School Board member Tawanna Simpson (r) helps post eviction notices at DPS EM Roy Roberts’ offices Nov. 12, 2012.
Rally at DPS HQ held Nov. 12
Lawsuit filed by Robert Davis
Protesters go to Lansing to stop EAA law
By Diane Bukowski
November 15, 2012
DETROIT – Detroiters took both direct and legal action this week to remove Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager Roy Roberts and the state’s other EM’s, in the wake of the defeat of Public Act 4.
On Nov. 12, community and religious leaders, teachers, parents and school board members came out in pouring rain to deliver notices of eviction to Roberts at his offices on the 14thfloor of the Fisher Building.
DPS Board Member David Murray outside Fisher Building Nov. 12, 2012.
“We are going to drive him away,” Detroit Board of Education member David Murray declared. “We want to put an end to the criminalization of our children. The people overwhelmingly said Nov. 6 that we do not want Public Act 4, but Roberts and others are determined to continue to oppress our people. They are trying to lock our children out of leadership roles for the future.”
Rev. David Bullock, chair of Michigan Rainbow PUSH, said, “It is a travesty of justice that despite the resounding repeal of Public Act 4, Mr. Roberts and emergency managers around the state remain in office. All emergency managers should be given notice by Gov. Rick Snyder to step down. If we have to march again on Snyder’s house, we will.”
Bullock said it is their position that Public Act 72, a limited version of PA 4 which does not grant administrative duties to “emergency financial managers,” is no longer on the books either. State Attorney General Bill Schuette earlier issued a non-binding opinion that it is in place.
“If the EM’s need help moving,” Bullock said, “we are ready, willing and able to bring moving trucks and deliver boxes and tape to pack their things. We have plenty of unemployed people in the state that we can pay to carry out this job.”
The school district’s offices were closed for half a day in observance of Veteran’s Day, but ralliers, who kept growing in numbers, marched up to the 14th floor of the building and posted eviction notices all over the walls and reception window gate.
They listened to community leaders including Elder Helen Moore, who called on them to attend a Jan. 29 congressional hearing in Washington, D.C. on the de-funding and disenfranchisement of majority-Black school districts across the country.
Last December, U.S. Representative John Conyers Jr. sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder asking him to open an investigation of federal Voting Rights Act violations by state officials enforcing PA 4. They have concentrated almost exclusively on the state’s majority-Black cities.
Holder never sent a response. Neither President Barack Obama nor other top leaders of the Democratic Party have ever weighed in on the validity of Public Act 4.
Detroit Board of Education President Lamar Lemmons, Elder Helen Moore, and Rev. David Bullock outside Fisher Building Nov. 12, 2012.
On the legal front, Board President Lamar Lemmons Jr. said the $500.5 million Proposal S bond funds are still under Roberts’ control after voters re-affirmed the proposal Nov. 6. He said the board would be suing to remove Roberts. Roberts continues to prevent the board from meeting on DPS premises, claiming he is still in charge of financial affairs under PA 72.
Confirmation of such a lawsuit was not available at press time. But meanwhile, Robert Davis, the Highland Park school board member who has filed numerous lawsuits related to Public Act 4, filed an emergency petition with the State Court of Appeals to remove Roberts and to find that PA 72 is no longer in effect with regard to other EM’s, according to published reports.
The State’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Young has already opined on that issue.
During a hearing July 25 on whether to put a referendum to repeal Public Act 4 on the ballot, Young read into the record MCL 8.4, which says, “Whenever a statute, or any part thereof shall be repealed by a subsequent statute, such statute, or any part thereof, so repealed, shall not be revived by the repeal of such subsequent repealing statute.”
Also pending is the continuation of a lawsuit filed by the school board’s attorney George Washington earlier against Roberts after PA 4 was certified for the ballot Aug. 8. The suit has been transferred to Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Annette Berry, from Judge John Murphy, according to attorney Hugh “Buck” Davis.
Murphy ruled that PA 72 was still in effect after the referendum to repeal Public Act 4 was certified for the November ballot Aug. 8. But he said that if PA 4 was repealed, he would entertain motions to allow the board to take back 15 Detroit Public Schools which were transferred into a state-run “Educational Achievement Authority” district for the five percent of the state’s “lowest-performing schools,” all in Detroit.
On the evening of Nov. 13, the school board again voted to restore the EAA schools, during a crowded meeting.
Many of those who rallied at the DPS headquarters Nov. 12 boarded a bus to Lansing Nov. 13 for a House Education Committee meeting on HB 6004, which would enshrine the EAA in state law.
Chris Griffiths, Monica Patrick and Sandra Hines celebrate defeat of Public Act 4, Prop. 1. All are members of Free Detroit–No Consent.
Detroit youth played major role; 82 percent of city voted NO on Prop 1
Snyder, Bing, et. al. connive to keep bank-imposed austerity measures
By Diane Bukowski
November 10, 2012
U.S. President Barack Obama carried Oakland and Macomb counites in Michigan, but they were among only eight counties that voted to keep PA 4.
DETROIT– After a strenuous grass roots battle, Michigan voters struck down Public Act 4, the notorious “local dictator law,” by a solid margin of 52 to 48 percent on Nov. 6. In Detroit, 82 percent of voters, including many youth, opposed the PA 4 referendum, known as Proposal 1, tipping the balance.
Only eight of 83 counties voted to keep the act. Wealthy and populous Oakland and Macomb counties, which border Detroit, the largest Black-majority city in the world outside of Africa, were among the eight counties voting for Public Act 4, according to state election results. President Barack Obama nonetheless carried those counties in the race for the nation’s highest office.
Cecily McClellan, another Free Detroit-No Consent leader, shows off her power to Detroit sweatshirt at mayoral campaign rally for Tom Barrow Nov. 2, 2012.
