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Texts Show Mayor Handpicked Internal Affairs Chief

POSTED: Wednesday, April 30, 2008
UPDATED: 1:50 pm EDT May 1, 2008

Newly released text messages in the City Hall scandal surrounding Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick show that the mayor had handpicked and promoted the head of Internal Affairs, the guy who would be in charge of investigating him if corruption charges ever surfaced.

A judge on Tuesday allowed the release of raunchy text messages that a lawyer allegedly used to get Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to shell out $8 million in city money to make a police whistle-blower lawsuit go away.

Brian Stair is among the names mentioned in the newly released text messages.

The mayor wanted and hired Stair to run Internal Affairs right after he fired Gary Brown for investigating allegations that included a wild party at the Manoogian Mansion.

When Kilpatrick fired Brown, he exchanged texts with Beatty, writing: "What about Stair as commander? It's a powerful statement." Beatty responded: "Can't skip steps right away."

Brown said citizens should be outraged that it will be Stair's job to investigate the mayor if evidence of corruption comes up regarding the mayor.

"You just can't have government officials poking their nose into internal affairs. Internal affairs has to be able to do their work without interference from governmental officials, especially when the governmental officials that are controlling internal affairs have public corruption issues themselves."

Kilpatrick's newly released text messages suggest he wanted every arm of the police department that might investigate his administration under his own control.

The mayor already appoints all of the Board Of Commissioners, the agency that investigates if civilians have complaints against public officials. And he handpicks the chief of police.

Former Police Chief Jerry Oliver, who resigned in 2003, said he's upset and disappointed about the new revelations regarding the mayor and the Police Department.

"What I've learned and what I've read has been extremely upsetting and disappointing and some of the people that I trusted the most, including people within the mayor's office, were doing everything they could do undermine the professionalism that we were trying to bring to the Detroit Police Department," Oliver said.
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