A2Politico: Ann Arbor Hires As Police Chief Candidate Who Allegedly Battered and Injured a Woman

by P.D. Lesko

On Dec. 19, Ann Arbor City Council voted unanimously to approve the City Administrator’s recommendation to hire Andre Anderson as the City’s next Chief of Police. In recommending Anderson despite his blemished service record, City Administrator Milton Dohoney did a belly flop into the shallow applicant pool from which Anderson was drawn by the consulting firm paid to help recruit qualified candidates.

The AAPD Chief’s job description from the consulting firm’s website is notable for its over-reach, pomposity and self-importance.

The job description would be more accurate if it said something like: “Come to Ann Arbor, where the Chief of Police will be micromanaged by City Council members who are not visionary, who do not lead by example, who are rarely engaged, involved, approachable, empathetic or leaders, and where City staff habitually hire outside consultants to evaluate the needs of the community.”

The fact of the matter is that between 2009 and 2023, Ann Arbor has had eight Chiefs of Police, including interim leaders. There were five chiefs between 2009 and Chief Michael Cox’s hiring in 2019, and there have been three chiefs since Cox was driven from his job due to lack of support from his supervisor (former City Administrator Howard Lazarus) and AAPD staffers.

In 2020, Cox launched an investigation into officers improperly voiding parking tickets. The Chief was promptly placed on administrative leave by the City Administrator as a result of allegations the Chief’s efforts to clean house created a “hostile work environment.”

A city report later found there was “no evidence the chief was behaving in such a way (yelling, etc.) as to create a hostile work environment.”

Welcome to Ann Arbor, where up is down and white is black.

Three of the four candidates for Chief of Police selected by Dohoney for final interviews came with considerable professional baggage. None of the candidates had a more blemished service record than Andre Anderson. His professional baggage was reported by news outlets across the country when he took the job of interim Chief of Police in Ferguson, Mo., shortly after the murder of Michael Brown.

In a statement released by Dohoney to announce Anderson’s nomination, the City Administrator said, “I’m confident that Andre’s broad management experience and community engagement capabilities will be an asset to the Ann Arbor Police Department, which has a well-earned reputation for excellence. Andre has a deep understanding of current law enforcement challenges nationwide as well as opportunities for improvement. I’m confident he will serve the Ann Arbor community well.”

It’s hard to comprehend why the members of City Council didn’t discuss Anderson’s blemished professional record in public during Anderson’s interview. But they didn’t.

At his public interview, Anderson (rather ironically) emphasized accountability for law enforcement.

When confronted by media outlets with questions about the PPO granted against him, Anderson did everything except hold himself accountable. Anderson told reporters there were no charges filed against him by the victim and that, eventually, the PPO against him was quashed.

Only about 30 percent of women involved in domestic violence incidents press charges. Of those who do, between 80-90 percent of the battered women recant.

Why did the three women on City Council (Linh Song, Erica Briggs and Jen Eyer) who have publicly discussed their own experiences with abuse and physical battering say nothing about the fact Anderson slapped around (and physically injured) a woman? Why didn’t the men on Council bring up Anderson’s PPO during their opportunity to interview him?

Perhaps they avoided the elephant in the living room for the same reason that the Mayor and every other member of City Council stayed silent after Ward 4 Council member Jen Eyer and her children were attacked by Eyer’s husband former Michigan State Senator Mitch Irwin. Irwin is the father of Ann Arbor’s current State Senator Jeff Irwin.

Maybe they all avoided discussing Anderson’s attack of a woman for the same reason that two weeks after Irwin threw Eyer physically and injured her, after he was arrested and charged with Domestic Violence, which police records show, included attacking and terrifying Eyer’s minor children, Eyer petitioned District Court Judge Miriam Perry to allow Irwin access to Eyer’s two children.

In Washtenaw County, Michigan State Police data show that domestic violence is endemic. A look at the Trial Court’s records show that our County Prosecutor Eli Savit and our Trial Court judges allow some of the most dangerous domestic batterers to make bail. This puts their victims (and their children) in grave danger. According to research by the National Institutes of Health, “the majority (67%–80%) of intimate partner homicides involve physical abuse of the female by the male before the murder….”

There is a silent epidemic of femicide in the United States. The hiring of Andre Anderson, along with the County Prosecutor’s white glove treatment of Mitch Irwin to the detriment of Eyer and her children, are just two examples of the national tragedy that is the systemic abuse of women and children.

According to research by the non-partisan Sanctuary for Families, “In the US, almost three women are killed by an intimate partner every day. …Women in the U.S. are predominantly killed by men they know, and largely by current or former intimate partners. Of all intimate partner female homicides in 2018, 92% of victims were killed by a man they knew, and 63% were killed by current husbands, boyfriends, or ex-husbands.”

While Judge Perry attributed the physical attack of Eyer by Irwin to alcohol abuse (domestic violence is not caused by alcoholism), she granted Irwin access to Eyer’s underage children absent psychological evaluations of Irwin, Eyer and Eyer’s children. Judge Perry granted Irwin access to children he had terrorized, according to the 911 call audio, and did so by a signed order. Judge Perry granted what can only be described as a battered woman’s irrational (but predictable) request that a batterer be given access to her underage children even before his charges were adjudicated, and a treatment plan presented.

By voting to hire Andre Anderson, one could argue that City Council followed Judge Perry’s well-intentioned but psychologically misguided lead.

An Ann Arbor resident asked Council member Lisa Disch (D-Ward 1) in an email shared with the newspaper why a candidate for Chief of Police chosen by the City Administrator was the guy who had been suspended from his policing job three times in a single year. The guy who was also slapped with a PPO for allegedly hitting a woman.

Disch said in her email response that Anderson’s suspensions and his PPO had been discussed and dismissed. In essence, Lisa Disch, who teaches political science at the University of Michigan, admitted that she and other Council members deliberated in secret, a violation of the Michigan Open Meetings Act.

City Council members, in essence, dismissed three suspensions, and a PPO on the official work record of a prospective employee.

Then again, in Ann Arbor, such poor administrative and political leadership is par for the course. There is a high level employee in the Ann Arbor Police Dept. who was hired after being banned from entering certain County buildings as a result of serial sexual harassment complaints. One of those complaints cost County taxpayers $50,000 to settle.

Anderson’s professional record also includes a finding that he falsified records.

This latter allegation came out while Anderson was the interim Chief of Police in Ferguson, MO. That department released a statement: “Chief Anderson provided information on a mileage report in error, not out of an intentional, malicious action.”

Former Ann Arbor City Attorney Stephen Postema was, similarly, cited in an annual audit. He submitted an expense report in which he requested mileage reimbursement for $1,038 at the same time he was receiving a monthly car allowance. In 2013, the A2Indy reported: “Postema was quietly allowed to accept a new contract by means of a November 8, 2012 resolution offered up to Council members by the City Council’s Administrative Committee (John Hieftje, Ward 4 Council members Margie Teall and Marcia Higgins, outgoing Ward 2 Council member Tony Derezinski, and Ward 3 Council member Chris Taylor). This was done without mention of the auditor’s findings, and the resolution brought to Council stated the City Attorney was ‘willingly giving up’ his monthly car allowance, as opposed to losing it because he’d been caught gaming the system.”

The nomination of Andre Anderson to head the police department by the City Administrator, without a public discussion of the red flags within Anderson’s work record, has done a disservice to the AAPD and the Ann Arbor community. The City Council members’ refusal to do their jobs and represent the best interests of the public and the police department that serves the public, is worse than incompetence. Their negligence has put the most vulnerable members of our community in danger.