City Council and an oversight board are pressing Detroit police for internal temperature records and a cooling system plan for the Detroit Detention Center amid allegations of triple digit heat inside the facility and hazardous air from wildfire smoke.
Detroit City Council Member Denzel Anton McCampbell and a member of the city’s police oversight board both have pressed DPD in recent weeks for details on protocols for the Mound Road facility and upgrades on the horizon for the building, which does not currently have central air conditioning.
McCampbell sent a memo to Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison on July 8, urging the department to turn over “the complete hour-by-hour indoor temperature record” for the center and details on its heat mitigation policy. The detention center is the centralized holding facility for the intake, processing, and lodging of all individuals detained by the Detroit Police Department.
McCampbell, in the memo, noted that he’s heard indoor temperatures at the facility have reached 102°F in recent weeks and that within a two-week span “a patient with epilepsy experienced six seizures.” McCampbell declined to tell BridgeDetroit and the Detroit Free Press where that information came from, but said he’s heard from people with “intimate knowledge of the inside.”
Beyond the temperature readings, McCampbell wants DPD to specify what indoor temperatures or humidity and heat index thresholds trigger action and what that action entails. Other details he seeks are related to cooling equipment being used, where it’s placed and the access that detainees are given to water, ice, cool showers and designated cooling areas.
DPD told city officials that they have no record of illnesses tied to the heat and that portable air coolers and frequent access to water and ice are among the efforts being employed during the heat wave. The department is also working on plans to upgrade the ventilation system.
McCampbell told BridgeDetroit and the Free Press that his worries about detainees are further heightened by the Canadian wildfire smoke, which has left Detroit ranked with the worst air quality in the world.
“I have concerns about folks who are in isolation and if windows are being opened inside the facility to help for circulation now,” he said on Thursday. “Now, we are under an air quality advisory and with particulate matter, this would also impact folks with respiratory issues. So, we need to actually have a long-term solution and a solution that gets air conditioning inside this facility.”
Capital improvements on DPD’s ‘roadmap’
The discussion first arose as council members weighed a $3.7 million contract renewal for medical services at the detention center. The contract with Grosse Pointe Park-based Park Pharmacy Inc., was approved on July 14. The approval brings the overall contract cost to $7 million and the agreement runs through July 30, 2027, according to city documents.
The contract covers costs associated with nursing staff, supplies and detainee care. It’s for medical staff services, not for medications, according to DPD.
During a Detroit Board of Police Commissioners meeting on Thursday, Commissioner Victoria Camille also asked how DPD was ensuring safety at the facility while the air remains unhealthy.
“Due to the air quality issues, and absent the air quality issues, we bought some industrial air coolers to blow inside and circulate air, and cool both sides of the DDC, both for our male and female detainees,” DPD First Assistant Chief Franklin Hayes said. “The windows have been closed. We have these portable air coolers that are circulating through there for the time being.”
DPD is working with the city and sent out a quote to install an HVAC system, Hayes said.
Last August, the city took back responsibility from the state of Michigan for the detention center from the Michigan Department of Corrections. MDOC had operated the building since 2013 while the Detroit Police Department was under federal oversight for civil rights violations at dilapidated precinct lockups.
In discussions last summer about the transition back to DPD, Deputy Chief Mark Bliss noted that the detention center had been in “workable” condition, but would likely need upgrades, particularly a new air conditioning system in the building where detainees are held.
An MDOC public information officer did not respond by the time of publication to an email inquiring about how many of Michigan’s 26 prisons currently have air conditioning and the measures being taken to keep inmates cool and mitigate the risks of wildfire smoke.
“When we became the custodians of the DDC, there was no air in the building before then, so this has always been on our roadmap for capital improvements since we have acquired this … This is certainly a DPD priority,” Hayes said.
As of July 17, McCampbell said he had not yet received written responses from DPD about the center. A July 13 request to DPD from BridgeDetroit and the Free Press for information on the center’s cooling plans also hasn’t been provided.
“I want them to get air conditioning inside this facility or whatever they need to do to bring down the indoor temperature,” McCampbell said.
Camille, like McCampbell, asked DPD about the reports of temperatures reaching 102 degrees and a patient with epilepsy. Hayes on Thursday asked Camille for the detainee’s name, but he said that the individual would more than likely have been taken to an area hospital.
There weren’t any heat related illnesses recently at the Detroit Detention Center, Camille said, according to updates the police commission received from DPD on July 9 and July 16. Temperatures at the facility peaked at 94 degrees on July 4 and 95 degrees on July 14, documents provided to BridgeDetroit and the Free Press from the police commission show.
“I see nothing that reflects a temperature reading over that three digit number that you had provided,” Hayes told Camille at the BOPC meeting when she asked about the accuracy and completeness of the reports.
DPD details heat wave precautions
Before the wildfire smoke began to permeate the city, Detroit Police Capt. Shelly Eggers, who is stationed at the Detroit Detention Center, detailed efforts to keep detainees comfortable during the heat wave.
During a July 7 City Council meeting, after members raised safety concerns associated with the brutal heat, she acknowledged the lack of central air at the facility but told council members (prior to the wildfire smoke concerns) that “we have a lot of fans in there” and “the windows do open as well so it does air out in there.”
At that time, Eggers told council members that water was being provided to detainees every 30 minutes or as needed and that she had personally walked around the week prior to that, handing out bags of ice “to cool their bodies off.” Nursing staff and supervisors also walk around and check on inmates’ health and welfare, she added.
She said internal temperatures at the facility are tracked hourly on a SmartSheet Dashboard.
McCampbell also asked at the July 7 meeting and in his memo submitted to Bettison the next day, about long-term fixes for the facility. Eggers said Bettison has visited the facility and that the detention center is working with him on a solution, but did not offer specifics.
Council Member Renata Miller asked Eggers during the July 7 meeting if inmates are able to go outside when it’s extremely hot. Eggers said that currently they are not allowed outside the facility. Eggers, in response to questions about access to the site for council members, said she would support allowing members in for a tour but that it would have to be approved by Bettison.
Detroit Council Member Angela Whitfield-Calloway inquired about how many detainees are in the building on any given day. Eggers said the center can house up to 200 people and that the levels vary but typically range from between 80 to 130 per day and the goal, she said, is to “get them out very quickly.”
Eggers, when pressed about the demographics of detainees, said that there are usually more males than females and although the population is diverse, the racial makeup is predominately African American.
The concerns the council member and police commissioner raised aren’t new, criminal defense attorneys said.
Attorneys have limited access at the Detroit Detention Center and can’t go inside where the detainees are held, according to David Cripps, a lawyer at Detroit-based Cripps & Silver Law. But he’s heard about the conditions from clients; he called them “inhumane” and longstanding. The Detroit Detention Center is a “temporary punishment facility,” he said
“The ventilation system’s horrific,” he said. “In the wintertime, they freeze and in the summertime, it overheats.”
Gabi Silver, another lawyer at the firm, said the city officials who have brought up concerns at public meetings — McCampbell and Camille — are “spot on.”
Todd Perkins, an attorney at Perkins Law Group in Detroit, hasn’t been all the way inside, either, but has also heard complaints for a long time about conditions. Clients have reported being “miserable.” He highlighted how people work inside the building, too, and wanted to know how the issues officials raised will be fixed.
“Now that it’s brought to light, what is our leadership going to do about it?” he asked.
