Editing Coleman Young (section)

=== First mayoral term: 1974–1978 ===
As mayor during his first term, Young promptly disbanded the STRESS unit, began efforts to integrate the police department and increased patrols in high crime neighborhoods utilizing a community policing approach.<ref name="detatl">{{cite magazine|date=January 14, 1974|title=New Men for Detroit and Atlanta|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,908364,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080906101942/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,908364,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=September 6, 2008|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|url-access=subscription|access-date=July 15, 2014}}</ref> Young's effect on integrating the Detroit Police Department was successful; the proportion of blacks rose to more than 50 percent in 1993 from less than 10 percent in 1974 and has remained at about that level. Both actions were credited with reducing the number of brutality complaints against the city's police to 825 in 1982 from 2,323 in 1975.<ref name="nytyoung" />

When asked in an interview about the high and low points of his first term, Young responded that avoiding the near riot he faced after the shooting of a black teenager was a high. He stated that "we found a police department, which had been guilty of excesses in the past, being professional and, even under provocation, not firing a single shot. We also found leaders, black and white who had the courage to get out there in front of angry citizens and help keep the peace".<ref name=":0" /> In contrast, his biggest challenge was the fact that Detroit had been in a depression for the two and a half years he had been in office. He stated that “most of [his] time has been spent putting out fires instead of going ahead with plans for the city”,<ref name=":0" /> something he hoped to address in his second term.