Transcript for Episode 118 with James Craig-  Transcription was done by an artificial intelligence program, so all associated limitations of transcriptions, grammar, spelling, punctuations are within. Please refer to the audio podcast as the definitive context.

Brian Kruger
Welcome to Richard Helppie’s Common Bridge, the fiercely nonpartisan discussion that seeks policy solutions to issues of the day. Rich is a successful entrepreneur in the technology health and finance space. He and his wife Leslie are also philanthropists with interest in civic and artistic endeavors with a primary focus on medically and educationally underserved children.

Richard Helppie
Welcome to Richard Helppie’s Common Bridge. Today we have an exceptional guest with us. We have former Detroit Michigan Police Chief James Craig. Chief Craig will talk to us today about policing about leadership and some of the lessons that he’s learned during an extraordinary life and a terrific career. Chief, welcome to the Common Bridge. So happy you’re with us. Now, Chief, I understand you grew up on the west side of Detroit, the northwest side, native Detroiter, graduated Cass Tech High School. What were some of your early days like what was your experiences with your family and growing up in the city of Detroit?

James Craig
Well I grew up as you indicated, in Northwest Detroit, and attended Cass Tech High School, and participated in track and field. My event was the 440. I guess I really wanted to play football but just wasn’t big enough. But I was fast enough. But that said I majored in automotive technology. It was my hope, and I guess kind of a dream, to build race cars and to be involved in automobiles. So after graduation, I began coursework in mechanical engineering while I worked at Chrysler Corporation in the evenings. But at some point I made a sharp right turn and decided I wanted to be a Detroit police officer, and this was at 19 years old. I didn’t know why,but I guess when I look back, my dad who served in the US Army, he was a military police officer, and years later during the civil unrest here in Detroit. He served as a reserve officer for the Detroit Police Department assigned to the 10th precinct and some of your viewers may know that that was the area of the city where the 1967 riots erupted. So I was 11 years old then and probably didn’t want to have anything to do with policing, because of when I saw tanks going down the street and snipers. But my dad served as a reserve officer. But then nine years later, I find myself a Detroit police officer, ironically assigned to the 10th precinct, and I stay for two and a half years, then Mayor Coleman Young really accelerated recruitment and hiring in the late 70s. He was focused on creating a department that reflected the demographic of the city of Detroit, and I was part of that. But then in 1980, immediately following the Republican National Convention, there was a big layoff, and the mayor laid off 1500 Detroit police officers. So it was at that point I had to make a decision. Do I stay or wait it out? Toledo Ohio was hiring police officers. But I felt like you know, going into Toledo was like staying in Detroit. Then I found out that Los Angeles, the LAPD was hiring police officers and they were real interested in hiring laid off Detroit police officers. So I went to a city I’d never gone to, and ended up joining the LAPD and stayed with that department for 28 years. I learned a lot. Certainly my view of policing was very different. 20 years of that sort of experience very helpful, when I look back at where I’ve landed as chief now in three cities.

Richard Helppie
Just to fill my readers in, and my listeners and viewers in a little bit. In 1973, Coleman Young won a closely contested race against John Nichols, the police commissioner at that time, yes, there were lots of allegations of racism within the ranks of the Detroit police department, the Stress Unit, the tactical mobile units. And Coleman Yang was a very bold mayor and made sure that the police force did reflect the makeup of the city and at the frontlines was a young James Craig getting into that. And now that transition to Los Angeles, you know, they’ve taken a lot of our good talent from Detroit, you and Barry Gordy would come to mind right away. And so we’re happy to have you back. But after your time with with Los Angeles, you didn’t come back to Detroit right away. What were some of the highlights that you witnessed in Los Angeles? And I’m sure you’ve got dozens of them, but maybe one or two, and then where did you go from there?

