Photo credit: Motor City Muckraker
Photo credit: Steve Neavling, Motor City Muckraker
Over time, budget cuts gutted the city’s arson squad, dropping its number of investigators from 20 in 2001 to seven in 2011. About two-thirds of all fires in Detroit were never investigated, notes Bridge Magazine.
Mayor Mike Duggan revamped the unit after taking office in 2014, bringing the number of investigators 16 and assigning nine police detectives to work only on arsons.
Arsons arrests are up, going from 118 in 2012 to 158 last year. In 2015, there were 148. And arsons are down.
But the number of arsons could go up and the number of arrests down if a reward fund vanishes. Authorities believe cash rewards are a great incentive for people to come forward and help investigators.
Joel Kurth writes:
That incentive is set to vanish next year in Detroit and all of Michigan. After more than 40 years, the nonprofit group that has paid the rewards of up to $5,000, the Michigan Arson Prevention Committee, will close unless a new funding source is found, said its director, Patrick Riney.
That’s because the group’s $140,000 budget was eliminated this spring by its longtime funder, the Detroit-based Michigan Basic Property Insurance Association, which sells high-risk home insurance in urban areas that other insurers traditionally are reluctant to touch.
“This is a big tool that’s going to be lost statewide now,” Riney said. “Investigators aren’t going to have that hammer to get witnesses to speak.”
The program has paid nearly $1 million in rewards since 1975, resulting in 1,245 arrests. Since 2011, the rewards have helped crack 76 cases from Ypsilanti to Kalamazoo, with nearly half helping solve Detroit arsons, the group reported.
