- Mural painting of Malice Green by Detroit artist Bennie White Israel, at site of Green’s beating death at 23rd and W. Warren in 1992, at the hands of killer cops Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn.
Detroit Police Chief James Craig says that under new Mayor Duggan, EM Kevyn Orr, Gestapo-like police raids on poor Black neighborhoods will continue
DPD has asked for suspension of monitoring of excessive force and conditions of confinement provisions of U.S. Department of Justice consent decree overseeing Detroit police
- Soon to be Mayor Mike Duggan, in 2000 photo taken by Dale Rich for the Michigan Citizen.
VOD editor, Dec. 27, 2013: I came across my file copy of the March 26, 2000 issue of the Michigan Citizen while packing to move today. The article below, written by the late Jesse Long-Bey (Omowale Ankobia), should lay to rest any illusions those who voted for soon-to-be Mayor Mike Duggan have, in particular regarding his concern for the Black majority population of Detroit. An earlier VOD article, linked below this one, discussed Duggan’s other alliances with the corporate elite who are seeking to drive poor and Black Detroiters from their city, by any means they choose.
- Detroit police chief James Craig (l) with EM Kevyn Orr (r), who appointed him.
That includes the vicious, Gestapo-like raids that Detroit Police Chief James Craig has visited so far on the Colony Arms Apartments on East Jefferson, the Martin Luther King Apartments on East Lafayette, and the Grand River/14th St./Joy Rd. neighborhood on Detroit’s west side. The mass media has reported these raids directly from the mouths of the police, with no investigation of whether the arrests, conducted by hundreds of police from multiple agencies, were valid, or just a means of further ridding the city of its Black and poor population, particularly its youth.
There are few job opportunities for them, half the public schools have been closed, virtually no recreation centers are left, and now the State has taken over Detroit’s Belle Isle, the largest urban island park in the country. State troopers will see to it that Detroit youth are denied access to the island to “cruise,” while suburbanite youth continue the time-honored tradition down Gratiot and Woodward Avenues.
The Oreo-cookie trio of EM Kevyn Orr, Duggan, and Chief Craig, who hails from the Los Angeles Police Department, one of the most vicious in the country, bodes ill for us in the coming year.
Related VOD stories:
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/04/29/police-slaughtered-matthew-joseph-23-on-detroit-streets/
Related Detroit News articles on suspension of excessive force constraints on DPD, and multi-agency raids on Detroit’s poor neighborhoods:
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20131223/METRO01/312230068#ixzz2omAAAcIW
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20131217/METRO01/312170088
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20131115/METRO01/311150073
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20131203/METRO01/312030094
Families and supporters of police victims including Aiyana Jones, Davontae Sanford, Lamar Grable, many others march at Frank Murphy Hall against new police regime Oct. 21, 2013.
The Colony Arms Apartments residents are largely poor Black youth with their children. The building is Section 8 and represents one of the few affordable places they can stay. Police raided it in November.
- Multi-agency task force raided MLK Apartments earlier this month, also home to some of the city’s poorest residents.
“Operation Mistletoe” on west side Dec. 17, in same Grand River neighborhood where police earlier executed Matthew Joseph, 23, with 50 gunshot wounds after a brief chase April 2, 2013. Police claimed Joseph killed a drug dealer who was the son of a Detroit police officer. Another officer killed during the execution of Joseph was later found to have been the victim of “friendly fire.”
Hi Diane,
I’ve read some of your work, not all of it. Here’s my request. Please publish, in detail, exactly what you think should be done, how it will be accomplished, what the effects will be, both good and bad, and exactly what it will cost. I’ve observed that many authors are good at pointing out problems but they are not as adept at pointing out solutions. Thank you for caring.
Best Wishes, Mark Shuell.
The entire body of work on Voice of Detroit speaks in detail to the solutions that have been offered by those fighting for working and poor people, including canceling Detroit’s debt to the banks, a measure which millions across the world are demanding. READ.