James Craig
You know, that’s a great question. I will tell you that, you know, I had a very good career in Los Angeles. I was exposed to a lot, and worked a lot of different assignments. I had the good fortune of moving up. You know, I had a background working in operational assignments, but equally as important, administrative. At one point. I think this is notable at one point while I was a sergeant, I became a President of the African American Police Association because the LAPD was so diverse. There were also Asian police associations, and such. It were in my case, I was president of the African American, which was called the Oscar Joe Bryant Foundation named after the first African American officer killed the line of duty. They also had Hispanic Associations, so you had a number of police associations. There weren’t unions, there were associations. But the reason why I bring it up, I was serving in the role of President during the Rodney King incident in LA that later erupted into civil unrest. So notable, and I’ll go into it in terms of what happened in Detroit last year, when the riots happened in LA, the thing that stuck with me for the remainder of my policing career was that when the why it started, a lieutenant responded with a team of officers to the epicenter, but then a bad decision was made that Lieutenant as he directed his officers to retreat to another location, leaving the epicenter to the hands of the mob. You might remember the images coming out of LA where a trucker going through the intersection and a trucker, Reginald Denny was dragged from his truck and beaten by local gang members. And it was a sad day a dark day for the LAPD. In the backdrop of this, Mayor Brown, the first African American mayor in the city of Los Angeles, and a former LAPD officer who rose up to the rank of lieutenant. He and the then iconic chief Daryl Gates, weren’t talking to each other. They were at separate events on that fateful day, and the city began to burn. So I never forgot that. And as we talk a little bit more about where I’ve gone, it will make sense. But in the aftermath of the civil unrest, it was then Sergeant Cray, and the board from the Oscor Joe Bryant Foundation was summoned for a meeting with a prominent African American minister in LA, as we all know, Maxine Waters called a meeting and during that meeting was a lot of disrespect shown to my organization to myself, and the premise was focused on how could you be an African American working for the LAPD, a racist police department. So it became very contentious, and in my judgment, not very productive. So I abruptly ended the meeting. It was at that point, I began to wonder, here’s a person that represents, you know, Democrats in the city of LA, it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel good at all. And so I never forgot that experience or that encounter. And so years later, I continued to promote, I think. Another notable assignment that I had a great opportunity as a lieutenant to serve as the Adjunct to the Chief of Police of LA. And I think it was at that assignment, I really learned how to run a large city police department, I set right outside his door. So the best thing I could be was a sponge, and I was a sponge. And I learned a lot during that 18 months until I was then promoted to the rank of Captain and it was there that eventually, I would be in charge of one of Los Angeles stations…at that time, I think we had 21 stations around the city, my station have to be in South LA. It was a very challenging area of the city, but very rewarding. And that experience served me well as I began to fulfill my ultimate goal of becoming a chief of police. I’d set a goal even long before I was a captain. In fact, there’s a notable interview where I guess, at one point, Detroit was facing once again, more layoffs of police officers. And so the media flew out from Detroit to LA. And at that time, I think it was roughly four of us that were former DPD officers. I didn’t want to interview, but at the time, I was the highest ranking former officer, I was a sergeant and I took the Detroit newsman out on a ride along and we had a conversation. And as we drove along Venice Beach, there were palm trees, beautiful weather, he asked me, he said, Do you think you’d ever come back to Detroit? And I told him in a very snarky way, I said, look around..I’m in beautiful weather, palm trees. I said, but I would come back on one condition… if I came back as a chief of police. And so I guess it was prophetic that I would make that claim. In fact, when I would years later Cincinnati’s police chief and Detroit had reached out and I accepted the job offer to come back as Detroit’s police chief. During that announcement, I showed that video clip with me and the newscaster interviewing me about what I ever returned to Detroit. And so it’s kind of notable. But as I said I pursued my my ultimate goal to become a chief of police, my first chief shot was in Portland, Maine. So many thought in Los Angeles, that I was losing my mind. How do you leave Los Angeles to go to Portland, Maine?

Richard Helppie
Yeah. Now look, I’ve been in Los Angeles a lot, and in Portland, Maine many times and indeed I ended up down in South LA beacuse I stayed on the bus too long. It was an interesting ride going through your area of responsibility. They must have been some good recruiters in Portland, Maine, to get you to make that move all the way across the country into a completely different environment. What a culture shock that had to be. Had you ever spent time up there in New England?

