Detroit cop ‘will be held accountable’ after shooting woman during traffic stop, chief says
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- Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison said an officer violated several department policies when he shot a woman six times following a traffic stop on Sunday, Oct. 26.
- The cop violated several policies, Bettison said, and found body camera footage of the incident to be concerning.
- The woman survived the shooting and won’t be charged with a crime. Bettison wants the officer who shot her to be suspended without pay.
Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison said an officer violated several department policies when he shot a woman six times, injuring her following a traffic stop on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 26.
The chief is now asking the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners to suspend the officer immediately without pay.
“The officer will be held accountable,” Bettison said during a Monday, Oct. 27 press conference.
The officer has been with the department for a little less than two years and has no other citizen complaints or pending disciplinary action, Bettison said.
The woman was hospitalized for non-life threatening injuries and then released to the Detroit Detention Center. He didn’t say what charge she was detained on. But once Bettison said he reviewed video footage of the incident on Monday morning, he ordered her immediate release. She was released that afternoon and won’t be charged with a crime, Bettison said.
Among the policies Bettison said the officer violated:
- Officers can’t engage in vehicle pursuits for traffic stops. They must be violent crimes.
- Police can’t use their patrol car to box in or pin a vehicle in an attempt to stop it from moving.
- Police can’t shoot at moving vehicles unless in extreme circumstances where life is in jeopardy.
- When a civilian asks to speak to a supervisor, that opportunity must be provided.
Bettison did not release the name of the officer. The Detroit Police Officers Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Here’s what happened, according to Bettison, who said he reviewed body camera footage of the police shooting Monday morning and found it concerning:
The woman was pulled over around 3 p.m. Sunday near Van Dyke and Eight Mile for speeding, having tinted windows and an obscured license plate, Bettison said.
That’s different from what Bettison initially told media. Shortly after the incident on Sunday, Bettison said in a department video from the scene that the woman was stopped for an invalid license plate and did not provide her drivers license and registration to the officer. Bettison said on Monday that was false after reviewing the video.
The woman did comply and provided the documents, Bettison said, and “strongly” disagreed with the officer about why she was pulled over. Bettison said the woman asked numerous times to talk to the officer’s supervisor and called 911. But Bettison said a supervisor was never called and should have been, per department policy.
When backup arrived, officers opened her car door to try and get her out of the vehicle, Bettison said, and a backup officer pepper sprayed her. She closed the door and drove off.
About a minute later, Bettison said officers boxed her in near Outer Drive and Concord − one of their squad cars was parked in front of the woman’s car and another squad car was parked behind her.
The officer who conducted the traffic stop asked that the woman get out of the car. She attempted to drive away, Bettison said, and as she passed the officer, he shot inside her vehicle multiple times.
The officer got back into her car and followed the woman nearby to Detroit police’s training facility, where the pursuit ended.
Michigan State Police is investigating the police shooting, per policy. Findings will be submitted to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.
“If a supervisor had been called, I don’t think it would have went this way,” Bettison said.
Darryl Woods Jr., the chairman of the Board of Police Commissioners, shared Bettison’s concern. In a statement to the Free Press, he said: “It should be absolutely clear that that we will hold anyone accountable who flagrantly violates the policies that we put in place. Period and point blank.”
No Detroit police officers have been criminally charged in a shooting since 2011, according to an ongoing Free Press review of police shootings in the city
A 2024 Free Press investigation found that, over a seven-year period, a third of Detroit police shooting survivors were either not charged with or convicted of the conduct for which they were shot.
And another review in September found 20% of department shootings — or 16 cases — over the past decade began with nonviolent stops and escalated with foot chases, often when police developed suspicion the men were armed illegally. Prosecutors cleared all of the shooting officers, who said their safety was threatened.
The Board of Police Commissioners expect to hear Bettison’s request to suspend the officer at its next meeting on November 6.
Reporter Violet Ikonomova contributed to this report.
Andrea Sahouri covers criminal justice for the Detroit Free Press. Contact her at asahouri@freepress.com.
