This is part of an ongoing series about “wandering cops” in Michigan.
With the red-and-blue lights flickering on his patrol car, Romeo Police Officer Robert Priest pipes Beck’s “Loser” through the speakers of his patrol car, playing the ’90s alternative rock hit on a loop as he writes traffic tickets from the driver’s seat.
“I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?”
Priest is jubilant. It was February 2022, and he had just pulled over former Warren Deputy Police Commissioner Matt Nichols, who had moved to Romeo two weeks earlier.
The pair previously worked together at the Warren Police Department, and in 2017, Nichols played a role in denying Priest a promotion to the rank of lieutenant. Nichols says Priest has been angry with him since.
After he wrote the three tickets, which alleged Nichols failed to signal a lane change, use a turn signal, and show proof of insurance, Priest returned to his patrol car, where he received a call on his personal cell phone from a Romeo officer and supervisor, Patrick Bauer.
Priest boasted about the traffic stop. Bauer asked if the stop was one of his “special projects.”
“Yes, indeed,” Priest answered, according to in-car video obtained by Metro Times. “He didn’t even know who it was. … I’m sure he figured it out now after I wrote the ticket.”
Bauer laughed.
Priest bragged that he “three-banged” Nichols with tickets and said, “It was fucking great, dude.”
As Priest began to describe what led up to the traffic stop, the video abruptly stops. According to phone records, Priest and Bauer talked to each other for 16 minutes, but the Romeo Police Department is refusing to disclose the remaining audio.
It was the only traffic stop made by Priest that day, according to his police log, which was obtained by Metro Times.
The traffic tickets were dismissed in April 2023 after Priest failed to show up to court.
Now Nichols is suing Romeo, Priest, Bauer, and the village’s police chief Dan Sokolnicki. Among other things, the 106-page lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on Feb. 15 alleges malicious prosecution, abuse of process, civil conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, governmental liability, and gross negligence.
According to the suit, Priest waited at the end of Nichols’s street to pull him over as payback for preventing Priest’s promotion at the Warren Police Department.
The stop has left Nichols feeling unsafe and humiliated in Romeo, where he and his wife had just moved. “I knew that I was in a helpless position having been targeted by someone who was using his position as a police officer for personal vengeance,” Nichols said in the suit. “That feeling quickly shifted to a position of hopelessness because I felt there was nothing I could do to prevent the onslaught of the attacks from the police in the community that we have lived in for two weeks and just couldn’t run away.”
As Priest began to describe what led up to the traffic stop, the video abruptly stops. According to phone records, Priest and Bauer talked to each other for 16 minutes, but the Romeo Police Department is refusing to disclose the remaining audio.
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This case goes deeper than allegations of a cop abusing his power to seek revenge. A Metro Times investigation reveals that both the Warren and Romeo police departments violated laws aimed at preventing “wandering cops,” or officers who move from department to department amid allegations of misconduct.
The bizarre case is yet another example of what happens when law enforcement allows cops to move from agency to agency after committing alleged misconduct. Often, the misconduct continues — as it did in this case — putting communities and residents at risk.
In 2017, state lawmakers sought to halt wandering cops with legislation mandating police departments maintain documentation detailing why an officer leaves an agency. But the law doesn’t work if police departments don’t properly report officer misconduct.
In October 2023, Metro Times revealed that the Detroit and Eastpointe police departments violated the 2017 law, which enabled a disgraced former cop to get a new job. Ex-Detroit cop Kairy Roberts landed the new job in Eastpointe last year, despite an internal investigation that found he had punched an unarmed man in the face in Greektown, failed to provide medical aid, and then lied about the encounter in August 2021.
After Roberts resigned under pressure from the Detroit Police Department, the city did not report the alleged misconduct — as required — to the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards (MCOLES), the state agency responsible for regulating police. And Eastpointe falsely claimed to MCOLES that he had met the character fitness standards, which is required for officers to get their licenses reactivated. Those standards are intended to prevent abusive cops from getting another law enforcement job in the state.
Concerns about wandering cops are increasing as agencies face a shortage of officers. Without enough applicants, some police departments are lowering their standards for new officers and hiring cops with a history of misconduct, Metro Times revealed in a previous cover story investigation.
As part of an ongoing series about wandering cops, Metro Times and the Invisible Institute, a nonprofit news organization, filed a lawsuit against the Michigan State Police for refusing to disclose public records about the identities of current and former police officers.
The request is part of a project to create a national database to identify, track, and report on wandering cops.
Police chief lies
In May 2021, Priest retired while under investigation by the Warren Police Department over allegations that he violated a department policy, according to records and interviews.
Yet then-Warren Police Commissioner William Dwyer claimed in a mandated separation report that Priest left “in good standing.” The affidavit signed by Dwyer warns that “any misrepresentation on my part constitutes fraud and is punishable as a felony.”
(After this article went to press, Dwyer said he was fired on Tuesday. It’s unclear why he was terminated.)
On the separation report, Dwyer had other options he could have chosen from: “Retired while under investigation” or “retired in lieu of termination.”
The separation report is important because it is sent to MCOLES, which is tasked with providing licenses to police officers. MCOLES has the authority to prevent officers who resign or retire under pressure from getting a job at another police agency. But without accurate information, MCOLES has no way of knowing why an officer leaves a department.
MCOLES director Timothy Bourgeois says his agency does its best to curb wandering cops, but it can only do so much if police agencies aren’t transparent and don’t follow the law.
“The vast majority of agencies report timely and accurately to the commission as required,” Bourgeois tells Metro Times. “This helps the commission ensure standards for selection and hiring are met. In cases where the reporting is not timely or accurate, we work diligently to uncover the facts and apply the law, including ensuring future compliance with those acts.”
