How did crime lab technician Mary Jarrett Jackson take down Detroit’s deadliest cop? Raymond Peterson, aka “Mr. STRESS,” was notorious for murdering Black men. So when he docked another kill in 1973, Jarrett’s intuition sparked.
Jackson worked on the case every day for six months. White officers sent death threats. Peterson himself showed up in her lab. Black officers, concerned for her safety, escorted her to work and checked her car for bombs. Then came the damning evidence: Hair on the knife Peterson planted on his most recent victim turned out to be fur from Peterson’s cat.
Peterson was fired. In 1974, Coleman Young, Detroit’s first Black mayor, abolished the Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets (STRESS) unit that Peterson had used to launch his reign of terror. In 1986, Young appointed Jackson the first woman to become the city’s deputy chief. But these institutional firsts aren’t the real victory.
“It was just a time that they could murder somebody and get away with it,” reflected Jackson in 2018. “How did it make streets safer?” Jackson’s questions about safety refuted the narrative that Blackness is inherently criminal. Redefining safety indicts systemic racism.
The moral of this story isn’t more “good” Black cops. To build an abolitionist future, let’s push further. Truth-seeking, scientific lab work, and community protection brought Peterson down. We don’t have to rely on policing for that. Why not apply our skills to community alternatives instead?