the safety of the good people of Ludington. But whereas the RIP costs up to $50,000 a year and may make our rental stock safer (mainly due to the loss by attrition of lower rental units by vacancy or conversion into non-rental uses), the reserve officer program is instituted to save costs. For the years of 2014-2016, the expected budget for the reserve police force is $1600 per year, the costs of the full LPD is over $1.3 million on each of those years, about 800 times as much.

For those three years, $200 is budgeted for the training of the 14 reserve officers, which is less than $15 per reserve officer. That's enough to buy each of them a Police Academy 1-4, four Film Collection. Not enough to give them any serious training from qualified police instructors.

As noted, the LPD does not have any minimum training standards for these officers, it is simply Chief Mark Barnett's whimsy on who he will pin a badge on, put a gun in their hands, and send them on 'routine' calls or to more serious calls with a regular officer.

While one would expect Chief Barnett to do a cursory background check, a psychological evaluation, and some general training, these are not mandatory by any means; a FOIA request revealed that none of these officers had up to date MCOLES (Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards) certification, which is mandatory for real Michigan police officers.

Isn't it ironic that they want all rental units to be certified, when they allow their own police units to be uncertified? Uncertified rental units, they complain, are a danger to the community, but uncertified police officers with guns and tasers that they may not know how or when to use, are not?

In the Freep article linked to above, the executive director of the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police (Chiefs generally run the reserves as their own) says: "For some parts of the state, reserve police officers are instrumental in protecting the public and it’s not just small cities; larger cities, such as Detroit and Livonia, use reserve police officers. They’re counted on in these days when we can’t afford to hire as many full-time officers."

Maybe costly rental inspection programs are at fault for draining resources, or perhaps if full-time officers didn't automatically get perquisites like fat pensions and above average fringe benefits, they would be able to have more regular officers so that they wouldn't have to hire reserves for less than a hundredth of the cost. When reserves don't do it for the money, you wonder what may be their motive; they definitely water down the professionalism of the force and potentially add a lot of extra liabilities to the local government, most of who do not authorize them.