James Bannon, Once Detroit's Best Known Cop, Has Died

He was a pilot, had a Ph.D from Wayne State University in sociolgy and made frequent appearances at metro Detroit's smartest parties. In the 1970s, he dressed at the cutting-edge of fashion, wearing a calf-length coat of blue crushed velvet and hats that would not have been out of place in "Super Fly."

James Bannon, for 15 years the executive deputy chief of the Detroit Police Department, died Monday of complications from lung cancer. He was 84.

Bannon's title might have been the No. 2 man in the department, but he ran the day-to-day and hour-to-hour operations, especially after his boss, Chief William Hart, was indicted by a federal grand jury for stealing undercover funds. Hart was later convicted and sentenced to prison.

Bannon was known as a cop's cop who had worked his way through the ranks and was able to negotiate the tricky waters of the department's executive strata after Coleman Young took over as mayor.

He was open to the media and quotable, which helped elevate his status, as Hart was taciturn and generally mum around a microphone. Bannon took reporters for rides on Devil's Night in the department's aircraft. He was at the controls. 

Young had ran on a platform of ending STRESS, the undercover decoy squad whose initials stood for Stop The Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets. It was formed under Mayor Roman Gribbs as an answer to Detroit's rising crime rate, and Bannon was its commander.

The unit sparked a huge controversy after its officers, who would often pose as drunken bums to attract muggers, shot and killed 20 people in its first 30 months of operation. Nearly all of the victims were black, and leaders in the African-American community -- especially radical attorney Ken Cockrel -- led rallies and marches and held a wildly contentious hearing at Ford Auditorium at which Bannon sat on the stage for hours, enduring taunts and listening to damning testimony.

Bannon told Ramparts magazine at the time that STRESS was good for Detroit.

"No god-damned bunch of intellectual eunuchs is going to tell professional policemen how to do their jobs," he was quoted as saying.

Young ended STRESS within weeks of taking office;Bannon later moderated his view about the unit.

Funeral arrangements for Bannon were incomplete.