Council selects Robinson as new police chief

At the end of more than two hours spent interviewing the three top candidates for part-time police chief during a special meeting on Feb. 17, the Belleville City Council members agreed informally that they all wanted David Robinson.
At the regular meeting on Tuesday, they voted to make that selection official. It will be final after a background check and signing of a contract prepared by city attorney Steve Hitchcock.
Robinson retired last July as deputy chief of the City of Dearborn Police Department after 30 years of service.
He said he and his family have lived in Newport for the last 15 years and recently sold their home and moved to an historic home in downtown Monroe. He said his son can walk to high school and walk home from football practice.
The moving and setting up his new home took much of the time after his retirement was final and then he was tapped on the shoulder by the Wayne County Mediation Services dispute resolution center and has served as interim director of that non-profit for the last four months. He said he just wrote the strategic plan for the non-profit and so they should be all right for a while.
“My calling and passion is law enforcement,” he said. “That’s what I’m good at. When the opportunity came up here, it was almost perfect. Too perfect.”
He said he likes small towns and grew up in Shelby Township 40 years ago when it was a small town. And in Newport, he was on the Newport Firemen’s Association and volunteers on activities. He said he is sergeant-at-arms for the association.
When he was questioned by council members, one by one, he replied that “happy workers take pride in their work when they understand” why decisions are made.
He said, if selected, he would go out to meet the majority of residents and a majority of business owners in the town.
“I expect that within 90 days to six months I will shake every business owner’s hand in this town,” he said.
He said he would do a lot of listening and learn from them and build relationships.
“I will tell them, please be open and honest with me … I’m a lifelong learner … I need to know what people expect of the police and of me,” he said.
He told of his experiences in Dearborn of forming groups and bringing all faith-based groups together. They worked with the Department of Homeland Security to bring safety to all their groups.
“We need people to trust us,” he said. “Building trust is paramount in a police department.”
He said he was sergeant of the youth services division and required officers to visit the schools every single day. They had 300 to 400 visits a month to the Dearborn schools.
“I wanted the students to see police officers regularly and it was good for the officers, as well,” he said. “It eroded the us against us mentality.”
Robinson said the officers were out shooting baskets with the students. He said he required them to go and what the officers did once they were at the school was on them.
He said they would start to see that somebody knew someone was reaching a point of confict and they found they can help kids before they reach an emergency situation. He said he worked with the chief prosecutor in Wayne County and had a candid conversation with Prosector Kym Worthy on a program. He said now four or five of these cases are in the mediation center.
When asked about the biggest challenge in law enforcement, Robinson said the biggest challenge is people having faith that police are going to show up and help them. He said police have to gain the trust because of the many negative stories about police. He said there are video cameras rolling showing police doing what they shouldn’t be doing.
When asked how he would unify the Belleville police force, he said he would meet with each officer, “make ‘em dinner, tell them about me, so they’ll know I’m here for you … build their trust.”
“I’m not here to change their daily life,” he said, he plans to quickly get a temperature of how they view themselves and what equipment they need and what training they would like.
When asked about retention of officers, he said he sat on a panel in Washington, D.C. on retention. He said in Dearborn they start a youth program at age 14 where they are paid interns, called cadets. He said there is some tuition reimbursement to become cops.
He said Dearborn hired seven or eight of these cadets later as officers.
“We should be talking to kids at a young age,” he said. “It’s marketing. Find recruits interested in service and give them something to be proud of.”
He said police work is a calling and a passion, not a job. And, for retention of officers, “Make them love it here so much, they don’t want to leave.”
Also interviewed were Kevin Bias, retired from Northville Police Department, and David Egeler, retired from Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Department.