James Craig
I had not spent time in New England. The closest I came to New England was when I was a finalist for the chief’s job in Boston, Massachusetts. And so when the Portland job was posted, I thought long and hard. In fact, I had no interest in Portland, Maine. Never visited Portland, Maine. And so last day that you could apply, I applied. I was a candidate for that position. So I started thinking something must be great about Portland, Maine to have 80 people that have applied as chief. As things would happen, I got selected. I understood why so many people were interested in Portland, Maine. It is a beautiful Northeastern town and the state of Maine is a beautiful state. It was a very different community from where I’ve ever worked before. I was used to working in very diverse communities given that I worked in LA. But Maine was predominantly Caucasian, and I was probably representative of maybe 2% African American. I only bring that up because for me it was something very different. But then that experience is very rewarding as well. But what most folks did know that Portland, Maine, is it had the third largest African immigrant population, Somali and Sudanese who came to Portland. But it was so interesting, very poor relationship at that time with local government, no relationship with police department. And I felt, you know that because of that poor relationship, the city was ripe for trouble, possibly even civil unrest. Although when I shared that story with the mayor and the city manager, they said, well, let me just say this, it’s not Detroit, and it’s certainly not Los Angeles. So there’s no such thing as civil unrest in Portland, Maine. But needless to say, I went about the work and using the skills that I acquired along the way and we built some great relationships with that community. I left there knowing that things were in a better place. And so then another opportunity came, and that was Cincinnati, Ohio. And I thought, wow, Cincinnati, considered a major city, very different city, and racially divided. They never had an outside chief, and never had an African American chief. So I got selected and what a wonderful experience that was for me. I served there two years, like I served two years in Portland, but I thought while I was there…just think, I’m 234 miles from Detroit. And I got to believe one day I’m gonna make it home. And as luck would have it, I was able to come home full circle at a time when Detroit was facing bankruptcy, and did go through bankruptcy, and the city was placed under emergency management.

Richard Helppie
There’s always been a close relationship between southern Ohio, of course, Cincinnati, right across the Ohio River from Kentucky. I know in my youth growing up in the blue collar areas, many families came up from Kentucky and Tennessee, of course, elsewhere in the south. We had Sheriff Jerry Clayton on during season one and he’s from Alabama, came to Detroit father was relocated, played football at Eastern Michigan University had a terrific career and doing a great job for all the citizens in Washtenaw County. So you come home to Detroit. And, you know, before the bankruptcy, the police cars looked like they were in serious need of repair. Street lights couldn’t get turned on. What did you discover about the Detroit Police Department when you arrived?

James Craig
Well, it was in shambles. And this is certainly not a reflection on the men and women that I’m talking about. The police officers that serve. Leadership was a revolving door. Chiefs came in and they left there was no stability at the level of leadership. The morale was at the very bottom. You talked about some of the issues. The cars widely reported, and the response times to emergency calls for service were at times upwards of one hour if they even show. Homicide clearance rate was it embarrassing low 11%. Police officers were forced into 12-hour shifts and if they didn’t work, 10% of their pay was taken away from them. So I came into a broken department but also came into a broken city who had lost confidence in the police department. The beauty of coming in under emergency management at that time, was, I didn’t report to a mayor. I didn’t report to t he city council or a police commissioner, I worked for the emergency manager. And the only directive he gave me was, you’re the police professional, just go ahead and do what you do. And I did. So I knew I had to first focus on really raising the morale of the police officers. Part of my leadership acumen is that I believe as much in listening to those who are closest to doing the work. I remember, a couple of days before my appointment, I met with a large group of police officers. And I asked them, I said, “What would you like me to do”? And two things, they said, fire everybody who are appointed at the rank of inspector and fire them all. They’re useless. And secondly, we want to be cops again.

Richard Helppie
Does that mean they want to be cops again? What does that mean?

James Craig
Well, they felt that they were handcuffed. They felt not supported. As you may know, the city was under a 13-year federal oversight and consent judgment, they just couldn’t get out from under that and they just felt like they couldn’t go out and serve the community and make the community safe. Again, leadership or lack thereof was a key factor.

Richard Helppie
If my recollection is true, there was a gap between the community organizations, some faith based, some community based, and the police department, and that chasm seems to have been bridged. Now, am I getting that right? Or were there lessons in there?

