A veteran of the Dearborn Police department will be the city’s next police chief, Mayor-elect Abdullah Hammoud said.
Starting Jan. 1, Cmdr. Issa Shahin, who has served with Dearborn Police since 1998, will be the first Muslim to lead Dearborn’s Police department. And he is believed to be the first Muslim police chief in the history of Michigan, said local community advocates.
His appointment comes at a time when the city is seeing demographic changes and calls for more diversity in city departments. Hammoud was the first Arab-American and first Muslim to be elected mayor of Dearborn.
Dearborn has one of the largest city police departments in Michigan, in part because of a city requirement approved by voters that it must have a certain minimum level of police officers. In addition to 110,000 residents, Dearborn, where the headquarters of Ford Motor Co. is located, has a daily influx of employees and shoppers that greatly increases the numbers of people in the city.
Hammoud, a state lawmaker who was elected to the mayor’s office last month, said in a statement announcing the appointment that “Shahin is the senior most executive commander with a strong track record and good rapport within the department.”
“He’s committed to building a trusting relationship with residents and delivering equitable policing in a way to best meet today’s demands in community policing,” Hammoud said.”I am confident he will deliver the transparency and accountability residents expect while positioning our police officers for success.”
According to his biography, Shahin graduated cum laude from Eastern Michigan University in 1997 with a degree in political science and a masters degree summa cum laude in homeland security and emergency management in 2016. He also attended an international studies program in Middle East and North African Studies at The American University in Cairo from 1995 to 1996 and the executive leadership program for police staff in 2016 at Eastern Michigan University.
2021-12-21