Detroit area police, including Romulus, tackle crime tied to motels

By George Hunter, ghunter@detroitnews.com

Mayor Robert McCraight grinned as he talked about the standing of the previous Rodeway Inn on Wickham Highway in Romulus, the place police as soon as averaged greater than a dozen calls every week.

“It is a gap within the floor,” McCraight mentioned.

Metropolis and police officers cited the continued demolition of the previous hassle spot for example of how their three-year effort to eradicate crime within the Wayne County neighborhood’s resort district is working. Romulus has 26 resorts, probably the most of any neighborhood in Michigan, and metropolis and police officers mentioned the world’s excessive crime charge was stopping funding from builders.

That has begun to vary, they mentioned, with a number of tasks costing tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars}, together with the $60 million redevelopment of the Rodeway property by Tennessee-based Cooper Resorts.

Because the resort was razed, a building crew just lately toppled the towering “Rodeway Inn” signal, sending particles taking pictures up because it hit the bottom.

Good riddance, mentioned McCraight.

“It was a destroyed resort – there have been medicine, prostitution and every kind of crime,” mentioned McCraight, who was elected mayor in 2021. “(The Rodeway) is the primary resort we went after after we began this.”

Cooper Resorts, which owns three different resorts in Romulus, didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark.

There are about 46,000 resort rooms in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties, in accordance with the Michigan Financial Growth Corp. Police and elected officers in communities throughout the area are tormented by the identical issues that when pervaded the Romulus Rodeway Inn, mentioned Ron Wiles, govt director of the Michigan Affiliation of Chiefs of Police.

“Communities with numerous resorts and motels could face distinctive public security challenges,” Wiles mentioned. “Frequent visitor turnover and excessive numbers of short-term guests may end up in larger requires service and an elevated danger of issues comparable to drug exercise, human trafficking and high quality of life complaints.

“On the similar time, resorts and motels are an vital a part of many communities, and legislation enforcement continues to work carefully with property house owners, native governments and accomplice organizations by way of focused patrols, employees coaching and proactive drawback fixing to maintain friends, staff and communities secure,” Wiles mentioned.

In accordance with the College of Arizona’s Heart for Downside-Oriented Policing, resorts have a tendency to draw crime.

“The character of lodging makes it conducive to crime and dysfunction,” in accordance with a 2005 information entitled “Dysfunction at Funds Motels.”

“Motels and resorts home folks solely quickly, typically in business areas with excessive crime charges,” the information mentioned. “As a result of finances motels supply low charges, settle for money and infrequently have a comparatively unrestricted surroundings, locals with unlawful or delinquent intentions discover them notably enticing.

“Drug gross sales, prostitution, loud events and different actions can typically be undertaken in motels with much less danger than in non-public properties,” the information says. “Motel friends have little incentive to report drug trafficking and prostitution as a result of they don’t have any long-term curiosity within the motel.”

The crime drawback worsened through the COVID pandemic, McCraight mentioned.

“When COVID hit, folks weren’t touring, and a few resorts opted for a enterprise mannequin the place they stuffed their rooms with whoever they might,” he mentioned. “That caused nefarious actions that fueled the elevated want for public security within the resort district.”

McCraight mentioned he has taken the initiative to wash up Romulus’ resort district by holding “carrot-and-stick conferences” with resort managers and different staff.

“We instructed them that in the event that they shared our imaginative and prescient, we might work with them to draw extra prospects,” he mentioned. “But when not, we might use the legislation enforcement baton and permit the police who have been conducting these checks to make use of the instruments of Metropolis Corridor to make sure that these locations have been in compliance with our metropolis codes, and if not, we might difficulty violations.

“Some resort managers would come to those conferences and say, ‘Hey, maintain your canines off, they’re too aggressive with implementing all these metropolis codes,’” McCraight mentioned.

“I mentioned to them, who do you assume despatched them there? We’re not giving up. It’s a must to clear up your resort.”

shootings in Southfield

A number of the most notorious crimes in Metro Detroit historical past have been dedicated in or round resorts or motels. Case examples embrace the still-unsolved homicide of anti-bootlegger radio firebrand Jerry Buckley, who was gunned down within the foyer of Detroit’s LaSalle Lodge on July 23, 1930, and the July 9, 1987 homicide by which three Inkster cops have been shot on the Bungalow Motel on Michigan Avenue.

A newer drawback institution was the now-destroyed Victory Inn on Michigan Avenue in Detroit, close to the Dearborn border. Federal brokers raided the 42-room motel in 2017 and rescued 14 ladies who had been locked within the rooms as intercourse slaves. A big-scale drug trafficking operation additionally occurred on the motel, federal authorities mentioned. The constructing was demolished in 2018.