James Craig
Absolutely. And I touched on it briefly. But when I talk about the morale of the community, they had no confidence of trust in the police department. And so one of the things as I was rebuilding confidence and building a trust based relationship with the men and women who did the work, and oh, by the way, I did fulfill their their requests, everybody at the rank of inspector was removed, with the exception of one. Some opted to retire and some opted to go back to your last civil service rank, which is ranked lieutenant. So that was a great start, and really building trust. But in the community, essentially, I had to do the same thing. I had to go in and meet with folks that didn’t have much confidence in the department. Certainly I met with activists who didn’t like the police and didn’t want to work with the police. And so that was a process in and of itself. But I can tell you that we built those bridges. We delivered on promises. The police wanted to be police officers again, but the community wanted police officers to do their job. It was a win-win situation. And so things change. You may remember, probably one of the first things I did to communicate to Detroit and Metro Detroit that the police were back we raided a location on the east side of Detroit called the County Arms. It was a hotbed for criminal activity that ironically, was positioned probably within a half a mile of the mayor’s residence. I want to take note now and say that Mayor Bing was the mayor at that time. Nothing was being done about the shootings, drug dealing, prostitution, you name it, everything happened in this one apartment building. So I assembled 200 police officers or more, some more from the Michigan State Police, Wayne County Sheriff’s. And in mass, we hit that building, we made plenty of arrests, and we had cameras in tow. And by the way, that’s where I got the nickname Hollywood. But the idea was to bring cameras so that the community could see that the police were there.

Richard Helppie
I think it was in our first season, there was a great video that we posted at RichardHelppie.com. It was you and Mayor Duggan and three or four community activists and you were meeting them where they live. It was a terrific, I thought, outreach of building trust with those in the community. And I just was taken by the kind of customer service orientation. It wasn’t an, “us versus them”, it was okay, what are we going to do to live here? And from external observations, it looks like you and Mayor Duggan both forged a great working relationship. What can you tell us about those activist groups and about your relationship with Mayor Duggan?

James Craig
Well, as I indicated, many of the activist groups didn’t even have a relationship with police department. And I believe that it’s okay to have differences of opinion. That’s fine. What’s critically important that when you talk about solutions, you got to sit down at the table and talk. It doesn’t mean you have to always agree, but the fact that you would sit down and together in a collaborative way, come up with solutions that benefit all, and so we did that. And again, we didn’t always agree. I mean, Mayor Duggan, and I didn’t always agree. But Mayor Duggan and I were seamless when you talk about, you know, embracing the community, certainly as the mayor of the city and focusing on neighborhoods and the issues that people were most concerned quality of life issues. At the same time I launched neighborhood police officers or MPOs as they are affectionately referred to, and basically it was dividing the city up into small geographic areas, and assigning a neighborhood police officer to that footprint. And their focus was get to know the neighbors, the businesses, clergy, address quality of life issues, and I gotta tell you, the community loved it. They still love it and because that was one of the hallmarks of our administration as well as Greenlight Detroit, which was another hallmark of what we did over the eight years that I served as chief here in Detroit.

Richard Helppie
And for those of you who haven’t visited Detroit, it is a remarkable comeback. The city’s beauties being restored, the leadership of people like Dan Gilbert, and Roger Penske, and others from the business community. Mike Duggan is a get it done kind of guy who wades in. And then the issue keeping people away from the city or, you know, one of the probably top two, was public safety. And this is where Chief Craig came in. And life didn’t get any easier because we had the COVID pandemic. And then the George Floyd killing, and the subsequent civil disobedience all at once. And I don’t know which one we should take. First of all, let’s take the demonstration civil unrest that rock places like Portland, Oregon, and Seattle and Chicago, even Grand Rapids, Michigan, Minneapolis police stations being overrun. And we had a different experience in Detroit. And how did that happen?

James Craig
Well number a number of factors. First of all, I talked about my experience in LA when there was the retreat from that location by the LAPD and I said how much that meant to me personally, I know what impact it had on the men and women of the LAPD I never forgot. So I watched with intensity, the unrest that was unfolding a lot of major cities last year, but I knew one thing, not Detroit. And so one way to get it done was to show strong leadership and a resolve that we won’t retreat. We’re not going to let these outside agitators come into our city and take it over. You also already talked a little bit about how we built relationships with the activist community. Yes, members of that community stood with us stood by us and did not want these outsiders to come into our city and incite violence. They didn’t want it. So they were highly visible. They engage some of these individuals and let them know not here, not in our home. So it was the leadership on our side. It was the relationships that we had established over then seven years, it really paid dividends. And so when I looked at some of these other cities, where mayors were trying to negotiate with individuals that you could not negotiate with to tune of seeing police officers forced out of their police stations, autonomy zones being set up, like in Seattle, these outsiders tried all of that here in Detroit, they tried to take over police stations, they tried to set up a ton of zones. The worst that did happen, and there must have been protests were over 100 days, there were seven of those days where officers were attacked with projectiles in an effort to agitate and promote violence, and we overwhelmed them. Again, we didn’t retreat, we didn’t back down. This was about keeping our city safe.

