By Charles Sercombe
A former Hamtramck police officer is charged with multiple criminal counts of assaulting two people he arrested in 2014.
The Department of Justice recently indicted Ryan McInerney, 42, on six counts involving civil rights violations, obstruction of justice, and firearms offenses, according to a press release from the Department of Justice.
The incidents allegedly occurred on July 22, 2014, and involved two separate arrests.
McInerney was with the Hamtramck Police Department for only several weeks, and he resigned after being placed on administrative leave.
City Manager Kathy Angerer declined to comment on whether he was placed on leave because of the allegations.
The indictment further says “as a result of the assaults, one of the civilians suffered broken facial bones and lacerations requiring stitches, and the other civilian suffered broken teeth, among other injuries.”
McInerney additionally is accused of “writing false reports to cover up his excessive uses of force.”
The DOJ press release did not say why the two people were arrested.
If found guilty, McInerney faces a lengthy maximum prison sentence for each charge: The obstruction charges carry a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for each offense. The firearms charges carry a mandatory minimum and consecutive sentence of five-to-seven years in prison for each offense.
The case was investigated by the FBI and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Frances Lee Carlson of the Eastern District of Michigan and Trial Attorney Risa Berkower of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
In another legal action, the Hamtramck Police Department faces an additional lawsuit alleging that a Hamtramck police investigator was part of a scheme involving the police towing company.
The lawsuit, which at press time had not been served to the city, alleges Michael Stout, who is now a detective with the department, worked with a Highland Park investigator in an auto theft unit where they falsely had vehicles towed from a collision shop in Highland Park.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S, District Court a few weeks ago, also accused the investigators of using ethnic slurs against two Arab-Americans working at the collision shop.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit were told to either sign over the cars they had to the towing company or pay high storage fees to get them back.
This is the third lawsuit involving the police investigators and others. One lawsuit had to do with an incident at Sam’s Tires on Conant.
Hamtramck agreed to settle the two previous lawsuits. Details of the settlements were not available at the time The Review went to press Thursday.
Sept. 7, 2018