Federal law enforcement assistance in high crime areas may be a tool to combat crime in Detroit, Triumph Church pastor Rev. Solomon Kinloch suggested during the debate between himself and polling favorite city council president Mary Sheffield.
Public safety and continuing to reduce the city’s homicide rate was a main point of contention between both candidates inside the WXYZ studios in Southfield on Wednesday at the only debate scheduled between them ahead of the Nov. 4 municipal election.
Detroit voters are set to elect new council members, a clerk and its first new mayor in 12 years. Mayor Mike Duggan announced last year he would leave the mayor’s office and the Democratic Party to run for Michigan governor as an independent.
With ramped up immigration enforcement being pushed by President Donald Trump’s administration across the country and National Guard troops patrolling several American cities in the name of public safety, both candidates expressed opposition to the tactic if it were deployed in Detroit.
However, Kinloch welcomed federal help on law enforcement in a way that Sheffield did not when asked about whether he would welcome added resources from the federal government to combat crime and enforce immigration.
“Not in a martial law fashion, but in collaboration, in order to make sure that we’re protecting soft spots throughout the city of Detroit — we have a problem,” Kinloch said.
Sheffield responded to the same question saying she’s unequivocally opposed to sending military into the city to address crime, arguing federal resources should address the root causes of crime.
“I do not believe that militarizing our neighborhoods is the solution,” Sheffield said. “What we must do is become a national model of how to drive crime down in Detroit. And as I mentioned earlier, it is about a coordinated strategy that is rooted in partnerships with our law enforcement agencies in our communities.”
Sheffield pointed to the “unfortunate memories” of the 1967 uprising in Detroit in which National Guard troops were deployed, causing added chaos in neighborhoods and deep seated resentment for decades.
Many pointed to that feeling among residents when the state decided not to deploy National Guard troops across Detroit vaccination clinics in 2021 during the pandemic.
“We do not want to go back,” Sheffield said.
Kinloch after the debate added context to his comments, saying that National Guard troops patrolling the streets of Detroit is never acceptable.
“Particularly when you understand the history of in our community, the community would never be palatable to that,” he said. “But when you start talking about working in collaboration and partnership, when you start talking about large venues, large gatherings particularly some of the violence we’ve seen in recent times, we can always partner with communities and law enforcement agencies to help assist in that but not to police and patrol our communities.”
People are looking for something different from politicians when talking about how to address violent crime that has plagued Detroit for years, Kinloch said.
But city leaders say the crime rate is going down.
“That’s why I’ve been able to cross over seven other individuals and get to the number two spot in order to participate in this because people are looking for something different,” Kinloch said. “They’ve heard this talk before.”
Kinloch on stage questioned the legitimacy of the city’s crime data, an accusation made against the city in recent weeks by Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers.
Republican activists like 180 Church pastor Lorenzo Sewell and Ramone Jackson pointed to the homicide rate per capita stat last year at a campaign event for Rogers’ U.S. House campaign. U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-SC, sat at a roundtable with Rogers, Sewell and Republican activists who questioned the legitimacy of the city’s crime stats.
Read more: City of Detroit Slams Rogers for Calling on Trump to Send Troops
“Rogers is proving himself just another uninformed, grandstanding politician,” a spokesperson for Duggan said in a statement in September. “In 2013, the City of Detroit had more than 750 carjackings. In 2025, we had 57 as of yesterday, a 90% reduction. Our strong partnership with US Attorney Jerome Gorgon has just added several more federal prosecutors to drive the violence down even further. The historic drop in Detroit crime in recent years has come from the efforts of serious law enforcement professionals, not from non-serious politicians like Rogers.”
When asked why Trump hasn’t sent troops to Detroit, Duggan has pointed to the partnership between the Detroit Police Department and federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI, DEA and ATF.
While Duggan credited US Attorney Gorgon’s appointment by President Trump in an interview with CNN earlier this year, he has long credited Detroit’s community violence intervention groups for the city’s crime reduction.
Those groups received $10 million in total since 2023 to act as interventionists, sort of like neighborhood social workers who directly addressing potential violence and crime before it occurs.
Sheffield said she would expand that work as mayor, and has pledged to open the city’s first ever office of gun violence prevention.
