Content warning: This article contains mentions of gun violence.
Ann Arbor Police Department’s 2023 Crime Annual Report was released Tuesday and indicates an increase in reported crimes, arrests and training hours, alongside data on traffic violations, community engagement activities and records requests compared to 2022.
The report excludes responses handled by the University of Michigan’s Division of Public Safety and Security, which found a rise in reported sexual assault and larceny from 2021 to 2022, the most recent data available.
AAPD’s increase in arrests reflects more arrests related to the transportation of liquor, according to the AAPD transparency dashboard, which outlines how many arrests were made each year and for what type of crime. Arrests for “open container” violations more than doubled from 2022, while non-alcohol-related offenses have remained relatively unchanged.
Rackham student David Helps, chair of the Graduate Employees’ Organization Abolition Caucus, a group advocating for redirecting campus police funding to supporting students and the community, said AAPD’s focus on alcohol-related infractions is a questionable allocation of resources.
“Oddly, the annual report has more to say about the acquisition of an all-electric four-wheeler … and the careers of two dogs in the K9 unit than a nearly 30% increase in the number of arrests,” Helps said. “A tremendous share of public resources is being expended to police youth drinking — something that is completely normalized in the United States, and perhaps especially in a college town like Ann Arbor.”
AAPD Communications Manager Chris Page said the number of arrests and alcohol-related offenses in 2023 was still lower than pre-pandemic levels.
“In 2023, the department saw a return to pre-pandemic police activity,” Page said. “While arrests were up year-over-year, our arrest numbers across the city are still substantially lower than they were before the pandemic … alcohol-related offenses were up year-over-year. As a department, we work with many organizations at the University of Michigan and other student groups to educate students before our officers begin alcohol enforcement. While open container violations increased from 2022, alcohol-related offenses remain lower than they were before the pandemic, and as a department, our officers are writing far fewer minor in possession tickets than in prior years.”
The report also highlights heightened enforcement of traffic regulations. The heightened enforcement may then lead to arrests for a number of different crimes such as stolen vehicles, registered owners of vehicles who are showing license suspension or outstanding warrants.
The 5% increase in traffic stops over the past year has raised community concerns about racial profiling. Despite the fact that Ann Arbor’s population is predominantly white, data indicates that about half of the stops targeted white drivers. This pattern, Helps said, aligns with broader issues of racial bias and predatory policing prevalent across the country.
“There is overwhelming evidence that police in the U.S. — and perhaps especially in Michigan — racially profile drivers,” Helps said. “While the data supplied by AAPD is not detailed enough to determine what is causing such disparate outcomes, the pattern is consistent with racist and predatory policing in the country as a whole.”
Helps also spoke about AAPD Chief Andre Anderson stepping in as the interim chief of the Ferguson Police Department in Missouri after a federal investigation determined Ferguson’s police department was frequently violating the rights of Black residents in the area.
“Andre Anderson, the newly hired AAPD chief, must be well aware of this (police bias), having been the chief in Ferguson, Missouri after the Department of Justice’s damning Ferguson report,” Helps said.
The report also reveals an increase in police training hours, climbing from 23,389 in 2022 to 27,504 in 2023. The increase follows the implementation of a $20 million funding bill signed by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in January 2023 that supports education training requirements for licensed law enforcement officers.
These training hours may reflect hours recorded by new hires, as officers hired in the 1990s and early 2000s are hitting retirement age, Deputy Chief Patrick Maguire said in the report.
“As one generation of staff hired over twenty years ago began to retire, this created the opportunity to recruit, hire and train the next generation of the AAPD,” Maguire said. “Throughout the year, new staff joined those already dedicated to providing service and protection to Ann Arbor.”
Ryan Stults, Law School student and member of the U-M Police Department Oversight Committee, said the influx of younger officers keen on proving their skills during field training might have contributed to the rise in arrests.
“Typically during field training, there is an incentive to ‘show your work’ and gain as much experience in a variety of situations while you have a seasoned officer with you,” Stults said. “New officers in field training and on probation after field training, often want to demonstrate that they are proactive and are not just sitting in parking lots.”
Helps cautioned correlating increased training with improved outcomes, citing instances such as the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
“Prior to the murder of George Floyd, the Minneapolis Police Department was considered a model when it came to training and professionalism,” Helps said. “None of that mattered when Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck for almost 9 minutes while other officers looked on. The officer in Atlanta who killed Rayshard Brooks by shooting him twice in the back had been through 2,000 hours of training.”
Daily Staff Reporter Emma Spring can be reached at sprinemm@umich.edu.