“We did it!” exulted Monica Lewis Patrick during an impromptu celebration Nov. 9 at a downtown restaurant. She said chaos at many election sites in the city, including hours-long waits and a virtual uprising at the Coleman A. Young Recreation Center, did not discourage voters.
At one site, a young man with his wheel-chair bound brother said they were among many voters directed to the wrong polling place by City Clerk Janice Winfrey’s office. At the initial site, they waited for two and a half hours, but persisted, going to the correct polling place afterwards to cast their ballots.
Video below, by Kenny Snodgrass, is a collage of rallies against PA 4 takeover of Detroit and other largely Black cities, with many youth.
“I saw young women with their babies waiting in line,” Patrick said. “When we were campaigning, we talked to many young people at clubs and other places, to educate them about PA 4. We found that many were already familiar with the issues.”
Patrick works with Free Detroit-No Consent, a small group founded April 4, after Detroit’s City Council voted 5-4 for a “Fiscal Stability [consent] Agreement” to stave off the appointment of an emergency manager under terms of PA 4. Under that agreement, a nine-member corporate-dominated Financial Advisory Board, two state-appointed city officials, and the state’s treasurer and governor have veto power over the city’s elected officials.
The Detroit Public Schools district is also suffering the effects of PA 4, under EM Roy Roberts. More than half of the district’s schools are closed, and many others have been turned over to a state-run “Educational Achievement Authority.”
Detroit Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon.
Significantly, Detroit voters also passed local Proposal C, which cements the power of the city’s Corporation Counsel to interpret and enforce the City Charter, by legal action if necessary. Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon earlier challenged the consent agreement in court but was shot down by Ingham County Circuit Court Judge William Collette, who said he did not believe that any city official could overrule the Mayor.
Since the passage of the PA 4 consent agreement, Detroit has unilaterally imposed lay-offs and wage and benefit cutbacks on its employees, while planning a pension system takeover. The city has shut down three key federally-funded departments. It plans to cut the workforce of the city’s mammoth Water and Sewerage Department by 81 percent, and lease the city’s world-renowned island park, Belle Isle, to the state for a total of 90 years including renewals.
Brandon Jessup, CEO of Michigan Forward, initiated the petition referendum campaign to repeal Public Act 4. Here he speaks at Feb. 28 rally celebrating state-wide collection of over 240,000 signatures.
“We realize that, like in the city of Detroit, you have roughly 35% of the people trying to manage 100% of the city’s costs,” Brandon Jessup, 31, the young Detroiter who birthed the PA 4 referendum petition drive, said in an earlier interview with the Urban Policy Institute.
“We have some corporate entities in the city of Detroit that don’t pay their taxes annually,” Jessup explained. “They use the city of Detroit as a tax write-off. That’s not fair when we look at our city lights being off, our city buses pretty much breaking down, and you leave that to what, 30 percent of the community, that’s facing more pay cuts from whomever they may work for? . . . Our problem is that we have too many hands idle in this state; we lost 867,000 jobs over a ten year period. So no matter what you do, the State can’t intervene, the State has to create jobs, they have to get people back to work.”
Gloria (Aneb) House, Steven Boyle, Monica Patrick and Valerie Glenn celebrating PA 4 defeat. They also belong to Free Detroit-No Consent.
Jessup founded Michigan Forward, working with a small crew and eventually with funds from the state’s largest public union, Michigan AFSCME Council 25, to gather over 240,000 petition signatures to put the referendum on the ballot. Attorneys from Council 25 and progressive law firms fought a drawn-out court battle which culminated with the state Supreme Court ruling Aug. 8 that the measure should go on the ballot.
The defeat of Public Act 4 is a Wall Street nightmare and may comprise part of what sent it into a tailspin after the elections Nov. 6. Most Wall Street pundits had said that stocks usually soar after a national election no matter which party wins the presidential race, but that did not happen.
Wall Street predatory lending to Detroit: Joe O’Keefe of Fitch Ratings and Steven Murphy of Standard and Poor’s tell Detroit’s City Council on Jan. 31, 2005 to approve a disastrous $1.5 billion pension obligation certificate bond, which Detroit has defaulted on twice. It added to the city’s mammoth debt burden.
Why?
PA 4 guaranteed payment of the massive debt to the banks owed by many municipalities and school districts in Michigan. It allowed state-appointed “emergency managers” or “consent agreement” administrators to unilaterally impose grueling austerity measures on the people to compensate.
These included seizing and selling public assets, dissolving or merging cities, townships and school districts, eliminating collective bargaining, closing vital public services without a hearing, and privatizing them without legislative oversight by bodies like Detroit’s City Council.
Protesters demand cancellation of Detroit’s debt to the banks during march in downtown Detroit May 9, 2012.
“It has always been a tenet of municipal credit that at some point paying debt service may come in conflict with, and be superseded by, a government’s obligation to provide essential services such as education, public health, and safety,” Wall Street bond rating agency Fitch Ratings said in an Aug. 20 report.
The report goes on to stress the necessity for state intervention in such cases, and says Public Act 4 was “perhaps the strongest program in the nation, as it allows a state-appointed emergency manager to ‘reject, modify, or terminate terms and conditions of an existing contract.’” By “contract,” Fitch referred to labor agreements. (Click on Fitch Ratings Local Govt Downgrades to Persist for full report.)
