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Gil Hill through the years
Former Detroit City Council president and Detroit police official Gil Hill has died today.
Hill passed away at 4:51 p.m. at Sinai Grace Hospital, said hospital spokeswoman Bree Glenn. He was 84. The cause of death was respiratory illness -- he had been battling respiratory issues for the last two years, and was admitted to Sinai Grace about two weeks ago, said a family spokesman, Chris Jackson.
He was known in political circles and by voters who would support him in his political life by his rhyming first and last names.
“Gil Hill … loved the city of Detroit,” said Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon, who knew Hill for more than four decades. “We have lost a true, true champion of the people."
To many people, in Detroit and around the world, Hill was known as Inspector Todd in the “Beverly Hills Cop” films. In those movies, he played the irascible boss of Eddie Murphy’s wise-cracking Axel Foley, a Detroit detective obliged to go to Beverly Hills to solve a murder or two. But in fact, he’d become nationally famous long before.
Hill’s life began November 6, 1931, in Birmingham, Ala. His mother, Mary Lee Hill, raised him and his sister, Toni Patricia Hill, on the pittance she earned as a domestic worker. Sometime in the 1940s, she moved the family to Washington, D.C., where Hill attended Cardozo High School and graduated in 1949.
His original ambition was to go to Howard University in Washington, D.C. But lack of money made it an impossible dream, he would later tell the Free Press. So in 1950, he joined the Air Force. During an unsuccessful run for mayor in 2001, Hill gave the Free Press an interview in which he fondly reminisced, “I still remember my serial number: AF13340004.”
Hill had been stationed at Selfridge National Guard Air Base and fell in love with Detroit. He would return to Detroit in 1953, following his discharge from the Air Force. He’d tried and failed at several jobs before joining the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department in 1957. Two years before then, he married Delores Hooks, who sang in a local church choir.
Hill remained with the sheriff’s department two years, before he grew tired of hanging up political posters and hawking fund-raising tickets for politicians, he said.
In 1959, he joined the Detroit Police Department.
'Super Cop'
Ten years later, in 1969, Hill was promoted to detective. The following year, he was assigned to the homicide division.
"I loved being a detective; there was just something about it," Hill said with a puzzled look during the 2001 interview. "I was good at it. At one time, I would have rated myself among any of the best homicide detectives in the world."
Hill earned the reputation of being the city's top detective, capable of charming confessions out of the most notorious killers. In 1980, Hill’s previous involvement in solving the Browning Gang Murders, which involved 15 victims, made him one of the “super cops” selected from around the country to go to Atlanta to help solve the Atlanta Child Murders.
The case brought Hill to national prominence. The murders of over two dozen black children, teenagers, and adults began in the summer of 1979 and continued into 1981. In 1982, Wayne Williams was convicted of the murders. By then, Hill had returned to Detroit, where he was promoted to inspector and took over the city’s homicide unit.
Napoleon, who spent more than a decade with Hill in the Detroit Police Department, said Hill’s real-life persona as an investigator was much quieter and more reserved than the character he played in the movies. But on the rare occasions Hill got angry, “he was very much like the person you saw in the movie,” Napoleon said with a laugh.
Lights, camera, action
In 1984, Hollywood brought Hill international fame when Hill got the role of the f-bomb-dropping Inspector Todd in “Beverly Hills Cop,” a role he came back for in two sequels.
But by 1985, Detroit had the dubious distinction of “Murder Capital of America,” and within a few years Hill would be reassigned to a small east-side office in the patrol division, where he was in charge of traffic, aviation, mounted police and the harbormaster section.
In 2001, unnamed police officers blamed Hill’s downswing on his poor relationship with supervisors and his letting his fame go to his head. Hill, however, blamed jealousy.
Hill retired in 1989, and was elected to the Detroit City Council.
The Rev. Nicholas Hood served with Hill on the city council from 1994-2001 and said he was the only councilman who joined him on a regular basis for prayers before council meetings.
“We would pray for a good day, but never about an issue,” he said. “He was a really decent person and quite respectful of the public.”
He was also respectful of his fellow city council members, Hood said.
“He was remarkably sensitive and kind to members who didn’t understand an issue or had discomfort with it,” Hood recalled Monday. “He exhibited a civility in government that we don’t often see now. I think it was partly because of his human nature, but he recognized that nine of us had to come back each week and vote again.”
Ken Cockrel Jr. also served a term with Hill on city council. He said one of Hill’s great strengths was his sense of humor.
“He had great timing and the obvious question is how is that relevant in politics,” he said. “In particularly heated meetings, some of those jokes really helped to cut through the tension and brought everybody back down to earth.
“But he also really loved the city and recognized what the citiy had the potential to be,” Cockrel said.
'Extraordinary man'
State Sen. Coleman Young Jr., said he knew Hill more by his reputation as “A giant man. He was the man, the myth, the legend and the legacy. I don’t think you’ll find a more extraordinary man.”
Young said he periodically called on Hill over the years and learned he had a warm and thoughtful side too. “He just came off as a really good man.”
In 1997, Hill became president of the city council. He drew praise from his fellow council members for building bridges and thoughtfully representing Detroiters.
"We don't have enough people today who take that skill of listening to the degree that" Hill does, said now-former Councilwoman Alberta Tinsley-Talabi in an interview during Hill’s mayoral run.
During his 2001 campaign for mayor, the Free Press asked Hill what he’d accomplished while on the council. Hill often referred to projects like his Automotive Jobs Task Force, aimed at providing vocational training for youths in the auto industry. He talked about his forums on the Plight of the African American Male, which led to a resource guide that churches and other community groups used to assist at-risk youth.
He touted his initiative that granted reduced bus fares for students and free bus rides for senior citizens and handicapped people. He also listed an After-School Task Force, a venture he worked on with Tinsley-Talabi in conjunction with Detroit Public Schools to provide a safe haven and activities for students from 3-8 p.m.
Cathy Nedd served as Hill's communications director during his run for mayor and said Monday he will be missed by all the people in the community who he helped not only in business matters, but the ones he helped gain a better life in the city.
“His legacy has not only been in the minds and hearts of Detroiters, but on the movie screen as well in ‘Beverly Hills Cop,’” she said. “He was just a really honest guy at all times and he wanted to be the mayor of Detroit so he could improve it even more and make Detroit a better place to live and work.”
Hill, of course, did not become mayor of Detroit, losing the race to Kwame Kilpatrick. But before the election, Hill spoke of what he’d like his epitaph to say if he should become mayor.
"Gil Hill was the people's mayor. He cared about people first, and it showed in the way he cleaned up the city, improved all our neighborhoods, gave our children a world-class public education system, and kept Detroit safe."
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan issued a statement Monday night touting Hills decades of service to the city.
"Gil Hill spent more than 40 years serving our city in the Detroit Police Department and as a member of the Detroit City Council. He never stopped believing in our city and dedicated his life to making our city a better place for all. Our condolences go out to his family," the statement read.
Funeral arrangements were not yet released on Monday night. Hill is survived by two sons, a daughter, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. His wife, Delores, passed away late last year, said the family spokesman, Chris Jackson.
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