09/09/2026
How Detroit's Police Chief Became Mary Sheffield's Thug
Bettison launched a secret investigation to tamp down Sheffield's growing scandals, and federal indictments are coming
By Charlie LeDuff
The mayor of Detroit, Mary Sheffield, ordered her chief of police to make it all go away.
The men. The photographs. The illegalities.
And her chief of police, Todd Bettison, obeyed.
But Bettison’s tactics were so obscene, so obviously unconstitutional, that it may be the chief, himself, who goes away.
Bettison had officers and command staff strong arm both the Mayor’s former lover and that former lover’s one-time protege. Bettison did this without informing his officers about the origins or political consequences of his commands.
Now Bettison has lost control of his department. Leaks are coming from all levels, inside and outside the Detroit Police Department. Michigan Enjoyer has obtained a timeline for the chief to help him keep his story straight. There are at least six public corruption investigations involving City Hall, at least two of those directly focused on Bettison. And the FBI has cut off communications with the police department over the scandal.
Bettison wants the public to believe that it was his personal code of honor that compelled him to step outside the boundaries of the law after risqué photographs of Sheffield and her former lover, Marvin Walker, made their way onto the internet in July.
And it was Walker’s former protege, Jahdante Smith, who posted many of them.
Department insiders say the order to silence the men came directly from City Hall.
Bettison made calls to Walker and Smith asking them to remove the materials from the internet. When they did not, Bettison turned the department on them.
That's when Walker came to me. He explained in great detail—and with voluminous documentary evidence—a web of corruption and kickbacks involving then-City Councilwoman Sheffield.
Since then, Bettison has turned up the heat. Walker and Smith are now the targets of intimidation, secret surveillance teams, and trumped-up felony charges.
Consider:
On July 17, Bettison, from his office, began a secret criminal investigation into both Walker and Smith, according to the timeline. The investigation was to be kept off the books and top secret, according to multiple sources across law enforcement agencies. The mission was to pin crimes on the two men so that arrests could be made and mouths would be quieted. Bettison wasn't investigating complaints, as he has stated publicly. He was shopping for them.
The Cyber Crimes Unit contacted Facebook asking that the photographs and videos of Sheffield and Walker be blocked on the grounds of "bullying." Facebook complied.
The dark-ops investigation only lasted six weeks. Little was found against the two men. Instead, investigators followed leads that brought them to Sheffield and a possible web of corruption stretching from the Police Commission to the city’s buildings, housing, and demolition departments. It appears to involve cash, cars, cannabis, pay-to-play contracts, and a sexual merry-go-round.
Afraid the investigation would be buried by Bettison, a whistleblower in the police department contacted the FBI.
Federal agents came unannounced to police headquarters on August 26 to retrieve the report, according to three sources who exchanged their candor for confidentiality. The internal timeline corroborates the exchange.
About an hour before federal agents descended on police headquarters to obtain the report, a special police tactical squad was waiting outside Smith’s home.
Bettison had authorized a probable-cause arrest of Smith on suspicion that Smith had used a cellphone to make threats against another social media gadfly.
The order was unusual considering it was just text message chatter between two high-strung Facebook activists with no actual violence having been committed. It was more unusual still, since the tactical squad is normally used to apprehend murderers, drug-runners, and cartel members.
The Smith takedown was called off just before noon, because we at the Enjoyer had just published our first article chronicling the sexploits of Sheffield and Walker.
Nevertheless, Bettison continues to shop to outside law enforcement agencies flimsy r**e charges against Walker and equally nonsensical threat charges against Smith.
“Nobody is interested in this fu***ng mess,” one official said. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know how Bettison survives this.” Again, the internal timeline corroborates the facts.
Bettison and Sheffield did not respond to requests for interviews.
For his part, Jahdante Smith continues to post, and Bettison has now referred him to the Attorney General’s Office for cyber crimes after Smith doxxed the Chief, posting his home address on social media.
Marvin Walker is mulling a lawsuit against Sheffield, Bettison, and the city for the treatment he’s endured. Walker further claims he was intimidated by city hall last week after our story chronicling the alleged scheme that Sheffield used to skim money from her political charity.
Enjoyer has also learned that the first federal indictments against Sheffield’s inner circle may drop as soon as January.
