Former Detroit mayor Roman Gribbs has died

Roman Gribbs, who was mayor of Detroit from 1970 until 1974 and a state Appeals Court judge from 1982 to 2001, died Tuesday morning of complications of esophageal cancer, family members said.

Gribbs, a resident of Northville, was 90. He had been receiving hospice care in Livonia.

Mayor Mike Duggan said Gribbs "was the textbook definition of a dedicated public servant."

"Through a career that stretched nearly half a century, and in his roles as an assistant prosecutor, a respected judge, and as sheriff and mayor, he admirably served Detroit -- a city he loved dearly," Duggan said. "I am grateful for his service, and my heart goes out to his family."

As mayor, Gribbs struggled with the already ongoing exodus of residents and businesses to the suburbs, a pattern that had begun in earnest at least two decades earlier, according to “The Detroit Almanac,” a 300-year history of the city published by the Free Press in 2000. Those two trends ultimately led to devastating losses of people and revenue that forced the city into the nation’s largest municipal bankruptcy.

Gribbs was mayor at the launch of the controversial anti-crime unit called STRESS, an acronym for stop the robberies, enjoy safe streets, that became a rallying cry among African American Detroiters who said the undercover decoy units were too aggressive.

The STRESS unit began under the leadership of John Nichols, a longtime Detroit cop who Gribbs named police commissioner in 1970. Nichols’ hired hundreds of officers, including many African Americans. But his tough-on-crime approach included STRESS, which resulted in the deaths of 20 civilians — 17 of whom were black — and three police officers.

The controversy over STRESS likely played a role in the election of Gribbs’ successor. Gribbs’ absence from the race race — he declined to seek a second term, saying he was seeing too little of his family as mayor — set up an epic battle between Nichols and then-state Sen. Coleman Young. Young labeled Nichols’ policing “blackjack rule,” and Nichols later blamed a lack of black support for his narrow loss to Young.

Former Mayor Dennis Archer said Gribbs’ legacy is of public service.

“He cared a lot about our city,” Archer said. “He gave his best to serve the people of the city of Detroit and then he made a conscious decision to step down after one term” and went on to come a respected judge. “Public service was in his veins and he wore it well.”

Gribbs said in later interviews that he was sensitive to the changing demographics of the city, which was about 45% black when he was elected. He narrowly defeated Richard Austin to become mayor; Austin went on to be a long-serving Michigan Secretary of State.

Previous Mayor "Jerry Cavanagh left me with a $20-million deficit," Gribbs said in a 2013 interview with the Free Press. "I laid off 500 people that first year to help balance the budget. It was a tough time. But I balanced the budget each of the four years I was in office. I also left Coleman (Mayor Coleman Young who followed him) a $15-million surplus."

Until  Mike Duggan’s 2014 election as mayor, Gribbs was the last white mayor of Detroit, a city that became predominantly African American in the years after Gribbs’ time in office. Gribbs had been a Wayne County sheriff and an assistant prosecutor before he became Detroit’s first mayor of Polish descent (his last name at birth was Grzyb, and he changed it as a young adult).

Gribbs worked closely with Henry Ford II, the grandson of the Ford founder, and other city leaders in laying the foundation to build the Renaissance Center, construction on which began during his tenure.

After leaving office, Gribbs returned to private practice as an attorney but in 1975 was elected a circuit court judge and, in 1982, elected to the Michigan Court of Appeals. Before moving to Northville about 20 years ago, he had been a longtime resident of the North Rosedale Park area of Detroit, family members said.

Gribbs was born in Detroit in 1925. His parents were poor, Polish immigrants who moved to a farm in Michigan's Thumb when Gribbs was 3. His father commuted to his farm on weekends from his weekday job as a foundry worker at Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn.

Gribbs graduated as salutatorian from Capac High School in 1944, and served in the U.S. Army as a sergeant from 1946 to 1948 and then attended the University of Detroit.

He graduated magna cum laude with bachelor's degrees in economics and  accounting in 1952.

After a short stint in a law practice and some part-time teaching at U of D, Gribbs  took a job in the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office.

He worked cases every day for nine years. He accepted an appointment in 1966 as a traffic court referee, a municipal judge position. He learned about city ordinances and departments, which led to his appointment as county sheriff.

His wife, Katherine Stratis, died in 2011 at age 78.