Roman Stanley Gribbs was an American politician who served as the Mayor of Detroit from 1970 to 1974. Later, Gribbs served as a judge on the Michigan Court of Appeals. Gribbs was the last white mayor of the city, which was in the midst of becoming a majority-black city, until the election of Mike Duggan in 2013.
Life and career
Gribbs was born in Detroit on December 29, 1925. He was raised on a farm near Capac, Michigan. His parents were Polish immigrants who were basically farmers, though his father also worked on the Ford assembly line. After graduating from high school in 1944, Gribbs served in the Army until 1948. He graduated from the University of Detroit in 1952 with a degree in economics and accounting, and received a law degree from the same institution in 1954. He was an instructor at the university from 1955 through 1957, and became an assistant prosecutor in 1957, a position he held until 1964. He entered private practice in 1964, in the Detroit law firm of Shaheen, Gribbs, and Brickley, where he was partner with Joseph Shaheen of Grosse Pointe Park.. Gribbs ran for a seat as a Recorder's Court judge in 1966, but lost. In 1968, Gribbs was appointed sheriff of Wayne County, later winning a full four-year term. However, in 1969 he was elected mayor of Detroit, defeating opponent Richard H. Austin who later became Michigan Secretary of State. Rather than residing in the Manoogian Mansion, official residence of the mayor of Detroit, Gribbs maintained residence in Rosedale Park Historic District, a neighborhood in northwest Detroit. In 1969, Gribbs created the Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets, a secret and elite police unit. STRESS used a tactic called "decoy operation," where a police officer tried to entrap potential criminals in an undercover sting. From its inception, STRESS all but ignored white criminals, instead focusing their operations on black communities. STRESS increased confrontations between the black community and police. For example, during its first year of operation the Detroit Police Department had the "highest number of civilian killings per capita of any American police department." The unit was accused of conducting 500 raids without the use of search warrants and killing 20 people within 30 months. In 1973, Gribbs declined to seek re-election and was replaced by Coleman Young who was elected Detroit's first African-American mayor in November of that year. After leaving the mayor's office, Gribbs returned to private practice. Gribbs became a circuit court judge in 1975. He was elected to the Michigan Court of Appeals in 1982, upon which he served until his retirement in 2001. Gribbs retired to Northville in suburban Detroit, and conducted private practice in mediation and arbitration. He was the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Piast Institute, a research center devoted to Polish and Polish American affairs.
Personal life
Gribbs was married to Katherine Stratis from 1954 to 1982, and together they had four daughters and one son. In 1990, he married Leola Young Barr. Lee had two children by a previous marriage, Robert Brent Barr, deceased, and Dr Michelle Barr. Gribbs died on April 5, 2016 at his home in Northville, Michigan from cancer, aged 90.