State opens investigation
In November 2023, Nichols’s attorney Jamil Akhtar filed a criminal complaint with the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, saying Dwyer “knowingly falsified” the separation report.
“I believe the information that I have in my possession, in which I wish to share with you, will prove criminal wrongdoing on the part of a Chief of Police,” Akhtar wrote to the AG’s Chief of Investigation Unit.
AG spokesperson Danny Wimmer says the department is aware of the complaint and directed it to MCOLES.
“The Department’s Criminal Investigations Division did receive a complaint about the described circumstance,” Wimmer told Metro Times in a written statement. “Upon review, and following an interview with the complainant, it was determined (and relayed to the complainant) that this complaint should rightly be filed with MCOLES, and that Department of Attorney General investigative efforts would resume upon referral or request from MCOLES.”
Wimmer added that Attorney General Dana Nessel is worried about wandering cops.
“The Attorney General is very concerned with the pattern of police officers moving from department to department while under investigation for misconduct in their previous employing agency,” Wimmer told Metro Times in an email.
MCOLES Director Timothy Bourgeois confirmed his agency is investigating this case.
“The commission is aware of this issue and is reviewing it,” Bourgeois says.
In an interview with Metro Times, Dwyer maintains he did nothing wrong, saying Priest retired “in good standing” because he wasn’t under a criminal investigation. And since he retired before the investigation was complete, the police department closed the internal probe before it was finished.
“We would not allow him to retire in good standing if he was under a criminal investigation,” Dwyer says. “If he retired and there was an internal investigation related to some sort of rules and regulations … then the investigation wouldn’t have been completed because he retired.”
Warren Lt. John Gajewski, who handles internal investigations, says the allegations against Priest stem from a violation of department policy and did not rise to the level of a crime.
But MCOLES has made clear in past cases that an officer can’t leave “in good standing” if there is an ongoing investigation, even if it wasn’t criminal. In fact, the separation report that Dwyer filled out offered him two other options to check off — “retired while under investigation” and “retired while under criminal investigation.”
Dwyer checked off neither and signed the affidavit “under the penalties of perjury.”
Under the 2017 law intended to curtail wandering cops, police departments are required to document why an officer leaves and make that information available to agencies that are considering hiring the officer. By law, a police department is required to examine that record before hiring an officer.
That didn’t happen in this case. Before Romeo hired Priest, the department called Warren and inquired about his work history.
“They never did come to review the personnel file, which I found interesting,” Gajewski says. “They did call me and asked me to confirm what was in the MCOLES document. This was all verbal regarding a conclusion as to his decision to retire or not.”
Earlier this month, the Warren Police Department rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for that document, saying “the public interest in disclosure does not outweigh the public interest in nondisclosure in this particular instance.”
It’s unclear if Warren even filed the report.
Romeo police also broke the law
In a document to MCOLES in November 2022, the Romeo Police Department indicated it spoke to Gajewski and was told Priest retired because he “was under investigation.”
Gajewski also revealed that Priest “was separated” from the Warren Police Department in 2002 “because of allegations regarding [redacted]. After two years of fighting with the city, Priest was awarded his job back. He stated that the allegations were not true and that he was never charged with anything.”
The Warren Police Department declined to discuss those allegations, the details of which remain a mystery.
The Romeo Police Department concluded the document by saying of Priest, “He had a couple of hiccups in his career. [Redacted] will be addressed if he is employed with this department.”
In the lawsuit filed against Romeo, Nichols’s attorney noted that “Sokolnicki had a statutory duty to investigate” Priest’s former employment records.
“Sokolnicki violated the investigative procedures of the act, and after receiving verbal, not written notification from Dwyer, he went ahead and hired Priest with full knowledge of his previous termination and reinstatement of employment,” Akhtar wrote in the suit.
Less than three months after Priest received the job as a probationary police officer, he pulled over Nichols.
In December 2023, Priest was fired “due to department policy violation,” according to Priest’s separation document, which was obtained by Metro Times in a Freedom of Information Act.
Soon after the traffic stop, Nichols filed a citizen’s complaint with Romeo, saying he was harassed by Priest.
In response to the complaint, Sokolnicki acknowledged, “It has been determined that some of the Officer’s actions after the interaction with your client were inappropriate. Corrective action will be taken to help improve this Officer.”
Sokolnicki also said, “The other allegations you have made regarding the way the Officer felt about issuing the citation appears to be correct.”
In the lawsuit, Akhtar wrote that Sokolnicki’s admission “is astonishing in that it shows a total disregard of Plaintiff's rights as a resident of the Village of Romeo and the fact that the Defendant Village of Romeo allowed Defendant Priest to continue his employment with the Village and that the Defendant Village of Romeo failed to take any punitive or administrative action against” Priest.
Although it’s clear that Priest violated the law, Akhtar said the Romeo Police Department closed the investigation without issuing any charges.
And in January, when Sokolnicki filled out the mandated separation report for Priest’s termination, the police chief insisted he had no problems with Priest and blamed the firing on officials from the village of Romeo.
“Village administration had conflict with this individual,” Sokolnicki wrote. “Police administration did not have any issues with this officer. However police chief was not included in the decision.”
Sokolnicki is retiring in April. It’s unclear whether his handling of this case had anything to do with his leaving.
Neither Romeo village officials, Sokolnicki, nor Priest returned calls for comment.
The case, as strange as it is, shows that wandering officers is a phenomenon that won’t stop until police departments begin following the laws that are aimed at protecting the public from bad cops.