“Flint, Benton Harbor, Ecorse, Pontiac, and Detroit Public Schools have all had emergency managers appointed to administer their financial affairs,” Fitch said in a report issued Aug. 3 while the Michigan Supreme Court was deliberating the placement of PA 4 on the ballot. “Some were appointed under PA 4 while others were appointed under PA 72. As Detroit’s fiscal stability agreement has several features that rely on the existence of PA 4, most notably the ability to suspend collective bargaining, the repeal of PA4 could weaken or nullify the agreement. This may have an adverse effect on the city’s ability to continue the reforms already begun under the agreement and therefore stabilize and improve its credit quality.”
Benton Harbor rally against first emergency manager, Joe Harris. Rev. Edward Pinkney leads march; Rep. Pscholka initiated PA 4 law.
State Attorney General Bill Schuette issued an earlier, non-binding opinion that the repeal of Public Act 4 would result in the restoration of the earlier, less stringent “Emergency Financial Manager” Public Act 72.
State Treasurer Andy Dillon at raucous Detroit Financial Review Team meeting, where the crowd drowned out deliberations by corporate members.
Until recently the daily media has repeated Schuette’s opinion like a mantra. The Bond Buyer reported Oct. 12 that Snyder, State Treasurer Andy Dillon and Budget Director met with all three Wall Street ratings agencies in New York to argue for a restoration of Michigan’s AAA bond rating in anticipation of a $100 million state general obligation bond sale Nov. 8, two days after the election.
They stressed that even if PA 4 is repealed, PA 72 would be restored.
“That law lacks what is considered Public Act 4’s most powerful feature, the ability to unilaterally amend or terminate a labor contract. But it’s still workable, Dillon said,” the Bond Buyerreported. “The state lived with PA 72 from the late 80s until 2011, so it works. What is better about PA 4 is the ability to come in sooner and get out faster. It would just take us longer under PA 72. If you can’t negotiate the contracts, then you just have to wait them out. It’s slower and more painful, but it will happen.”
Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Young.
However, Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Young shot that argument out of the water during oral arguments on the PA 4 ballot question July 25.
Attorney John Pirich, who represented the AG’s office during the proceedings, argued that if PA 4 were repealed, its repeal of Public Act 72 would also be negated.
Young read into the record MCL 8.4, which says, “Whenever a statute, or any part thereof shall be repealed by a subsequent statute, such statute, or any part thereof, so repealed, shall not be revived by the repeal of such subsequent repealing statute.”
Young declared, “It’s still repealed, albeit by a law that might be suspended.”
Snyder, Dillon and Bing are now frantically scrambling to find a fix, including the introduction into the state legislature of a new version of Public Act 4. Meanwhile, lawsuits filed by the Flint City Council, the Sugar Law Center, and others are pending in various courts calling for a re-iteration of what the state’s Chief Supreme Court Justice has already declared:
THERE IS NO EMERGENCY MANAGER LAW, FINANCIAL OR OTHERWISE, ON THE BOOKS IN MICHIGAN.
Michigan’s people must be ready for a head-on assault by Wall Street on their right to control their own destinies, not face continued control by the banks and corporations which have devastated their lives.
“If it takes going to jail, that’s what we’re going to have to do,” one PA 4 opponent said Nov. 9 at the restaurant celebration.
VOD FILED HATCH ACT COMPLAINTS AGAINST BING, BROWN, D-D0T’S BILL NOJAY IN AUGUST, FED. OFFICE REPORTED PROBE ONGOING
By Diane Bukowski
November 10, 2012
DETROIT– Detroit’s Channel 7 news is reporting that Detroit Mayor Dave Bing’s Chief Operating Officer Chris Brown has resigned. VOD recently noted his absence from public meetings.
VOD is investigating to see if this is related to our filing of Hatch Act complaints against Mayor Dave Bing, Chris Brown, and former D-DOT Deputy Director Bill Nojay. Nojay left in August amid controversy over his running for office in New York State while overseeing federal funds at D-DOT.
VOD was recently informed by the U.S. Office of the Special Counsel that it continues to investigate those complaints.
The complaint against Brown cites his acknowlegment to the media that both he and Bing knew of Nojay’s run for the New York State Assembly at the time he entered the race, as follows from VOD story:
“Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and City of Detroit Chief Operating Officer Chris Brown were fully aware of Nojay’s situation, according to an article in the Detroit News Aug. 23.
“’The mayor’s office was aware of his radio show and was informed when he decided to run for office,” Chris Brown, the city’s chief operating officer, said in an email,’ wrote News reporter Christine McDonald.
“’Mr. Nojay conducted these activities during off-hours. … Mr. Nojay campaigned on weekends.This department directly affects the lives of Detroiters and the mayor is concerned about what happens in Detroit, not New York.’”
Thus, Nojay, Bing and Brown may all be complicit in violations of the Hatch Act. VOD is contacting the federal Office of Special Counsel for information on their ongoing investigation of Nojay and today filed a complaint of its own against all three individuals.”
A case of foot-in-mouth disease, Mr. Brown? Still going to file slander charges against VOD as you threatened, for calling Mike McGee a co-author of Public Act 4, which he himself admitted in print (another case of foot-in-mouth, we suppose)?
The many faces of Chris Brown, Detroit’s first “white mayor” since before Coleman A. Young, Jr, including (bottom l) Brown consorting with PA 4 co-author Mike McGee (center) and Project Management Director Kriss Andrews on union-busting “City Employment Terms” document before first Financial Advisory Board meeting in June. Now that PA 4 is gone, the Financial Stability Agreement, the FAB, Andrews and others should get swept into the dustbin of history as well.
The family of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, 7, killed by Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley and a police raid team May 16, 2010. (L to r) Aunt Krystal Sanders, grandmother Mertilla Jones, mother Dominika Stanley and the rest of Aiyana’s family including her father Charles Jones have received no justice yet, only constant attacks by police and prosecutor’s office.