A number of high-profile crimes have been dedicated in and round Southfield resorts over the previous two years, together with the Dec. 1 homicide of 40-year-old Detroit resident Taron Fitzpatrick. Police discovered the sufferer, who had been shot, within the car parking zone of the Radisson Lodge on Telegraph Highway, close to the Lodge Freeway. He later died from his accidents.

In September, Oakland County prosecutors accused a person of working a prostitution operation out of the Sonesta Merely Suites in Southfield with the assistance of a resort worker. Three defendants are accused of working a human trafficking enterprise, taking cash from prostitution and different offenses. That is the primary time Oakland County prosecutors have filed such fees in opposition to a resort clerk.

On February 11, 2025, Southfield police mentioned 15-year-old Tyler Johnson was shot and wounded a yr earlier round 8:42 a.m. on February 11, 2024 in a room at The Westin at 1500 City Heart in Southfield. Johnson, who was a part of a bunch of teenage mates who had gathered within the room and was unattended, later died from his accidents. In accordance with the police, the investigation has stalled as a result of a scarcity of cooperation from witnesses.

Whereas the shootings make headlines, many of the crimes in and across the metropolis’s resorts are nonviolent, mentioned Aaron Huguley, deputy chief of the Southfield Police Division.

“There are a selection of various kinds of crimes that happen within the resorts,” Huguley mentioned. “You’ve got giant, open complexes the place many automobiles are parked, so there are automotive thefts. Prostitution and home violence additionally discover their manner into resorts.”

Southfield’s deputy chief mentioned his division is making an attempt to be proactive in lowering crime within the metropolis’s resorts.

“As a result of we perceive that human trafficking and prostitution happen in short-term places, now we have assigned two detectives to the human trafficking job forces, one by way of Oakland County, which was established final yr, and on the federal degree now we have assigned one detective to the Southeast Michigan Trafficking and Exploitation Job Pressure,” Huguley mentioned.

The detectives scour courting websites and prepare “sham dates” with prostitutes, he mentioned.

“One other large a part of what we do is coaching resort employees and administration,” Huguley mentioned. “In early 2025, an investigator contacted all of the resorts to speak to them about what they need to acknowledge. These pimps test into the resorts, and then you definitely see lots of people coming out and in. We would like them to tell us in the event that they see that.”

Huguley mentioned he expects the police division will submit a draft ordinance to the Metropolis Council for approval that will require Southfield resorts to publish indicators of their lobbies with a quantity to a human trafficking hotline, “so that folks could have that data simply. We anticipate it to be permitted and carried out within the subsequent month or so.”

Come on

Earlier than Detroit hosted the 2024 NFL Draft, metropolis officers labored with native nonprofits and federal authorities to launch human trafficking consciousness campaigns, improve surveillance in high-risk areas and prepare resort and transportation staff.

Romulus Director of Group Security & Growth Kevin Krause mentioned metropolis officers labored with the NFL forward of the draft and are in touch with Nationwide Collegiate Athletic Affiliation officers forward of subsequent yr’s scheduled Males’s Ultimate 4 basketball event at Ford Area in Detroit.

“The NCAA has a contract with (the nonprofit Go to Detroit) that solely covers the resort rooms for the groups, coaches and other people related to the NCAA, however the guests, friends and followers will probably be pushed into our district,” Krause mentioned. “We’ll work with the NCAA as we did with the NFL earlier than the draft.”

McCraight mentioned he met with Protected Detroit officers to debate their mutual pursuits.

“We agreed that our resort district could possibly be an important instrument for Detroit and all of Southeast Michigan,” he mentioned. “However we needed to clear up a bit first. We began on the Rodeway.”

Romulus Police Chief Robert Pfannes mentioned there have been greater than 700 requires police providers on the Rodeway when the trouble started in 2022. That dropped to 155 by 2025, when the institution closed and the property was bought to Cooper Resorts, which metropolis officers mentioned plans to construct two resorts after the previous constructing is razed.

In accordance with police information, the issues weren’t restricted to the Rodeway. In 2022, when the cleansing initiative began, there have been 1,565 requires service on the metropolis’s 26 resorts. In 2025, there have been 624 requires assist, a drop of 59%, police statistics present.

“Many of the issues come from the older resorts that may’t compete with the Sheraton or Radisson,” McCraight mentioned. “These locations cannot cost $150 an evening for a room, in order that they cost $50 and take whoever they will get.

“That clearly brings issues, however we took a tricky stand and instructed the resorts that in the event that they did not clear up their companies, we might proceed to make use of the instruments of Metropolis Corridor to strain them till they did,” the mayor mentioned. “And the numbers present that it really works.”