Richard Helppie
And the message was clear. I will caption that as a trust dividend, building up that relationship with the community that you serve, and saying how are we going to unite and that trust dividend paid off? And I can tell you, it was a beautiful thing. Because you and I share, you know, basically the same chronology, and we witnessed a lot at 11-12 years old. And we paid the price for a long time of our city being the butt of the joke in times. And what an extraordinary thing that you were able to do. And of course, that strong support from the mayor. And I know some of your contemporaries in police chief’s didn’t enjoy that they weren’t allowed to do their jobs. Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best was ordered by her Mayor to surrender a precinct a thing that she did not want to do.

James Craig
I gotta tell you shameful. And I’m not taking a swipe. At Carmen. I know, Carmen, we served on the same organization, major city chiefs. So I know her I respect her. But my orientation is such that if we had had a Seattle-like experience unfolding here in Detroit, and the mayor had said, well you know that I’m taking over a police station, I said, not me, I would have refused, I might have lost my job. But I would have been willing to lose my job, because I’m not fulfilling my obligation, my oath to protect and serve. That is important to me. So the mayor and I have enjoyed a good relationship. And so again, we didn’t always agree on everything. And that’s not unusual. However, he had enough confidence and that I was going to do my job.

Richard Helppie
Are we using our jail systems and our prison systems and our court systems and our mental health systems in the right way? Or are there things that we need to change about that whole arc of how we build a great city in a great state?

James Craig
Well, you know, and these issues are not uncommon to many other places across America. Do I feel there’s room for improvement? Absolutely. I’ve been very vocal not just here in Detroit, but over my time, especially police chiefing over the issue of the broken mental health styem. It is broken, and it does need to get fixed. It’s not just broken here. Is it a public safety issue? Absolutely. And I’m passionate about it. My best friend who we served together in the LAPD and was a member of the LAPD SWAT unit was killed by a mentally ill person who had just killed three of his family members. And so I have a deep resolve and a passion for trying to understand how best to fix the system. Now, we don’t best fix the system and engage in the anti police rhetoric, defund the police or dismantle the police. And so I think that we can still fund the police. And that’s something that most Detroiters want. They’ve never embraced, by and large, a defund the police movement, but they also support working in a way that creates a safe city, whether it’s with police, whether it’s with social workers to find a way to better address individuals who are suffering from mental illness, it is a public safety issue. But you don’t do it by moving funds from a police department, you do it because it’s a priority. And so this defund the police movement does not represent what most people want.

Richard Helppie
I’ve done my own background around this. And this may be oversimplifying it, but the message is, ‘Defund the Police…. but not in my neighborhood. And you’re leaving people very vulnerable, that need the service. And I look and I think everybody knows what good policing is, and that there is discipline for officers. And it’s an incredibly difficult job to be an officer. But I think people want to see, a good police force, and good mental health services, and in a good court system. You know, when you think about policing and you look across, regionally or just even within our state, we’ve got lots of municipalities that have police forces, we have, many county sheriff departments, we have the state police, various federal agencies, ….how much have you traveled around the state? And what do you see the connection points between your experience in Detroit and perhaps with those out state or, you know, suburbia, you know, up north out Western Michigan, the up and what might be some of the differences if you’ve had a chance to observe any of those things?

James Craig
Well, that’s a lot to chew on. But as a chief of the largest city in the state of Michigan, certainly all eyes were on this police department. So much of what I’ve learned as I transitioned to Detroit, that many of our partnering agencies that lost confidence in this police department. Right after my retirement, I had a chance to share with chiefs from all across Michigan, they had their annual meeting conference. And it was during that meeting that we talked about a number of issues. They wanted to understand the Detroit story, why Detroit didn’t burn, whereas cities and other places around the country did burn. But also, some cities in our state had looting and damage to property, and fires. Grand Rapids comes to mind, Lansing had some issues, Kalamazoo to name a few. And so I had a chance to share the story. And we’re deeply appreciative one things that I’ve always done and clearly working collaboratively, not just with our federal law enforcement partners, but our state of the Michigan State Police. Certainly municipalities close to the city of Detroit, we’ve worked very effectively in partnerships. But what cannot, which should not happen, is you just can’t paint the entire profession with a broad brush. And some of the reckless comments that are made certainly don’t pass muster. For example, Detroit was under a consent judgment for 13 years. And so we adopted policing, best practices. There’s some departments that operate very differently, that probably could do things differently. But you just can’t paint the police department with a broad brush, because different municipalities have different concerns, different issues. And so we’re public servants, we work for the people we serve. And there has to be relationship with the community that you serve, what do they want in a police department?

