COMMUNITY REACTION: COPS CALLED CRIMINALS, TOO

Alleged Police Victims Say Abuse Was Severe

Michael Olah is an admitted longtime drug dealer. He used to sell cocaine
and heroin out of his mother's southwest Detroit home. He hid the drugs in
her flower pots filled with roses and gardenias.

He speaks frankly of his life as one filled with petty crime and run-ins
with police. But one particular encounter with two Detroit police officers
on Sept. 12, 2001, left him reeling. Olah, 43, said two officers, Matthew
Zani and Thomas Turkaly, entered his home in the 6000 block of Cecil,
pointed a gun at him and took over his house for nearly two hours. He sat
handcuffed and helpless as drug users came to his house looking to score.
The buyers were allegedly roughed up by the officers, robbed and then sent
on their way.

When the ordeal was over, Olah was out of $200, an undetermined amount of
drugs and any respect -- albeit not much -- he may have had for the police.

"I know I was out there doing wrong, but they're out here doing the same
thing I'm doing," Olah told the Free Press on Thursday. "It's pretty bad
when the police are criminals, too. They swore oaths to protect us."

Zani and Turkaly, of the department's narcotics special enforcement section,
were named in a federal indictment Thursday along with 15 other officers.
Prosecutors allege that the officers stole drugs, firearms and money from
drug dealers during a two-year reign of terror on the city's southwest side.

Olah said he delved into the drug world again in 2001 because his
73-year-old mother was hospitalized and the family needed money. "I was
trying to get money to pay the bills," he said.

When the officers came to his home, they were dressed in plainclothes and
asked for "Mike," he said. Olah said he told them Mike wasn't home, but they
forced their way into the house. They identified themselves as police, said
they knew he was dealing drugs out of the house and began a search, Olah
said.

"They looked like regular people. I thought they were gang members -- that's
why I didn't let them in," he said.

Olah said the officers answered his phone and door, encouraging drug buyers
to stop by. When they arrived -- about seven people -- the officers would
hit them and take their money, he said.

He said he was approached by FBI agents about four months ago who asked him
to cooperate and testify against the officers. He said he agreed.

"I knew there were dirty cops out there; I'm glad someone finally caught
them," Olah said.

Most of the accused cops worked in the 3rd and 4th precincts. Jose Trevino,
who called himself a reformed gangbanger, said many cops in the precincts
are from the area and know what they can get away with.

"The cops are crazy around here," Trevino, 25, said, while picking up
take-out from a restaurant on Vernor and Junction. "They'll pull you over
for no reason and mess with you."

The Rev. Joe Redican, president of Holy Redeemer Schools in southwest
Detroit, said the arrests are going to set the area back.

"It's not a happy day in this neighborhood," he said. "Any time there's a
scandal of this magnitude, it's going to hurt. But we'll recover."

Ron Scott, spokesman for the Coalition Against Police Brutality said the
indictments corroborate what members of the coalition have experienced.

"We think that these revelations are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of
housecleaning that needs to be done."