(WXYZ) — When he was chief in Dearborn, Ron Haddad hired Brian Smouthers as a police officer.
Today, he wishes he hadn’t.
“He should never work for another police department,” Haddad told 7 News Detroit.
After Haddad fired Smouthers in 2020, the longtime police chief thought he would never wear a badge again. But he was wrong.
“I don’t think there’s any justification for hiring people that put the citizens at risk,” Haddad said.
Smouthers’ problems in Dearborn began in 2019, when a young woman came to police headquarters to report a crime.
Her former boyfriend, she said, had posted video of the two of them having sex on a pornographic website. She shared a still image from the video with police.
Officer Brian Smouthers took the report but, according to an internal investigation, he was not assigned to investigate the crime.
Within about a week, the victim would report to police that Smouthers started to text her, engaging in “unwanted and lengthy” dialogue, according to an investigation by Dearborn police.
The woman would later share the texts with Dearborn officers. According to the department’s investigation, in a two-day span, Smouthers texted her 133 times and initiated every exchange.
According to the department investigation, the woman reached out to a friend via text: “How creepy is it that the police officer who took my police report and saw the screenshots of my video is texting me with a bunch of small talk today,” she wrote.
Smouthers’ attorney, Cristine Wasserman, said her client “does not recall there being 133 text messages and was never advised by the female that it was ‘creepy’ or he was ‘creepy’.”
Haddad said the officer’s behavior was troubling.
“Clearly, this victim was vulnerable, had a bad relationship,” Haddad said. “She was looking for help from the police and didn’t get it.”
After learning Smouthers had been texting the woman, Dearborn police began investigating him.
Officers discovered that Smouthers “accessed the victim’s personal information through LEIN”—the Law Enforcement Information Network— ten days after she reported her crime, according to an internal investigation.
Smouthers started driving by her house repeatedly while on duty, Dearborn’s investigation found, sometimes texting her while he parked around the corner of her house.
Smouthers' attorney said her client drove by the woman’s house “only a few times” in response to concerns about her safety.
According to the department's investigation, Smouthers was said to have shown the sexual image of the woman to another male officer. He did it, that officer told investigators, ”because the victim was an attractive young female.”
According to a department investigation, Smouthers told the officer where he could look to try to find the full video online, texting him to “check you porn too”, the name of another pornographic website.
Smouthers denies these allegations. Through his attorney, he said he ran the woman through LEIN “in the normal course of taking the police report.”
When police obtained a search warrant for Smouthers’ phone, they found that the text messages with the victim had been deleted.
Smouthers’ attorney told 7 News that “the text message thread was deleted, along with several other threads, as time had passed and he didn't believe they were needed.”
But what remained on his phone was the still image of the woman engaged in a sex act, according to the department’s investigation.
“Isn’t that enough to fire somebody?” asked Channel 7’s Ross Jones.
“Probably,” Haddad said.
But Dearborn didn’t fire Smouthers. After the Wayne County prosecutor’s office said there wasn’t enough evidence to bring charges against him, Chief Haddad suspended Smouthers for 10 days.
Only a few months later, he would run into trouble again.
This time, according to a Dearborn police investigation, a female employee told supervisors that “she felt like she was being stalked” by Smouthers. She reported that he would “constantly text her,” that he “followed her” to a bookstore in Allen Park and, she believed, the grocery store and gym.
She told investigators she felt “pressure” to talk to him.
When the two met up one day, according to a Dearborn police investigation, she said Smouthers “touched her breasts” and “inner thighs” over her clothes, even after she told him “no.”
Later on, she produced text messages where she told Smouthers to “stop,” telling him: “I don’t and didn’t want a relationship.” She said she later blocked his number.
Smouthers denied all of this through his attorney, maintaining the sexual contact was consensual and that it was he who tried to break off their communications. A personal protection order was granted against Smouthers, but later terminated.
A second warrant request for Smouthers was submitted to the Wayne County prosecutor, but was also declined after the victim chose not to prosecute and due to insufficient evidence.
While Smouthers was not charged, he was fired by Dearborn Police.
“Did you ever imagine that another police agency in Michigan—not that far from your own—would take a chance on this guy?” asked Channel 7’s Ross Jones.
“No,” Haddad said. “He should have never been hired another time.”
But down the road at the River Rouge Police Department, Public Safety Director Roberto Cruz hired Smouthers in 2022. Quickly, he ran into trouble there.
Gwendolyn Simmons lives in Detroit, not River Rouge. So she was surprised when she kept seeing a River Rouge police car sitting outside her home.
She complained to River Rouge police, who determined the man behind the wheel was Smouthers.
She said that while he was in his department vehicle, Smouthers would sit outside the home of her female neighbor, watching the house, sometimes getting out and looking through the neighbor’s windows.
“I was in the car, and he was peeking through her front windows,” Simmons said, adding that Simmons was seen sitting outside the house on multiple days, at different times of the day.
River Rouge police investigated and found that Smouthers drove by the house frequently while on duty. Simmons confronted Officer Smouthers who—according to an internal investigation—said the neighbor was a friend of his. The neighbor told police the same.
Simmons would accuse the officer of harassing her, shining his spotlight into her home and car after he confronted him.
A department investigation concluded that Smouthers was leaving River Rouge for Detroit without getting permission from supervisors and “engaging in unethical and harassing behavior.” He was terminated by River Rouge last year.
Director Roberto Cruz would not agree to an interview with 7 News Detroit about his decision to hire Smouthers. When reporter Ross Jones caught up with him at a recent city council meeting, Cruz walked away.
He said he could not comment on Smouthers’ case because of pending litigation.
Today, Smouthers is suing River Rouge Police, alleging that he was fired—in part— because of his race. Smouthers, who is white, says he was retaliated against for reporting wrongdoing by other officers within the department.
Smouthers also sued Dearborn back in 2022 after that department fired him, alleging that officials included an unsubstantiated allegation against him in his personnel records that were shared with other agencies who considered hiring him. The case settled out of court.
Smouthers is not currently employed by another police agency.
Contact 7 Investigator Ross Jones at ross.jones@wxyz.com at (248) 827-9466.