Richard Helppie
And that, of course, would apply universally. One thing that’s universal also has been the pandemic and COVID-19. My understanding that you had a case of COVID-19 early on, and also that you had officers on support personnel affected. What was that like? And how did you manage through that?

James Craig
Once again, we’ll go back to leadership. Whether it’s leading the potential for civil unrest, leading by setting the appropriate tone leading from the front, it was no different with COVID. None of us knew what to expect. And so at one point during the height, I had 650 members of the Detroit Police Department quarantine. Quarantine not all I had COVID at that point, but 650 quarantine. And during that time, I also had COVID. And so I had to continue to lead this organization. Fortunately, while I was ill, I still had to make some real time decisions. Because when you talk about 650, members of the department being out of work, what impact does that have on serving the community? I gladly say that the Detroit Police Department never shut down like other governmental entities did during the pandemic, not Detroit police department. Now what we did do, we collapsed some of our support units and those units that were collapsed, we moved them into the patrol operational environment, because the most important thing a police department does is respond to emergency calls to service. And I’m happy to say that when we had a number of officers out and civilian support staff out, no hiccups, we continued to respond to those emergency calls for service and manage our way through a very difficult time. And keep in mind, this was also during the time where we were having nightly protests, the pandemic was still very live in a whale. And so that’s called leadership.

Richard Helppie
Indeed, and I understand that your preparation, you have a very vigorous physical fitness program. And that I think you credit that for helping you fight off the COVID and this was during a pre vaccine world, you were stricken with this bug.

James Craig
Absolutely. Throughout the bug, I as weak as I became, at times, I continued to push myself and it was still, you know, a regular cardio routine. That thing dramatically helped me not only survive, but I didn’t end up in a hospital,

Richard Helppie
I saw an interview with your daughter, who was still saying you were working out and she’s trying to get you to slow down. I have daughters like that, too. And you know, it’s nice to have them but I don’t think they could slow us down, right? The Detroit police farms a large public entity, and you’ve got legal requirements and budgetary requirements. And so you’re very comfortable in the role of both administrator and leader. And there’s a lot that you probably take for granted. But just for scale, like what would be an annual budget and the number of personnel that you were responsible for?

James Craig
Well, 315 million dollars, give or take a few. Our staff right now, when I retired, roughly, we’re talking about civilian and sworn members, 2800. So Detroit is still considered a large police department. But I remember time even when I was on, when the city had a population of about 1.6 million residents, one point, the department was 6500. So we were probably the fourth or the fifth largest police department in the country at that time. Of course, coming from Los Angeles where we had close to 10,000. I think they might have about 10,000 or close to 11,000 officers now, but still a city of 4 million. And then Chicago, that’s a much smaller city than Los Angeles, has 13,000, or did with recent events, police officers are leaving at an alarming rate because of this lack of support.

Richard Helppie
Chief, you talked a lot about leadership today. And it’s an area that I’m very passionate about. And you know, my personal belief is that leadership is about consistency. It’s about setting an example, not expecting something from your people that you wouldn’t personally do. And I think that there was a time in our country, when somebody would be an achiever would achieve in an area, they would be an academic or a perhaps a military person or a business person, they’d accomplish something. And the populace would vote them said, we want you to be our leader over our government. And now it seems that when I look at some of the people that are in elected office, I asked myself, what kind of job did they do before they got here? And what possible job could they do when they leave office? I think that might explain some of the dearth of leadership that we have. Talk to me just a little bit in general about your leadership philosophy. And if you can, what would make James Craig, who’s been a public servant for your entire career different from some of the people that we see in leadership without you don’t need to name any names, but your leadership philosophy? And what would make someone with your credentials different than other people that are perhaps failing in leadership positions

