Deputy Mayor Ike McKinnon retires after decades of service to Detroiters

saiah “Ike” McKinnon has worn many hats during his professional career in law enforcement, none of which were easy to balance. When he arrived as a fresh recruit at the Detroit Police Department in 1965, he thought things were going to run smoothly.

“But that wasn’t the case,” McKinnon tells BLAC on the eve of his retirement from civic duty, a career that has taken him from DPD to city government as deputy mayor, a position he vacates this month.

As a young officer, McKinnon encountered several instances of racism from his colleagues, as he was among the first few Black officers in Detroit at the time.

“Officers were not treating everyone fairly,” he says. “As a young officer, starting from the very first day I was on the job, I had to learn to make sure that I didn’t yield to what they were doing. Their primary focus was to get me to quit, so there would be no minorities in the police department. That was a very difficult time for me.”

He recalls a situation where he had to confront his partner, who was White, for belittling and swearing at an elderly man on the street, which McKinnon says reminded him of his dad.

“At this point, I kind of lost it and said ‘Listen, you don’t talk to this man this way. You don’t call this man ‘boy.’ Understand that this is a human being,” McKinnon reflects.

Despite the prejudice he faced-and cold shoulder treatment from intolerant colleagues, McKinnon rose through the ranks and went on to lead as the city’s police chief for four years in the mid-1990s.

“You literally have the weight of the city on your shoulders,” McKinnon says of his position. “From the police officers who lost their lives, to their families, to major incidents that occurred during my tenure-and having to have an answer for that-and having to make sure that the streets were safe.”

When McKinnon left his position as police chief in 1998, he became a full-time professor at University of Detroit Mercy, where he’d been teaching on an adjunct basis since 1978.

“My first love, in all sincerity, is the world of academia. I enjoy the interaction with young people who challenge the mind,” McKinnon says.

In 2013, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan sought out McKinnon to join his transition team as deputy mayor. In his “retirement” McKinnon will return to teaching at University of Detroit Mercy, from which he has been on a leave of absence while serving the city.

“I enjoy what I’m doing, but it’s time to go back and teach and do some speaking and things like that,” McKinnon says.

He plans to remain active in the Detroit community, and keep his voice heard about the issues close to him like the future and education of the city’s youth.

“Detroit means life,” McKinnon says. “It means hope. It means rising from all the bad things that have occurred to rid ourselves of polarization and to make certain that we rise again from the problems that we’ve experienced over the years.”