Michigan cities paid up to $63 million in police settlements from 2022 to 2025

Michigan cities paid out a wide range of settlements over police matters in recent years. Settlement sums varied from $63 million to nothing between 2022 through the beginning of 2025, according to public records Michigan Capitol Confidential obtained through many requests.

Cities pay out settlements for accidents, damages, or wrongful actions. These actions can include an officer kicking down the wrong door in a raid, sliding on ice and hitting a vehicle, or wrongfully tasing someone at a Walmart.

In the college party town of East Lansing, population 48,000, the police recorded no payouts during that time. The cities of Benton Harbor and Midland also paid no settlements.

The city of Livonia paid out $49,000 in two police settlements. Nearby Garden City paid $53,378, while Farmington Hills paid $60,000 in two settlements.

The city of Flint paid out $46,800 over three years, while Grand Rapids paid out $92,000 and Ann Arbor paid $54,000.

The Detroit Police Department paid nearly $64 million in 111 settlements over those three years. Not every dispute has been settled yet in the city that is home to more than 630,000 people. More than $40 million will compensate six men who were wrongly incarcerated for a total of 121 years for murders they didn’t commit.

Here are some highlights for the city of Detroit.

• Smith, Larry v. County of Wayne, et al. $8.5 million for a man who served 27 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.

• Monson, Lamarr v. City of Detroit, et al.: $8.5 million for a man who served 20 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.

• Justly Johnson v. Catherine Adams and Barbara Simon: $8.2 million for a man who served 20 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit

• Kendrick Scott: $8.25 million for a man who served 20 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit

• Siggers, Darrell v. Joseph Alex and Claude Houseworth: $7 million payment for a man who served 34 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.

• Connelly, Melissa, PR et al v. Teaira Iris Funderburg and City of Detroit: $5 million after an officer ran a red light and killed a local attorney and media personality.

• Cramatie, Xavier v. Antonio Devonte Currie: $2.75 million to a man injured while being transported; the officer who was driving fell asleep.

• Curtis, Crystal P/R Estate of Michael Adams, deceased: $2.5 million to a mother whose son was shot in the back by a police officer.

• Gaddis, Mark Twain v. City of Detroit, Officer Stephen Kue: $2 million to a man who was shot at six times and hit twice in 2017 when police officers rushed into a party in Detroit without identifying themselves.

• Cyars-Williams, Angell v. Thomas Skender and City of Detroit: $1.2 million to a woman who was rear-ended by Thomas Skender, a Detroit police officer who was inputting directions into a GPS device.

• Boyd, Larry v. City of Detroit and officer Roy Bunnich: $1.1 million for a car crash.

The Dearborn Police Department paid out $8.1 million in 11 settlements. The city’s largest settlement — $7.5 million — was with Roderick Logan Jr., a minor who fell onto concrete after being tased by Officer Adnan Zeghir in a Walmart in June 2023, according to a lawsuit.

Certain police officers cost taxpayers millions of dollars and are rarely financially liable, University of California-Los Angeles law professor Joanna Schwartz wrote in the New York University Law Review in 2014. Schwartz collected information about indemnification practices in 44 of the largest law enforcement agencies nationwide as well as 37 small and mid-sized agencies.

Schwartz found that governments “paid approximately 99.98%” of what plaintiffs recovered in lawsuits alleging civil rights violations by law enforcement.

A 2023 Mackinac Center for Public Policy study suggests that most police collective bargaining agreements in Michigan contain terms that reduce departmental transparency, hamper discipline and waste taxpayer dollars.