Dearborn Heights residents are fed up with local police

By Laura Fawaz
TMO Contributing Writer

Photo credit: Clipart.com

Dearborn Heights, MI–Within the past 12 months the Dearborn Heights Police Department (DHPD) has faced two public discrimination lawsuits, has been accused of using excessive force with a disabled man and faced several dozen complaints on their lack of properly handling situations.

Many residents of Dearborn Heights are constantly complaining that their police department does not do enough when it comes to taking action other than giving excessive traffic tickets. These last two weeks proved to be no different. The Muslim Observer interviewed two separate families involved in these incidents. Both families asked that their real names not be published as they are afraid of being targeted by the DHPD as other families claimed to have been after going public with negative reports.

The first was from a family that lives in a well-known neighborhood in Dearborn Heights close to a street called John Daly. This street is so well known because the DHPD hides in side streets that face it in order to stop people for traffic violations. This family live on one of these side streets, and have police officers hiding daily behind their family vehicles in order catch speeders. The problem here, according to the family, is that within the past 18 months alone these same family cars have been broken into on five different occasions. The father of this family was so fed up that he called the DHPD asking why they use their home during the day to give out tickets, but can’t stay after dark in order to catch the people breaking into their cars. He was not given a response.

Then last weekend, Dearborn Heights resident “Ali” was visiting a friend who lives just one street away in a cul-de-sac. His car was parked in front of one of the houses in the circle, facing outward onto another street. Ali was at this friend’s house for a bit when someone came in and said that there was a random foreign car in the middle of the street. Ali, who drives a Chevy, thought it was one of the neighbors who have been known to throw loud parties often. After close to two hours, they heard a tow-truck and went outside to make sure everything was ok. That’s when Ali saw his Chevy starting to be hooked up to a tow-truck with a Dearborn Heights Police car standing guard. As Ali walked to his car, the two police officers jumped out of theirs to stop him. Ali asked how his car got there and the two police officers scolded Ali for parking his car there. They argued back and forth with the officers telling Ali “you shouldn’t have parked your car like this,” and Ali telling the officers “why would I park my car like this, I have common sense.”

Then Ali asked if he can check the stick-shift car to see if the parking break was up, they told him no and to get away from his car. The tow-truck driver loading the Chevy at this point when Ali asked if he can at least get his wallet out of the car for safety reasons and to pay the tow-truck. The officers told tell him no and according to witnesses, continued to do so in a demeaning manner. The Muslim Observer spoke to these two officers who gave us their last names, though would not tell their first initials. Officers Esposito and Hutchins did say that they checked the license plate and found that this car belonged to an address one street away and should not have been there. When Officers Esposito and Hutchins were asked about the possibility that the driver of this car may have been hurt and had to leave his car behind, if they did a well-fare check? They only continued to say, “This car should not have been parked here.”

Then they were asked if they at least confirmed if the parking break was up or not since it was a stick shift car, they responded with no they did not look. Ali was able to pick his car up the next morning after paying a $300 fine. He was also given an impeding traffic ticket which he has plans to fight in court later this month.

Another instance with the DHPD occurred earlier this year, and was reported on by The Muslim Observer. Dearborn resident Malak Kazan was forced to remove her hijab after a traffic stop turned into a booking by the Dearborn Heights Police Department.

Her attorney Amir Makled said “We want the Federal Court to make a ruling that the policy was unconstitutional, that Dearborn Heights Police Department failed to recognize Malak’s First Amendment right, and we’re hoping that the policy be changed.”

Last July, Kazan was stopped for a traffic violation by the DHPD. Her license was suspended for outstanding tickets, so she was arrested. When she was brought into the booking area she says that she was demanded to remove her hijab for the photograph. Kazan says that she explained to the male officers that she could not take her scarf off in front of men for religious reasons. After explaining that this would violate her religious beliefs, the officer said there were no exceptions. According to Kazan, she continuously protested this, and was repeatedly told to comply. Then she requested to speak to a supervisor who told her as well “you have no other choice, you have to take it off,” she said.

“Then she said ‘if you’re going to force me to take this off I want a female [officer].’ They denied her request. So at that point she felt compelled, based on the situation she was in, and the detention center she was at, she felt she had no choice but to remove her hijab,” explained Makled.

“Our number one concern is security of our officers and the prisoners,” said Dearborn Heights Police Chief Lee Gavin. Makled argues that Kazan was not a prisoner, as she was released after paying a fine, and therefore does not fall under this category.

Another lawsuit that the DHPD faced was from an Arab American family who filed suit against them last December for alleged racial discrimination. The lawsuit was announced at the office of the Arab American Civil Rights League (ACRL) and says Dearborn Heights police officers failed to investigate an assault against two of the family’s children because of their religion and ethnicity.
According to the legal complaint Souad Khaled, 8, and her sister, Fakhrieh Khaled, 14, were assaulted by their next-door neighbor who demanded that they clean his lawn. The complaint states that the girls were cleaning their own front yard when the neighbor came out and asked that they pick up the garbage on his lawn. When the girls said they were not responsible for the trash, the neighbor grabbed them by their arms, pulled them to his property and threw them on the ground. “While grabbing [the girls], the plaintiff’s neighbor yelled the following phrase: ‘You f—ing Arab scarfies,’ indicating that the action by the neighbor was racially and religiously motivated,” the lawsuit reads.

Shortly after the incident, the girls’ uncle called the police. But when officers arrived at the scene they only knocked on the neighbor’s door and left when he did not answer. According to a briefing on the dispatch, police closed the incident about 23 minutes after arriving at the Khaleds’ residence. The police dubbed the incident “neighbor trouble,” not assault.

ACRL Chairman Nabih Ayad, who is representing the family, said the neighbor should have been charged with five counts— two charges of assault and battery against a minor, two charges of ethnic intimidation and a charge of trespassing. Ayad said the children were consistent and honest in telling the police what happened. Ghassan Khaled, the father of the girls, said the police harassed his family after the incident. He said in the following days, police cars were excessively driving in front of his house; and in one incident, they shined bright lights into the home at night.
Sonia Khaled, the children’s stepmother, said she witnessed officers chatting with the neighbor several times after the incident, making racial slurs against Arabs in one conversation. The family provided reporters with a video taken by their daughter that shows a car and a faint voice, apparently coming from a vehicle, saying, “They’re no different— Palestinian, Lebanese, Arab, Muslim. They hit their children and their women.”

Sonia said that the video is of a casual exchange between the neighbor and a police officer. The Muslim Observer could not verify the authenticity of the video. “It’s unfortunate; it’s unconstitutional; it’s illegal; it’s unprincipled and unethical that the Dearborn Heights police continue to treat Arab Americans as second-class citizens,” Ayad said, and added that the ACRL has received several complaints alleging bias against Arab Americans by the Dearborn Heights police.

The civil rights attorney highlighted that Dearborn Heights recently hired its first Arab American police officer. He said 60 percent of the city’s population is Arab American.

“A lot of Arab American individuals can’t even drive outside their neighborhoods without getting two or three tickets slapped on them, whether they’re picking up your kids from school or driving to the grocery store. The community has had enough,” said Ayad.

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