Detroit Department of Transportation Chief of Staff Jennie Whitfield is accused of showing up drunk at the Rosa Parks Transit Center in her city-issued car shortly before midnight in late January, verbally berating employees, assaulting a security guard, and nearly falling from a balcony while chasing a pigeon around the building with a bottle of water.
But instead of disciplining Whitfield, DDOT Director Robert Cramer suspended the whistleblower who reported the incident. The whistleblower, DDOT Chief Safety Officer Corey Holmes, oversees safety for DDOT buses and their passengers.
The Jan. 23 episode is described in internal security reports, witness statements, audio recordings, and accounts from DDOT employees reviewed by Metro Times.
Despite the episode, Whitfield remains chief of staff and still has access to a city-issued car, and it’s unclear whether she’ll face any discipline. But Holmes, who alerted the department to the allegations against Whitfield, was suspended pending termination on Friday, just six hours after Metro Times began asking questions about Whitfield.
Holmes, who became DDOT’s chief safety officer in 2023, oversees the agency’s safety management system and holds multiple federal transit safety certifications. His job includes investigating incidents, reviewing safety hazards, and ensuring the department complies with national transit safety standards.
It’s just the latest embarrassing episode for the troubled agency, raising questions about discipline, leadership behavior, and morale. It also presents an early test for Mayor Mary Sheffield and how she will handle whistleblowers and problematic leadership.
Sheffield didn’t comment on the episode, but her human resources director, Denise Starr, said the mayor was not aware of the Whitfield incident or the suspension of Holmes, who was supposed to begin vacation this week, until Monday afternoon. It’s unclear why no one notified the mayor earlier.
Both Starr and Cramer were appointed by then-Mayor Mike Duggan, and Sheffield retained both of them.
“When she was informed, she indicated that she wants to let the HR complete its investigation” of Whitfield, Starr told Metro Times in a statement.
Starr said her office is still investigating the Whitfield episode. But the HR Department has not explained why Holmes was suspended so quickly, while the investigation into Whitfield is ongoing.
Starr appeared to downplay the severity of the allegations by deflecting blame on Holmes, the whistleblower, even though the accounts of Whitfield’s behavior came from security guards and DDOT employees.
“There is far more to this situation than has been shared with the Metro Times by its sources and that we are not at liberty to say because it involves personnel matters and an ongoing HR investigation,” Starr said.
Shortly after 5 p.m. Friday, after Metro Times began making inquiries, Cramer notified Holmes that he was suspended for 30 days with a recommendation that he be fired. The reason? Holmes took statements from security guards about the episode.
“This kind of investigation is outside his scope of authority,” Cramer wrote in a complaint against Holmes, saying the director should have handled the probe.
The latest episode comes less than three weeks after the Detroit Office of Inspector General slammed DDOT’s leadership for shielding employees who disrupted bus service by engaging in a “romantic interaction” and abandoning a running bus. The watchdog found supervisors imposed unusually lenient discipline and failed to properly investigate the misconduct despite the availability of surveillance video.
The bizarre allegations involving Whitfield are detailed in a series of security reports and witness statements. She arrived at the downtown transit center in her city-issued car at 11:50 p.m. and was “aggressive,” prompting a security guard to intervene.
One guard, Aaron Easterling, wrote that Whitfield “told me not to say a word and not to say what her position is,” according to his written complaint. Whitfield responded by “poking at my chest, saying do my job” and demanding to speak with his supervisor, Easterling wrote.
“She couldn’t be still,” Easterling wrote. “She was wobbling, her body language was off.”
When another security guard, Daniel Jennings, arrived for his shift and tried to get into the building, Whitfield was confrontational and began “to verbally abuse me,” he wrote in the report.
“She believed that I was a homeless person trying to enter the building,” Jennings wrote. “Then once I entered the building, she began to say disparaging comments.”
Jennings said he immediately notified Mitchell Owens, a senior transportation service inspector who was present. Several other DDOT employees were there and witnessed the episode, and witnesses said that some of the drivers recorded the incident with their cell phone, though video footage has not yet surfaced.
Jennings wrote that Whitfield jumped over a chair, “almost landing on her face,” before chucking a bottle of water at a bird that had flown into the transit center.
“Then she throws it back down to the area where the bus drivers sit,” Jennings wrote of the bottle. “It was very disturbing.”
Jennings added that Whitfield “was out of control” and her conduct was caught on security cameras.
“It was my understanding that she had just come from a bar,” Jennings wrote. “She was obviously intoxicated. You could smell the alcohol on her breath, and her behavior was not professional, she was very disrespectful and rude.”
Brian K. Cosley Sr., a senior service guard, said Whitfield “appeared to be confused and acting in a strange manner.”
At least two of the guards said they were fearful of retaliation for recounting what they had seen.
Security guard Matthew Muczynski, whom the first security guard called after Whitfield told him to contact his supervisor, said he called Detroit police for assistance. When he arrived, Whitfield asked him to “watch over her while she used the restroom.”
During that time, Muczynski said he talked to a former Detroit General Services Department employee who was with Whitfield. He asked her to drive Whitfield home “so she could get some rest.”
That’s when Whitfield began chasing a bird, Muczynski said.
“I was concerned at this time and went to the second floor and asked Miss Whitfield to join me downstairs so she could be driven home,” Muczynski wrote in the report.
Instead, Whitfield drove her car away, insisting “she was ok to drive herself home,” Muczynski wrote.
The Whitfield incident wasn’t reported until Holmes learned about it a little more than a month after it occurred. Since the surveillance video at the transit center deletes every 30 days, it’s no longer available. But DDOT employees believe at least two drivers took video with their cell phones.
Owens, the senior transportation service inspector who was present at the time, said he didn’t come forward because he was afraid of getting disciplined, according to messages obtained by Metro Times. Another employee repeated the same fear.
If DDOT employees blow the whistle on Whitfield, Owen said, “We gonna be in trouble, bro.”
Another employee said, “Nobody should ever be put in that position.”
Employees tell Metro Times that the episode involving Whitfield is just the latest from a chief of staff who has hurt morale and put employees on edge.
Neither Whitfield nor Cramer returned calls for comment.
Messages between Cramer and three other DDOT employees show the director repeatedly pressing staff to explain how they learned about the incident and who reported it, while focusing less on the allegations described in the reports. Cramer also appeared to discourage employees from continuing to gather statements. After learning that safety employees were still speaking with employees about the incident, he wrote that “any additional conversations or questioning … is making more work and potentially impacting the information.”
Duggan tapped Cramer for the $225,000-a-year director job in January 2025. Cramer previously served as general manager of Detroit People Mover, when he was accused of replacing at least seven Black managers with white ones.
The probems at DDOT are especially troubling in a city like Detroit, where roughly one-third of residents do not have access to a car and rely heavily on city buses to get to work, school, medical appointments, and childcare. Service disruptions and chronic delays are common problems.
And now DDT is without its certified chief safety officer.
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