James Craig
44 years in public service as a police officer rising through the ranks understanding what crisis leadership looks like. Let’s face it, in policing, I know over the years, I can look at times I’ve dealt with crisis after crisis, Leaders have to be decisive. leaders have to be bold and courageous at times. Leaders have to understand and embrace those who do the work, not just talk about it, but it’s your actions what you do every day, I coined the phrase in the Detroit police department and it says simply this, “Cops count. Leadership matters.” Cops Count Leadership Matters. At two o’clock in the morning, if you dial 911, you live in the city of Detroit, Chief of Police is not gonna come to your home, it’s gonna be a police officer. And by in large, if that police officer feels supported feels value, they’re gonna treat you a certain kind of way, because they know they represent the person who leaves the organization. Now, does that mean like in any profession, any industry, we’re gonna have bad apples? Absolutely. But leadership requires that you’re transparent, not just talk transparency, but someone who owns the bad and the good, takes responsibility for the bad doesn’t try to put a shade over it. And one of the things that Detroiters have come to know that I didn’t shade the truth, I got no real joy out of reporting out that I made a decision to raid my narcotics unit. And I was very public about it, because it had been historic corrupt. And it didn’t mean that every officer who worked in archives was corrupt. But it was a big enough problem that we had to do something very different, something that had never been done before. And we did that. But we did it in a very public way. That’s what defines leaders. And when you talk about trust, you instill trust, build trust, by setting the appropriate tone, you do what you say, and you hold people accountable. And that’s why at the beginning of this conversation, I talked about the necessity for me to take a strong look at those who were in, I don’t know if I should call them leadership positions, but in managerial positions in his department who, frankly, were failing, and they needed to go, is taking that bold action decisively. And what you will find people will rally behind you. And that’s a long way of saying this is not something I read in books, this is something that I’ve demonstrated each and every day. And so when I left the Detroit Police Department retired, I leave with my head up, and now that departments in a better place than it was when I got here eight years prior

Richard Helppie
Chief Craig, this has been a fantastic conversation. You’ve been very generous with your time. Thanks. Is there anything that we didn’t talk about today that we perhaps should spend a little time on?

James Craig
Well, I think it’s important to note and you kind of touched on it, I didn’t dig into it, but when we talked about the issues of violence going and sweeping around our country. Sadly, you know, we don’t talk enough about what else is broken, we don’t have conversations about the victims of the people who live in vulnerable communities. And we ignore the obvious failures, whether it’s a police department, prosecutor’s office, or the courts, they all play a critical role in keeping our community safe. But they’re public servants, as the chief of police. I’m accountable, and as a governor of the state of Michigan for what works and does not work. I’m accountable, and responsible. And we should never forget, we work for the people. This is not a team of “I”, we work for the people, and we serve the people. And so I will close on that note. But I just want to thank you for giving me an opportunity to spend some time with you this afternoon.

Richard Helppie
Chielf Craig, this has been my honor and my privilege to spend this time with you. And we need more people like you in public service. The reason we started the Common Bridge was that we’re not getting very good behavior from those from in one party or the other. We’re not getting honest reporting. People think this legacy of a country is a birthright, it’s not. And we do need our elected officials, other people in public service to rise and achieve just the way the rank and file want to serve. We need more honest reporting, which has been sadly lacking. And I’ll tell you what, now well over a million engagements, not one single person has ever come to me and said, I don’t know why you’re doing this show. Everything’s great. In fact, I’m getting just the opposite that said, Look, if you can give voice to people that are out there doing real work on behalf of our communities, on behalf of our states on behalf of our nation, and on behalf of this great world, that’s something that we’re not getting elsewhere, and basically saying we kind of expect the reporting to be slanted and it’s talking to someone like you that really gives me confidence that there can be a better day ahead with the proviso that we all demand it. So chief again, thank you so much for being on with me today. Any closing note that you’d like to offer before I sign us off

James Craig
Just enjoy the conversation. Look forward to future discussions.

Richard Helppie
As I do. and best wishes to you and all your future endeavors. This is Rich Helppie with our extraordinary guest today former Detroit Michigan Police Chief James Craig talking about policing about municipalities and about leadership and other topics. We’ll see you again next time.

Brian Kruger
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