800 RAPES - DETROIT NEEDS STATE AND FEDERAL GRANT MONEY -

800 rapes - 11 detectives - 72 case files each (July 2013).

Detroit needs to hire 500 - 1,000 new police officers, now - (before that it needs to raise its hiring standards) but it can't do it without an immediate infusion of state and federal grant money (homeland security, law enforcement etc - whatever).

EFM Kevyn Orr, Governor Synder, Mayor Bing, and City Council need to go to Lansing and Washington and request grant money - to save lives. People are dying in the streets of Detroit, women are being raped, homes, churches, businesses are being broken into, people are being shot in the streets (10 in 12 hours), and Detroit Police cannot properly respond to these crimes.

I have emailed the media numerous times that - crime in Detroit is underreported! The crimes stats lie - and with xPC Godbee's disastrous decision to close precinct stations, for 'virtual precincts' it destroyed a vital police-community relations meeting point. Now that PC Craig has reopened the precincts, he needs to staff them! He needs officers in these precincts to take police reports and to meet the other needs of residents and crime victims that precincts offer.

'Boots on the ground' does not equate to servicing Detroit residents policing needs.

Detroit police can not properly respond to 'crimes in progress' let alone respond to take reports and to collect evidence, at the scene of the crime - if they can't collect evidence, they can't solve crimes - so the vortex of crime spins on and on. If their are not enough detectives to investigate rapes, there is not enough detectives to investigate, homicides, home invasions, felonious assaults, robberies, and assaults.

EFM Orr made a disastrous decision - today - to betray the Lieutenants Sergeant Association and the Detroit Fire Fighters Association by imposing pay and benefit cuts, without negotiations, after promising not to do so until the end of 2013.

This decision will effect police and fire services, by pushing members to retire. It will effect the supervisory personnel needed under the Department of Justice Consent Decrees.

The Detroit Police Department and Detroit Fire Department need HELP - to serve the public, it needs money now.

It's time for Synder and Orr to stand up - and deliver, 'bankruptcy' cannot be used as an excuse while Detroit residents are being robbed, raped and murdered.

David L. Malhalab
Sgt DPD Retired.