FROM: The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement Thursday, November 8, 2012
Now that Barack Obama has been reelected President of the United States of America, it is imperative that the racial justice movement hold him and his administration accountable for the extrajudicial killing of Black and oppressed people throughout the country.
Pres. Barack Obama and family. Aiyana Jones had the same right to grow up in the loving embrace of her family as Obama’s daughters.
The Obama administration must assert its authority over the various law enforcement entities throughout the country and stop the discriminatory policies and programs that demean and endanger Black life like racial profiling, stop and frisk, the war on drugs, and mandatory minimum sentencing that facilitates mass incarceration.
In the first six months of 2012, one Black person every 36 hours was executed in the United States. Since January 1, 2012, police and a much smaller number of security guards and self-appointed vigilantes have murdered at least 140 Black women, men and children.
Aiyana Jones with baby brother before her murder by Detroit police.
This epidemic constitutes an egregious human rights crisis that the Federal Government has a fundamental obligation to address. As party to the Convention to Eliminate all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) the United States government has an obligation to protect the lives of racial minorities. The government is also obligated under various civil rights laws and executive orders to protect the lives of African Americans.
Our movements must step up our organizing and action over the course of the next several days, weeks, months and years to ensure that the Obama administration complies with our demands. We call on you to once again join us in raising the basic demands listed below by continuing to call, fax, and email the White House and the Department of Justice and tell them to act now!
Tommie Staples Jr., second from left, killed by Detroit cops Barron Townsend and Steven Kopp in 2007 for monitoring police stops of neighborhood youth. Townsend also killed Dennis Crawford in 2004. Although the families won substantial court settlements, none of the cops were charged and are still in the street. /Family photo
The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement urges you to demand that the White House and the Department of Justice take the following corrective measures to respect, protect, and fulfill the human rights of African Americans:
1. A Federal investigation into the civil and human rights violations taking place with the impunity of local police forces throughout the country.
2. A Federal review of the rules of engagement authorizing the use of deadly force being employed by police forces throughout the country.
3. The creation of a Federal database, in line with the 2008 CERD Committee recommendations, that documents cases of extrajudicial killings and acts of police brutality against racial minorities throughout the United States.
Jevon Royall, 30, Brandon Martell Moore, 16, and Artrell Dickerson, 18, killed by Detroit police in last five years, among many others. Dickerson was killed by cop Kata-Ante Taylor, who was part of the police team that raided Aiyana Jones’ home. Taylor ran her out of the house before her family could hold her in the last seconds of her life. See Artrell’s friend Kiana’s comments at end of story.
4. The issuing of Federal injunctions against those police departments where two or more extrajudicial killings of Black people have occurred over the past nine months.
5. The issuing of Federal consent decrees authorizing the creation of locally elected Police Control Boards in cities and/or counties that demonstrate patterns of systemic racial profiling, brutality, and extrajudicial killing.
Detroit cop Joseph Weekley, who killed 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones in 2010.
6. The creation of a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice to eliminate institutional racism and its expressions in racial profiling, police brutality, extrajudicial killing, mass incarceration and discrimination in housing, educational access, health care, employment, banking and credit markets.
Please call or email the White House and the Department of Justice at the addresses provided below and make your voice heard.
Please send this information to your friends, family, and associates and ask them to support this action and to spread this information and action request to their friends, families and associates.
To demonstrate your support for this action tweet us at @MXGMNational to let us know that you have called the White House and the Department of Justice. You can also let us know by sending us a message on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/MXGMnational?fref=ts.
For more information please visit us at www.mxgm.org. Forward!
Detroit cop Kata-Ante Taylor killed Artrell Dickerson, 18 and was part of the assault team that murdered Aiyana Jones.
Comment below is from Kiana, Artrell Dickerson’s friend, who saw cop Kata-Ante Taylor execute him next to the Cantrell Funeral Home after Artrell’s friend’s funeral:
I WAS THERE . I WAS NO MORE THAN 10 FEET AWAY. I SPENT ARTRELL’S LAST DAY, LAST HOUR, LAST MOMENT WITH HIM. I KNEW ARTRELL ALMOST HIS WHOLE LIFE. HE WAS SWEET, LOVING AND CARING. HE DID WHAT EVER HE COULD DO FOR ANYONE. I WATCHED MR. TAYLOR SHOOT HIM IN HIS BACK AND BECAUSE HE IS A COP HE GOT AWAY WITH MURDER. MY FRIEND NEVER GOT A CHANCE TO EVEN HAVE A CHILD. HIS LIFE WAS CUT DOWN BY A TRIGGER HAPPY COP. I JUST FOUND OUT HE WAS INVOLVED IN THE AIYANA JONES THING AND MR. TAYLOR IS STILL A COP WHILE AN 18 AND 7 YEAR OLD ARE GONE. I STILL CRY EVERY DAY FOR MY FRIEND I STILL HAVE NIGHTMARES ABOUT MY FRIEND AND ITS BEEN ALMOST 6 YEARS. IN SEPTEMBER HE WOULD HAVE BEEN 23. I WONDER IF MR. TAYLOR KNOWS HOW HIS ACTIONS HAVE AFFECTED OTHER PEOPLE.
A No Struggle, No Development Production! By KennySnod
Published October 25, 2012
[Angela Y. Davis] Though her activism and scholarship over many decades, Angela Davis has been deeply involved in movements for social justice around the world. Her work as university educator has always emphasized the importance of building communities of struggle for economic, racial, and gender justice.
In the 1970’s, Angela Davis was brought up trumped-up charges of kidnapping, conspiracy, and murder and placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List, leading to her imprisonment for eighteen months. Her case, which highlighted a racist criminal justice system, led to international condemnation and the “Free Angela” movement. Committees from around the world, including Detroit, worked for Angela’s freedom until 1972, when she was acquitted of all charges at her trial.
