Hazel Park

Getting to know the new police chief

By Andy Kozlowski
C & G Staff Writer

HAZEL PARK — It’s an early February morning, and Martin Barner is settling into his new role as Hazel Park’s chief of police.

Barner was promoted to the department’s top rank when David Niedermeier, the last police chief, retired at the end of January. Now he’s getting ready to work with residents to keep Hazel Park safe, with a renewed focus on being accessible to the community.

Looking back, many experiences brought Barner, 50, to this point: college football, a business venture and even years as an undercover detective, scaring the bejesus out of criminals by catching them in the act.

As a young boy, he grew up in Lansing and attended Lansing Everett High School.

“I was a sophomore when Magic Johnson was a senior there,” Barner said. “We were both athletes. We knew about each other, but we never hung out. Now the guy’s a worldwide superstar!”

From there, Barner went to Northwood University in Midland, studying business administration and marketing, and playing college football all four years as a linebacker.

After graduation, he pursued several different careers, at one time owning his own direct mail advertising business for a few years. Then his partner and good college buddy decided to become a cop.

“We stayed in touch, talked a lot, and he started swinging me in the direction that this was a worthwhile venture, saying, ‘This is something you’d probably really like,’” Barner recalled. “He really played up the excitement aspect of it. We both enjoy helping people and working with people. It’s an honorable career — it’s something you can do for 25 years and be proud of what you’ve done and accomplished. He always just harped on that aspect: ‘You’re going to like this.’”

His partner’s enthusiasm convinced Barner to give the badge and blue uniform a try. He went to the Oakland Police Academy, graduating in the first class of 1993. He then applied to at least 25 different police departments, all over Metro Detroit and as far as Grand Rapids.

He got his break at the Hazel Park Police Department, starting as a patrolman in 1994. In 1996, he joined a newly formed, multi-jurisdictional unit, the Crime Suppression Task Force. The group involved Hazel Park, Ferndale, Madison Heights, Troy, Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, Michigan State Police, and eventually Royal Oak.

The group lasted about a decade before disbanding. Barner was with it for four years, and he counts those years among his most memorable. The task force operated as a surveillance unit that addressed criminal trends across the member cities. Targets would be developed, and then undercover detectives would track the individuals, waiting for the right moment to arrest them.

“We were only as good as the information we could gather or was supplied to us,” Barner said. “There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work going on with the detective bureau and information officers from the different cities supplying us with information, like geographical area being hit, time of day being hit — all these factors played into it.”

They were very successful, he said, even making arrests in non-member cities, such as Livonia and as far away as Cadillac. The unit received honors from the state, the FBI and other organizations.

A great deal of work went into every job well done.

“Surveillance in this unit was no different: hours and hours and hours, sometimes days and sometimes weeks, of pure boredom,” Barner said. “You can imagine watching a suspect who doesn’t do something for weeks, day after day after day. You know who their moms are, their sisters, their girlfriends. But all those hours of waiting are punctuated by an incredible adrenaline rush during or while they’re committing the crime, up until the point of taking them into custody.”

In time, he was promoted to sergeant and then detective sergeant. In 2005, he was promoted to lieutenant, and for the past eight months, he was the lieutenant in charge of road patrol and the detective bureau.

Last month, the Hazel Park City Council unanimously approved his appointment as chief.

“I think Marty is going to do a really good job,” said City Manager Ed Klobucher. “We’ve had many discussions about the future of this department, and it’s very important to him to improve the department’s level of communications and interactions with residents. I’m looking forward to working with him to achieve both ends.”

Barner said his main priority, right away, is putting a face on the department. He wants residents to be his allies in preventing and stopping crime.

“The community is always going to be your eyes and ears to crime,” Barner said. “If somebody sees a strange person hanging on the corner, standing around, looking around, and he’s not familiar and he doesn’t belong there, or if they know their neighbor’s an elderly person and there’s some younger individual knocking on their door, those kinds of things should pique people’s curiosity into calling the police.”

Barner encourages residents to attend the next Neighborhood Watch meeting in the media center of Hazel Park High, 23400 Hughes, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 21. He will be there to meet residents and talk about what they can do to help. Residents are also encouraged to call the department to arrange one-on-one appointments with the chief if they have any concerns.

Barner believes in the residents, and also has faith in his policemen and women.

“We have very high-caliber people,” Barner said. “Our officers are experienced, professional, hard-working individuals, and I wouldn’t trade them for anyone’s officers.”

He said he learned a lot from Niedermeier, the last chief.

“Where I developed a lot of respect for Dave was over these last six, seven months where we were facing serious shortages of manpower based on the mass retirement we experienced,” Barner said. “He and I really got to know each other well going through this process. The way he used the resources he had to accomplish what we did, it really was an amazing task when you put it all together.”

Going forward will be a team effort between his department and the residents.

“We’re all going to have to work together to get through these times,” Barner said.

You can reach C & G Staff Writer Andy Kozlowski at akozlowski@candgnews.com or at (586)498-1104.