21 MONTHS IN DETROIT: Controversy dogged chief

Jerry Oliver leaves town as he arrived: in a swirl of controversy.

Oliver came to Detroit in 2002 amid allegations -- which he denied -- that he had beat women repeatedly a decade earlier. He resigned Friday facing a possible criminal charge for owning an unlicensed gun.

Oliver's 21-month reign as chief left a remarkable impact on one of America's most-troubled police departments.

Before he was on the job six months, Oliver said he had already figured out what was wrong with the city.

"What's good enough in Detroit would be mediocre in any other place. . . . Normal is the problem here."

He moved quickly, reorganizing the command structure of the department. He suspended officers who were charged with misdemeanors and fired others charged with felonies, actions that clashed with long-held practices of previous chiefs.

People lined up early to support or criticize him.

His boss, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, repeatedly lauded him as a reformer. But many police officers campaigned for his firing.

From virtually the moment he took over, Oliver challenged police unions, stood his ground with the police commission, took on critics through the media and ushered in sweeping changes ordered by the U.S. Justice Department after decades of civil rights abuses.

He refused to promote officers with disciplinary records, saying, "I'd rather have fewer supervisors and continue to limp through this malaise than to hire people who are unacceptable and unqualified for these positions." A judge eventually ordered him to make the promotions.

In May, he fired his hand-picked chief of the internal affairs division, accusing him of covertly investigating salacious criminal allegations against the Kilpatrick administration to satisfy a personal agenda.

"I think he betrayed his department," Oliver said of fired Deputy Chief Gary Brown.

The widely respected Brown said he was fired for investigating the mayor's inner circle of friends and family. He later filed a lawsuit, which is pending.

Oliver was different from the beginning.

He was an experienced outsider who had served as chief of smaller departments in Richmond, Va., and Pasadena, Calif., before coming to Detroit. And that was part of his acceptance problem here.

Detroit chiefs historically rose from the ranks. Critics said that sort of inbreeding resulted in the violations that attracted the attention of the federal government, which launched an investigation in 2001.

Kilpatrick said one of Oliver's priorities would be to work with federal authorities to fix things. When an expensive consent decree was announced in June, it was learned that Justice Department officials told Detroit police officials during the investigation that they "have never seen problems as embedded and entrenched as in the DPD."

Indeed, Oliver had problems under his own watch.

One federal investigation resulted in the indictment of 18 officers accused of stealing drugs, firearms and money from suspected drug dealers over two years in southwest Detroit. That case is pending.

Oliver arrived in January 2002 dogged by domestic abuse allegations, with two women, one an ex-wife, accusing him of repeatedly beating them more than a decade ago when he was chief in Pasadena.

Oliver denied the charges, saying the women were trying to embarrass him for ending the relationships. He has been married five times.

He also has denied wrongdoing in the case involving the gun. Wayne County Prosecutor Michael Duggan is still considering charges in that case.

Oliver said his exit, at least in part, is due to the distractions he's had as chief.

Last February, he promised to hang on.

"Everything has been bigger and more difficult than I thought it was going to be," Oliver said. "But not one day have I gone home discouraged and said 'Oh, my God, I'm out of here.' "