‘Across Michigan, police departments have enlisted civilians to work alongside licensed officers to patrol communities and even assist real cops with arrests. But unlike the regular officers licensed by the state, these armed civilians are unregulated.
The Free Press found a convicted felon who could not legally carry a gun actually patrolled as an armed reserve police officer in Highland Park, the former leader of a hate group volunteered as a reserve with western Michigan police agencies, and a Flint reserve officer was convicted after running a vigilante force that once illegally detained teens, holding them at gunpoint’