On Thursday, Jan. 18, The Oakland Post sat down with Macomb County Prosecutor Peter J. Lucido to conduct an exclusive interview. Lucido is a proud Oakland University alumni, and he described his experience as a golden grizzly as “the best times of his life.” He also touched on the different aspects of his job as a prosecutor, his goals for the future and advice to current OU students.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The Oakland Post: For the readers who don’t know what the Prosecutor of Macomb County does, could you explain your job?
Lucido: “The prosecutor is a Minister of Justice. The prosecutor is the one that will go ahead and prosecute cases like child support and paternity. The prosecutor will also enforce the collection of the child support. In addition, the Prosecutor handles misdemeanors, felonies and appeals possibly all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. The prosecutor also sees that justice is done, which means providing fairness to both the accused and also the victims. The prosecutor is also the one that will institute the charges based on the investigation, as well as the evidence that’s brought in by the police department. The police may go out and monitor to see more. Prosecutors are the ones that collect and assess all of the evidence. We don’t do any investigation.”
The Oakland Post: Your job deals with a lot of serious issues, but can you talk about one of your favorite aspects of your job?
Lucido: “I get to meet people, not so much in the best situations and scenarios, and I help them to progress and get closure in their life from things that have happened. No one ever stood up and said they wanted to be a victim. So when I meet the victims for the first time, I have to be sympathetic to the fact that they didn’t want this to happen. They’re going through a difficult time, and also that we get them on the road to recovery the best we can.”
The Oakland Post: You graduated from Oakland University for your bachelor’s degree. Can you talk about your time here at Oakland?
Lucido: “It was the best experience as well as the most interesting time in my life. It was the first time I lived away from home. I lived in the dorms, I lived in Hamlin and then I went over to Van Wagner and I became an RA. I liked learning about people during the evening hours when you have time to talk after you get done studying — that was the most enjoyable. I got to see that people came from all across walks of life. I enjoyed meeting people and listening to where they saw their future and enjoyed building those relationships.”
The Oakland Post: Given your experience taking night classes to get an MBA and working through law school, do you have any advice to students working through part-time jobs or similar schedules?
Lucido: “Stay busy. Life is a lot to juggle, so if you learn it in your years going to college, the burden won’t be so bad when you get out of college when you’re going to juggle even more. So it’s nice to work, even if it’s part-time. Go ahead and learn time management because that’s one of the biggest skills to have in life. Give yourself a chance to do time management now because it will help you long term and in the long run.”
The Oakland Post: Although you oversee Macomb County, have you had any experiences in your job that has dealt with Oakland County?
Lucido: “The Tri-Counties of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb do have a common thread and that’s this: if crimes are committed in one county, they seem to go through and do other crimes in other counties. Somebody from Wayne may come to Macomb and commit a crime or somebody from Macomb may go to Oakland to commit a crime. We have cross jurisdictional engagements with one another as it relates to law enforcement officials. We work collaboratively with other law enforcement officials from outside the jurisdiction in Macomb.”
The Oakland Post: What projects have you been involved with recently?
Lucido: “I’ve started new units and created new methods of handling criminal justice. I’ve been around criminal justice literally all my life. That’s the only job I ever really had. When I look at college students, there’s violence and crimes of a nature of significance. Things like stabbings, shootings, bomb threats and destruction of property on campus. I am open to ideas if the students would like to tell me how to reduce violence in our classrooms and off campus. Let the student tell me what they want to tell the disruptive students. I would like to use a message that students can understand. I may be out of touch, but I’m not stupid. Enough is enough. It’s not wanted and it’s not going to be tolerated on our campus.”
The Oakland Post: What are your goals for 2024?
Lucido: “To help others as much as I can. I’d like to pass on to the students at Oakland University a philosophy that I hope they can believe in. If God gives you a full life, you should use the first 25 to 30 years to educate yourself in anything that you know will make you happy in life. The next 30 or 25 years, you should work as hard as possible. Make all the money you ever wanted to make. Then the last 25 or 30 years try to leave an imprint in this world that will make others enjoy this world. I’m already on the back nine, as they say. I’ve educated myself as you’ve known, and I’ve already worked as hard as I ever could. But I’m not done working yet because I think the things that I’m doing are making a real difference for the future.“
The Oakland Post: What advice would you give to students hoping to follow in your footsteps?
Lucido: “Be true to yourself. Don’t change your beliefs based on others. Be the one that stands up and asserts your position and why you firmly believe it. Just be true to yourself. I think it’s tough to be a student today, especially in a world that’s so controversial about everything. No matter what you want to say. Sometimes you stop before you say it, because of the repercussions. Don’t be that person. You have every right to speak the way you feel. And somebody else is supposed to respect what you may say. They may not agree with you but at least respect you and don’t fight with you.”