Angela Davis is the author of nine books and has lectured throughout the US and the world. She also one of the founding members of Critical Resistance, a national organization dedicated to the dismantling of the prison industrial complex.
In Struggle, Development and Unity
Kenny
Internal change bases External, Qualitative change bring Quantitative, Universal connection Opposites, Negation of Negation
Kenneth Snodgrass – Author of “From Victimization to Empowerment The Challenge Of African American Leadership The Need of Real Power”
Prof. Angela Davis speaks in Detroit October 24, 2012.
International freedom fighter, Communist focused on racism, prisons, undocumented workers, imperialist wars, women’s rights, Palestine
By Diane Bukowski
November 5, 2012
(VOD note: This story has been moved up to the eve of the elections because Prof. Davis called for mass struggle. See related articles on Jonathan Jackson and Green Party below this.)
Prof. Angela Davis (second from left) on stage with (l to r) Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, UAW VP Cindy Estrada, Metro Detroit AFL-CIO President Chris Michalakis and others, while choir performs at Fellowship Chapel.
DETROIT – Some speakers at the packed “Welcome to Detroit, Angela Davis” rally Oct. 24 at Fellowship Chapel used it mainly as a mass “get out the vote” rally for Democratic U.S. President Barack Obama.
But during her speech, Professor Angela Davis, world-renowned freedom fighter and Communist, stressed the need for mass struggle against the forces of capitalism, racism, and militarism that are destroying the U.S. as well as countries across the globe. While she did not underestimate the historic nature of the election of a Black president in the U.S, calling it “earth-shaking,” she put it in context.
Occupy Oakland converges on the Port of Oakland, shutting down docks and disrupting banks Nov 2, 2011.
“People forgot the limits of electoral politics,” Prof. Davis said, after describing the elation in the streets of her home city Oakland, California on Nov. 4, 2008. “We forgot that we were electing a President of the United States, the imperialist, militarist, racist, anti-union United States.”
Prof. Davis said she still believes Obama will be the most responsive of the two major party candidates to pressure from the people, noting that he is the first sitting President to endorse gay marriage. But she asked the audience to imagine how the last four years would have been if people had taken to the streets to bring change themselves.
Sitdown strikes paralyzed the U.S. in the wake of the historic plant sitdowns in Flint, Michigan, 1937.
“People were waiting for Obama to emerge as new FDR,” she said. “But was it really FDR who gave us on his own accord unemployment insurance and social security? No, it was the masses of the people in the street, struggles led by communists in the 1930’s, sit-down strikes, marches all over the country, unemployed councils, eviction defense committees. . . .We will never elect a president who will lead us to the promised land. We have to take it on ourselves. As the great Black poet June Jordan said, ‘We are the ones we have been waiting for.’”
Article on Prisoners’ Labor Union of Jackson, Michigan.
She paid tribute to the Occupy Movement of 2011, saying, “If Occupy did nothing elese, it created an opportunity for us to talk openly and critically about capitalism. She then laid out a people’s agenda for the coming period including as major points:
An end to all union-bustingand expansion of unionization. Prof Davis called the U.S. a “prison nation,” housing 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated people while representing only five percent of the world’s population. She called on the labor movement to organize prisoners, noting that a demand of the Attica Rebellion was a prisoners’ labor union. She recalled that prisoners in California formed such unions afterwards, demanding minimum wage and vacation pay. [Here in Michigan, prisoners at Jackson also formed the Michigan Prisoners Labor Union, which this author fought to support along with the Prisoners Solidarity Committee.]
Rally against ICE raids on undocumented workers, students and families in Clark Park, Detroit Oct. 20, 2012.
Support for undocumented workers.“It was undocumented workers who established the May 1 holiday,” Prof Davis said. “They taught us that our struggles always have to be anti-racist, anti-xenophobic, and not anti-communist. No human being is illegal. We want a world free of racism, poverty, homophobia, transphobia, a world that respects our environment. . . .Undocumented youth represent one of most important struggles for democracy today. Education not deportation! Education not incarceration!”
U.S. warship
An end to U.S. imperialist military incursions. Prof. Davis noted that during the Obama administration, the U.S. moved from its occupation of Iraq to the occupation of Afghanistan, and has promoted “the most deadly form of Islamophobia.” She did not however, mention simultaneous U.S. military incursions into Africa and the rest of the Middle East in the wake of the bloody U.S.-NATO occupation and destruction of the African nation of Libya.
Support for women’s reproductive rights. Prof. Davis noted that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has sworn to appoint Supreme Court Justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. She added, however, “Roe v. Wade did not necessarily guarantee poor, Black, Latino women the right to an abortion if they so choose, because it was based on the right to privacy between women and doctors. What about all the women who don’t have doctors?”
An end to the occupation of Palestine. “Since 1948, Israel has confiscated the land, natural resources and future of Palestinians. . . . this was not so much genocide, but rather conscious strategies causing the population to flee, de-territorialization, creating a land without people for a people without a land. Does that sound familiar?” At that point, people in the audience cried out “DETROIT, DETROIT.” Davis also drew the comparison to the forced movement of the indigenous people of the U.S., Native Americans, off their land.
Support for the struggle of Black people in the U.S.including recognition of the role played internationally in that support. “Suppose there had not been international support for Black American struggles from Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where do you think we would be today?” Prof. Davis asked. “Many of the cases from the civil rights movement were publicized initially in the foreign press.”
Assata Shakur in Cuba after liberation from U.S. prison. Photo: Kenny Snodgrass
Prof. Davis has been in Detroit many times, the last in 1994. But her 1972 appearance at the State Fairgrounds in Detroit, during a rally packed with 10,000 supporters, gives context to her appearance this year.
