Next Monday will be another frustrating fireworks night for Detroiters who don’t want to jam their way into the downtown crowds.
Like last year, nearly all of Detroit’s riverfront parks will be closed to the public during the city’s big annual fireworks show. For this year’s Ford Fireworks display, set for Monday, June 23, official viewing areas will again be limited to Hart Plaza, Spirit Plaza and Belle Isle, city officials said last week, and the Detroit Police Department will block Detroiters from entering any other riverfront park after 8 p.m.
Last year, after a groundswell of frustration rose to calls for change, officials began discussing ways to do it differently, while keeping spectators safe. I’d hoped a new strategy would materialize in time for this year’s show. But it’s not in the cards.
The good news is that high-ranking Detroit police officials, both before city council and in individual interviews, say they are, in fact, committed to opening at least one additional riverfront park for the 2026 fireworks, and perhaps more parks in future years.
Closing the parks on fireworks night seems counterintuitive, considering all the upgrades and accolades that public spaces along the Detroit River have gotten in recent years. (Rap star Kendrick Lamar was spotted running the Detroit RiverWalk just last week.)
But as much as I want to see Detroiters enjoying the show from wide-open spaces, right alongside the glow of the river, rather than gathering in vacant lots and along highway service drives for a glimpse of the highest-rising bursts, I understand why DPD wants to get it right.
Why riverfront parks are closed
During the fireworks in 2004, nine people were shot in Hart Plaza following an argument, according to Free Press archives. In 2011, a 16-year-old girl was shot in the leg as she and her friends walked near Atwater and Beaubien near the Renaissance Center. In 2013, a 37-year-old man was killed about a mile from Hart Plaza during the show. In 2017, a 46-year-old woman was shot just before the fireworks began, struck by a bullet during a dispute that didn’t involve her near the Spirit of Detroit statue.
In hot weather, tipsy, tightly packed crowds are susceptible to rapid escalation of minor disputes.
For years now, the city has created gun-free zones at major events that attract dense crowds, like the fireworks or last year’s NFL draft, using bike racks and other barricades to establish a single point of entry equipped with weapons detection.
Setting up, staffing and patrolling weapons-free zones in multiple locations for numerous, separate, concentrated crowds on the same night would be a huge undertaking, requiring vast resources, Assistant Police Chief Franklin Hayes said in an interview last week.
The riverfront parks should be accessible on fireworks night, said City Council President Mary Sheffield, who is running for mayor this year. But they also have to be safe.
“We’ve seen some very unfortunate situations in Detroit happen,” she said. “And I do think it can be a place where it can be safe if we have the right partners on board to ensure that happens.”
A slow path forward
Last year, residents fed up with being turned away from what should be prime viewing locations turned to social media to demand access to their own parks.
Sheffield and other council members echoed the calls for change, and council has had public discussions this month about potentially opening at least two more parks for fireworks night — Riverside Park in southwest Detroit and Erma Henderson Park on the east side ― challenging DPD to find a way.
Ultimately, police decided it just wasn’t feasible this year, and made it clear that expanding access in future years is a work in progress.
“To totally cordon that off for a single point of entry to ensure weapons screening, we would be looking at about 500 bike racks,” Hayes said, adding that efforts are underway to recruit help from businesses and community groups to provide barricades and other resources.
“Those are some operational challenges that we’re looking to overcome, so that we can open it up and enjoy the viewing experience for the residents, as well as visitors, but more so the residents. They live here, and we want them to enjoy everything that the city has to offer.”
At least 1 park in 2026
Hayes, Sheffield and Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison each invoked Angels’ Night, the city’s successful, long-term effort to end the widespread prevalence of arson that plagued Detroit for years on the night before Halloween, as offering a path forward for fireworks night.
A vast collection of community groups volunteered to patrol neighborhoods. The city enacted ordinances that temporarily banned the use of portable gas containers, and implemented an emergency curfew on Devil’s Night for unsupervised minors. (An emergency curfew is also in effect during fireworks night, barring unsupervised minors under 16 from the official viewing areas after 10 p.m.; it’s 11 p.m. for 16- and 17-year-olds.)
The Angels’ Night efforts, along with widespread demolition of abandoned homes that were often the targets of arson, eventually paid off in a big way. The fires stopped. Those volunteers are no longer called upon on. There is no longer a curfew on Oct. 30. And in 2018, the Angels’ Night name was officially retired. Now, the days leading up to Oct. 31 are called Halloween in the D, a citywide party complete with corporate sponsorships, spooky attractions and candy distributions at police stations, firehouses and recreation centers around the city.
“The same way we took Devil’s Night and changed it to Angels’ Night, something that was a safety concern and now it’s a big community gathering — we should do the same for the fireworks,” Sheffield said.
The city may call on its Community Violence Intervention groups, nonprofit groups that have successfully reduced gun violence in the neighborhoods where they operate, Sheffield said, and ask private-sector donors to help provide barricades and other resources.
But Hayes warned that even after another year of planning, the city may need to start small.
“There may be a smaller park in that footprint, Elliott Park, that does not need as many barricades. Perhaps we can open that up,” he said. “Chief Bettison already has us assessing what we can start with first. It may not be the larger ones, but we are committed to a strategy that we are already looking at what we can do for fireworks 2026. So that some, or one ― can’t promise all ― but at least one of those riverside parks will be open.”
Slow and steady frustrates Detroiters
Gradual progress can be exasperating, especially in the early stages.
Detroiters will watch next Monday’s fireworks from Hart Plaza and Belle Isle, and also from baseball fields and highway service drives that offer just enough of a clearing for a sliver of a view. Some will climb atop semitrailers in truck yards just outside Riverside Park, as they have in years past in pursuit of a view. And many will settle for watching the show on TV, missing out on the vibrations of the bursts and the energy of the crowds.
But Detroiters will make the best of it, as they always do ― and there’s good reason to believe, even with the skepticism that comes with watching snail’s-pace progress from the front-row seat of a journalist, that the folks in charge are actually making an effort to open the parks in the coming years.
It’s one more thing to look forward to in Detroit, where the future often looks bright, even when it feels like we may never reach the light at the end of the tunnel.
Khalil AlHajal is deputy editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press. Contact: kalhajal@freepress.com. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters, and we may publish it online and in print.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit police: ‘At least 1’ riverfront park to open for 2026 fireworks | Opinion
Reporting by Khalil AlHajal, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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