A long-form piece in the Intercept, the online magazine edited by Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Jeremy Scahill. What makes this particular piece so interesting is its backward look at the bad old days of the DPD, especially stories of police using blunt violence and intimidation to obtain confessions from the innocent. The situation finally got so bad that the feds had to step in and take a strong oversight role, with a federal monitor overseeing the agency under the terms of consent judgments. The complaints driving them involved excessive force, unlawful detention of innocent witnesses, and disgusting confinement conditions. From 2003 to 2014, the department was in the hands of these federal monitors.
That quick background may be needed for some readers who delve into the piece, which touches on Detroit's notorious Chambers Brothers, among other notables of the days when crack ruled Detroit's streets.