The photo at beginning of Kenny Snodgrass’ video above is from that rally, which celebrated Prof. Davis’ acquittal of capital charges related to the heroic courthouse rebellion by Jonathan Jackson and other prisoners in 1970, in support of Black Panther Party Field Marshal George Jackson and the Soledad Brothers.
It took place at a time when revolutionary spirit in the U.S. and abroad was at its height. That spirit must be renewed, particularly among the youth. Black youth in particular have been demonized, criminalized and incarcerated by the powers that be, but this must stop. Jonathan Jackson, 17, George Jackson, 20 when he was sent to prison, and Angela Davis, 26 at the time of her arrest, along with the Black Panther Party to which George Jackson belonged, showed the way for today’s youth.
Jonathan Jackson, 17, with William Christmas, James McClain and Ruchell Magee take judge, prosecutor, three jurors as hostages to waiting van Aug. 7, 1970. San Quentin guards and court cops started firing. Jonathan Jackson, McClain and Christmas were killed, along with Judge Haley. Magee and Assistant District Attorney Thomas were wounded.
By Stephen Millies
Published Aug 8, 2010
(Thanks to San Francisco Bay View newspaper for preserving most of photos included with this article.)
Jonathan Jackson was only 17 years old when he gave his life for oppressed people on Aug. 7, 1970, when he went to the San Rafael, Calif., courthouse to free his older brother George Jackson, along with Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette — the “Soledad Brothers.”
These three revolutionary inmates were charged with killing Soledad prison guard John Mills. Just before Mills was thrown over a third floor railing, a grand jury exonerated fellow officer O.G. Miller for shooting to death Black inmates Cleveland Edwards, Alvin Miller and W.L. Nolen on Jan. 13, 1970. African-American witnesses weren’t allowed to testify at the whitewash hearing.
Soledad Brothers George Jackson in the middle wearing glasses, between John Clutchette (left) and Fleeta Drumgo. Jonathan had intended to free his brother, but George was not in the courtroom the day he stormed it. George Jackson, field marshal of the Black Panther Party, was assassinated by prison guards on Aug. 21, 1971.
While no evidence linked the Soledad Brothers to the killing of Mills, California Governor and future U.S. President Ronald Reagan wanted to kill them in the state’s gas chamber because they were revolutionaries.
George Jackson was internationally known for “Soledad Brother,” a book-length collection of his letters from prison. “I met Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels and Mao when I entered prison and they redeemed me,” he wrote.
A field marshal of the Black Panther Party, George Jackson had already spent a decade behind bars for a $70 robbery. As an 18-year-old he was given a one-year-to-life sentence for being a passenger in a car whose driver allegedly robbed a gas station.
George Jackson with little brother Jonathan the last time he was home.
Jonathan Jackson went to Judge Harold Haley’s courtroom armed with guns. San Quentin prisoner James McClain was there, defending himself against frame-up charges of assaulting a guard following the beating to death of Black inmate Fred Billingsley by prison officials. Fellow inmates Ruchell Cinque Magee and William Christmas were also in the courtroom as witnesses for McClain.
Like the enslaved Africans who joined John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, these three San Quentin prisoners immediately joined Jonathan Jackson’s freedom fight. Judge Haley, assistant prosecutor Gary Thomas and three jurors were made their prisoners.
“We are revolutionaries,” they proclaimed. “We want the Soledad Brothers free by 12:30.”
According to Black Panther Party veteran Kiilu Nyasha, “The plan was to use the hostages to take over a radio station and broadcast the racist, murderous prison conditions and demand the immediate release of the Soledad Brothers.” (San Francisco Bay View, Aug. 3, 2009)
California Superior Court Judge Harold Haley with shotgun taped around his neck during Jonathan Jackson’s Marin Co. Courthhouse rebellion. Photo by Jim Kean, Marin Independent Journal.
But the capitalist class would rather have one of their judges killed than let Black prisoners go free. As Jonathan Jackson drove away in a van, San Quentin guards and court cops started firing. Jonathan Jackson, McClain and Christmas were killed, along with Judge Haley. Magee and Assistant District Attorney Thomas were wounded.
“Free Angela! Free Ruchell!”
The courageous action of these four Black heroes at the San Rafael courthouse shook the capitalist state from the White House to the local police precinct.“Psychologically the slave masters have been terrified by the boldness and innovative tactical conception,” wrote Fred Goldstein in Workers World. “No court is safe anymore.” (Aug. 20, 1970)
Angela Davis and Jonathan Jackson march to free George Jackson and the Soledad Brothers in 1970.
Scapegoats had to be found. Magee and Angela Davis, who had chaired the Soledad Brothers Defense Committee, were put on trial. Jonathan Jackson had been a bodyguard for Davis and three of the guns used at the San Rafael jailbreak were registered under her name. That was enough for Gov. Reagan to try to send Davis to the gas chamber as a “conspirator” responsible for Haley’s death. In 1969 Reagan had gotten trustees at the University of California, Los Angeles, to fire the radical philosophy professor for being a member of the Communist Party.
For two months Davis eluded the FBI, which put the Black communist on its“10 most wanted” list. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover listed her as being “armed and dangerous” — an official invitation to shoot her on sight. President Nixon congratulated Hoover for the capture of Davis and labeled the Black woman “a terrorist.”
From her prison cell Davis declared, “Long live the spirit of Jonathan Jackson!”
The Black community mobilized coast to coast to defend their sister. More than 200 “Free Angela Davis” defense committees were formed [initiated largely by the Communist Party). Members of every Workers World Party branch joined and supported these committees.
