Detroit Police Chief James Craig tests positive for coronavirus

Detroit's top cop has tested positive for coronavirus, Mayor Mike Duggan announced Friday afternoon.

"Chief James Craig, this morning, tested positive for COVID-19," Duggan said at a news conference. "It’s something that we knew was a possibility. He is very fit. He’s got mild symptoms. And he is very much in charge of running this department. I think I’ve talked to him 10 times today. But he’s not going to be back on site until he fully recovers."

Duggan shared the news while addressing the city's COVID-19 response.

Assistant Chief James White is assuming day-to-day operations of the department, Duggan said. 

Duggan said 39 officers have tested positive for COVID-19. Assistant Chief David LeValley told the Free Press on Friday that 556 department employees are in quarantine. He said 468 of those are sworn officers. He said the department has about 2,400 sworn members. 

"We are going to ramp up the protection of our police officers, it is right now our highest priority," Duggan said.

The department previously announced two deaths as a result of the coronavirus: a 911 call taker and homicide Capt. Jonathan Parnell.

Every precinct in the department has people under quarantine, LeValley said.

Most precincts have between 12 and 18 members in isolation, LeValley said. But the 6th, 8th, 9th and 12th precincts — with 58, 42, 46 and 27 in quarantine, respectively — have been hit especially hard.

The homicide unit has 19 employees in quarantine and 16 are out from commercial auto theft, he said. In the communications unit, 48 people, or about half the staff, are out. That’s where the 911 call taker who died worked.

The department has been tracking contacts of those who test positive. A few exposures have happened in the course of policing the public, but most are the result of contact with co-workers, LeValley said.

"When it comes to police departments, we have to put just as much focus on preventing officers from infecting each other," Duggan said at the news conference. "Police stations and precincts tend not to be designed in a way to make social distance easy and it's not really a part of the culture and we're going to have to dramatically change the way that we are doing this."

LeValley told the Free Press the department is issuing N95 masks to officers when they go on patrol; has kits in the patrol cars that contain gloves, hand sanitizer, masks and a full body suit; and received hand sanitizer made by an area brewery. As well, he said police facilities are being cleaned frequently.

The department started developing its coronavirus response strategy about two weeks ago, figuring out which units could be collapsed and redeployed. The department prioritized four essential functions — answering 911 calls, responding to calls, preserving evidence and handling detainees.

Officers from units deemed nonessential to the department’s core mission are being redeployed to precincts with dozens of officers out on quarantine. Those sections include the recruiting unit, officers assigned to the Police Athletic League and some working on long-term cases.

The first redeployments to precincts losing officers happened two days ago. Just Thursday, a dozen officers working on long-term organized crime cases were reassigned.

“We put that on hold. We need those officers in uniform,” LeValley said. “We took 12 of our task force officers and moved them over to the 12th Precinct to make sure they were able to staff all their cars for days and afternoons today.”

LeValley said the department is still able to staff response shifts. He said the department has been in contact with the Michigan State Police, but has not requested assistance.

“We’re still making runs," he said. "We’ve maintained the same response time we had a few weeks prior to this.”

At the news conference, Duggan said the city is always considering contingency plans, but: “At this point there’s no plan to ask for other agencies” to help patrol city streets.

White, who is taking over operations while Craig is out, recently returned from quarantine. He said that while he was home, he was in touch with Craig on an hourly basis — and would continue to communicate frequently with Craig now that he is back and the chief is out.

"Our chief, Chief James Craig, is still in command," White said.

Duggan said Craig told him: "This is what I signed up for when I went into law enforcement, I knew the risk. I have a great team, I’m going to run this from home until I beat it."