LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – The Michigan State Police (MSP) just handed in their group project – and leadership flunked. Over the weekend, the Michigan State Police Troopers Association (MSPTA) dropped a bombshell memo revealing the results of a department-wide survey, and let’s just say MSP Director Colonel James Grady and Chief Deputy Director Lt. Colonel Aimee Brimacombe won’t be proudly displaying this report card on the fridge.

The numbers are brutal.

The survey, sent to all 1,544 active MSPTA troopers by MSPTA President Trooper Nate Johnson, came back with a 76.74% response rate – 1,185 troopers returned it. Of those, a whopping 98.48% (that’s 1,167 troopers) said they had no confidence in the leadership of Grady and Brimacombe. Only 18 troopers (1.52%) gave the pair a vote of confidence.

Confidence overboard.

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State Rep. Mike Mueller (R-Linden), a former law enforcement officer himself, didn’t mince words in response. Posting the survey results on X, Mueller declared: “Governor Whitmer needs to replace these two individuals immediately to restore MSP to the excellent department that it once was. We need to restore department integrity, morale, recruiting and retention.” He went on to say, “The MSP ship is sinking, proving everything I laid out in the House oversight committee to be true.”

Mueller has been sounding the alarm for months, and in May, he testified before the Oversight Committee about declining morale in the department under Grady and Brimacombe. He cited poor recruiting, lack of respect for troopers, and discussed several controversial actions involving MSP leadership.

What MSP has to say.

Mueller’s testimony came from information learned in another media reported survey done called the “Biennial Internal Control Evaluation Survey Results and Analysis.” It revealed a sharp decline in employee engagement from 2022 to 2024. It also documented that only 18% of staff believed that leadership cares about their well-being, down from 47% in the 2017 survey.

Survey comments were blunt, with Colonel Grady and Lt. Colonel Brimacombe singled out as ineffective. One employee wrote, “No one in the department respects them.”

The official response from MSP at the time? Shanon Banner, a spokeswoman for the MSP, said in a statement that Grady and his leadership team “are committed to maintaining the department’s proud tradition of service through excellence, integrity and courtesy.”

However, when nearly the entire department signals a lack of confidence in its top leadership, statements about excellence and integrity are unlikely to resonate. While Governor Whitmer has yet to respond publicly, the memo places the issue firmly on her desk. The message from the troopers is unmistakable: it’s time for a change at the top.