Ruchell Cinque Magee
People rallied in Cuba, the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) as well. On June 4, 1972, a jury acquitted Angela Davis of all charges.
Tried separately from Davis, Magee had adopted the name “Cinque”after the African leader of the 1839 slave revolt on the ship Amistad. The original Cinque was freed by a Connecticut court. Ruchell Cinque Magee, who also was part of a slave revolt, was convicted of kidnapping after murder charges were dismissed.
Judge Morton Colvin refused to adjourn the trial for a single day when Magee’s mother died. Yet Colvin recessed the hearing for two days following former President Truman’s death. At one point this bigot-in-robes kicked all 40 Black spectators out of the courtroom. (Jet, March 1, 1973)
An appeals court forced Colvin to allow former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who later founded the International Action Center, to help defend Cinque. Jury foreman Bernard J. Suares stated in a 2001 affidavit that the jury actually voted to acquit Cinque of kidnapping for the purpose of extortion.
Ruchell Cinque Magee remains imprisoned today. Jailed for 47 years, he is the longest held political prisoner in the U.S. and possibly the world. As an accomplished jailhouse lawyer, Cinque has freed dozens of fellow inmates.
You can write to this heroic freedom fighter at Corcoran State Prison. The address is Ruchell Magee # A92051, 3A2-131 Box 3471, C.S.P. Corcoran, CA 93212
The Attica Rebellion in D-Yard, shown here, September, 1971, sparked uprisings in other prisons across the U.S. and gave birth to a new generation of struggle.
Black August
One year after his younger brother sacrificed his life, George Jackson was assassinated by prison guards on Aug. 21, 1971. George Jackson’s murder sparked the Attica prison rebellion in which 29 prisoners were slaughtered by billionaire New York Gov., Nelson Rockefeller.
On March 27, 1972, the two remaining Soledad Brothers — Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette — were acquitted by a San Francisco jury.
“Courage in one hand, the machine gun in the other,” was how George Jackson described his 17-year-old brother Jonathan.
Sources: “If They Come in The Morning” by Angela Davis and other political prisoners; “The morning breaks; the trial of Angela Davis” by Bettina Aptheker.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
US Major General David Hogg inspects Ugandan troops/ Photo Ryan Sutherland. During the Obama administration, the U.S. has put boots on the ground throughout Africa, in the wake of the U.S./NATO led destruction of Libya and execution of Col. Muammar Gadhafi.
Asst. Editor- | Last updated: Oct 25, 2012 – 10:31:36 AM
Green Party candidate Jill Stein wants to be president
Dr. Stein is highly critical of President Obama’s expansion of drone wars in Yemen and Somalia, as well as sending armed troops into parts of Africa, which she believes was hastened once it was discovered that there was oil in Central Africa.
Green Party Presidential Candidate, Dr. Jill Stein (Right) and her vice-presidential running mate Cheri Honkala (Left) accept their nominations at the 2012 Green Party Convention in Baltimore, MD. Photo: Barbara G. Green
(FinalCall.com) – A recently released report from the Center for the Study of the American Electorate found this year’s estimated national primary turnout has reached a new record low.
According to the Virginia-based non-profit, non-partisan research institute, between 95 and 100 million eligible voters may sit out of this year’s election.
Though many disenchanted voters are unhappy with the binary presidential options presented by America’s two-party dominated political system, many either select what they consider to the lesser of two evils, while some opt-out of voting altogether.
Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein articulates a view shared by an increasing number in the U.S. who have grown tired of corporate controlled political parties and their strong-armed dominance within a structure that only seems to benefit the wealthy.
She hopes to mobilize those nearly 100 million American citizens. Even if she were only able to mobilize a portion of those disaffected voters, the electoral landscape would be altered remarkably.
To put that goal and number in perspective, President Barack Obama won the 2008 election receiving over 69 million votes. His vanquished Republican opponent John McCain received just under 60 million.
When asked, she is very clear about why she is running for president and quickly runs down a long list of issues she considers important for the future of the country.
“I think we are in crisis,” said Dr. Stein. “People are losing their jobs, their homes, wages are going down, affordable health care and higher education are being placed out of reach. Our civil liberties are under attack, there is a racist war on drugs and racism is alive and well in America,” she added.
Dr. Stein says the wealthy few are doing better than ever, benefitting from crony capitalism, squandering trillions of dollars on foreign wars. There have been bailouts for Wall Street and tax breaks for the wealthy, while austerity measures are being thrust upon everyone else.
“I think the people of America and ordinary people all over the world in fact are at the breaking point and we need to take it and turn it into a tipping point,” she said.
A viable option?
The Green Party of the United States describes itself as “a federation of state Green Parties committed to environmentalism, non-violence, social justice, and grassroots organizing.”
Cynthia McKinney, formerly Green Party presidential candidate and six-term U.S. Congresswoman, speaks against the U.S.-NATO occupation of Libya on Aug. 27, 2011 in Detroit.
In 2008, former member of Congress Cynthia McKinney was the GP’s presidential candidate and tapped activist Rosa Clemente as her vice-presidential running mate. They garnered 161,680 votes in the election and were on the ballot in 32 states.
On November 6, voters will find Dr. Stein on the ballot as an available choice in at least 85 percent of the voting booths around the country, including the prized states of California, Texas, Illinois, New York, Florida and Ohio.
“We have benefitted from the hard work that Cynthia and Rosa did together. They were fighting this battle at a very difficult time and they were ahead of the curve,” said Dr. Stein. “A lot of people are waking up to the reality that a corporate sponsored candidate and a corporate sponsored political party isn’t going to solve this for us, so we have benefitted from the trailblazing that Cynthia and Rosa did,” she added. Continue reading →
Cecily McClellan (l) and others from “Free Detroit–No Consent” protest Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s appearance in downtown Detroit Nov. 1, 2012. A new poll published by the Detroit Free Press shows that PA 4 may be going down to defeat. VOTE NO ON PROP 1!
OPEN LETTER FROM RUSS BELLANT TO AG BILL SCHUETTE:
Russ Bellant
November 1, 2012
Attorney General Bill Schuette –
This is an open letter that I am sharing with about 1,000 Michiganders that is prompted by your reverence for the Michigan Constitution as displayed in your TV ads opposing Proposal 2, which would add collective bargaining rights to the Constitution for more employees than the state troopers that already have such rights in our Constitution.
In order to further your cause of protecting the Constitution, may I suggest two other special interests that are already abusing the Constitution that require your immediate attention:
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette
1) In Article I, Section 10 of our Constitution, it says that “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law or law impairing the obligation of contract shall be enacted.” Yet our reckless Legislature passed and our Governor signed a bill, Public Act 4 of 2011, that enables appointees to impair contracts that would give our 1963 Constitutional Convention chairman, George Romney, heartburn. Not only was this law passed, but it is being widely implemented and contracts are being impaired across Michigan.
Do you think that you could help rectify this deplorable situation by calling for a repeal of PA 4 by issuing a press release calling for a NO vote on Proposal 1?
Michigan Supreme Court Justice Robert Young declared that PA 72 cannot be revived if PA 4 is defeated.
I know that you directed staff to argue in the Supreme Court that Prop 1 should be kept off the ballot so that voters could not decide this issue, but we all make mistakes.
Speaking of mistakes, did your Assistant AG tell you that in the July 25 Supreme Court proceeding that Chief Justice Robert Young insisted that PA 72 could not be revived with the mere suspension of PA 4, but then your staff argued in a Wayne County court that it could be revived? Did you know that your staff used a nonexistent citation to make their argument? Seems like someone in a position of responsibility should lose their job in all this mess, doesn’t it?
Perhaps the group sponsoring your ads to protect the Constitution (the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which is not a special interest?) could pay for some NO on 1 ads with you as the centerpiece, but keep the stone-faced Ionia Sheriff in your Prop 2 ads out of this one – he reminds too many voters of the cop who gave them a ticket for 5 over. The YES on 2 Sheriff has you beat on this one.
Some of the 10,000 people who turned out to protest Public Act 4 in Lansing on April 13, 2011.
2) If you read Article VIII, Section 3 of our violated Constitution says that “Leadership and general supervision over all public education, including adult education and instructional programs in state institutions, except as to institutions of higher education granting baccalaureate degrees, is vested in a state board of education. It shall serve as the general planning and coordinating body for all public education, including higher education and shall advise the legislature as to the financial requirements in connection therewith.”
Now that seems straight forward enough. But again, our Governor, whose office is not even accorded a role in education, has set up a “state school district” and appointed a board to start running that “district” and receive taxpayer funds. Further, he has used his powers of the unconstitutional PA 4 (see above) to take schools from a local school district and claim them for his own “district.”
Did you know that some of those school buildings are being paid for until 2033 by taxpayers who thought that they were voting to approve bonds to build schools for their own local district before the Governor swooped in and just took them? Is that a form of voter fraud that you could investigate? Its almost like a compounded unconstitutional crime wave, wouldn’t you say?
Mr. Attorney General, there are a lot of concerned citizens that wish to arrest this unlawful activity. Please let us know when you are ready to stand with us by redeploying your bully pulpit.
You should consider this a formal complaint and request for action. Please let me know if I must resubmit it in a larger font size.
Mertilla Jones, grandmother of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, shot to death in polce raid at the age of 7, speaks to media before court hearing on cop who killed her Oct. 29, 2012.
Child, shot to death at 7, would have been 10 this year
Court, prosecution, defense delay trial of officer Joseph Weekley
By Diane Bukowski
October 30, 2012
DETROIT – “We are coming out here as long as it takes,” Aiyana Jones’ grandmother Mertilla Jones said before Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley appeared in court Oct. 29 for a second hearing on a motion to dismiss charges against him.
Mertilla Jones shows Aiyana’s photo during Oct. 29, 2012 press conference.
“It is frustrating that this is dragging on for so long, but it is more frustrating that Weekley is not locked up for murdering a seven-year-old girl,” Jones said. “He was supposed to protect and serve. But all he served Aiyana with was a bullet to the head. Many people in Detroit have forgotten about Aiyana by now, but I am still getting messages from people all over the country and all over the world expressing support.”
Weekley shot the child as she slept with her grandmother May 16, 2010, during a horrific military-style midnight raid on her home, as cameras from A&E’s “First 48” show rolled.
Jones spoke during a press conference called by the newly-formed Coalition for Justice for Aiyana Jones.
“The police were showing off for the reality show,” Aaron Petcoff, a representative of the Coalition, said. “They feel they can get away with this in a poor Black neighborhood, and the justice system is working to let them get away with it.”
Joseph Weekley (r) at arraignment in 2011. Also shown (l front) Wayne Co. Prosecutor Kym Worthy, (rear r to l) co-defendant Allison Howard and her attorney. Hedr trial has since been severed, and is set for Dec. 3, 2011.
Although he was charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless use of a firearm a year ago, Weekley has yet to face trial. It has become apparent during a series of pre-trial hearings that the court, prosecution and defense want the child’s father Charles Jones tried on first-degree murder charges in a separate case first.
“Her daddy can’t even grieve with his family for his daughter, because he has been locked up for a year while Weekley is free with his family,” Jones added. “I have lost two sisters waiting for justice. One of them was in the room with me when my grandbaby was shot, and both just gave up hope on living after that.”
Weekley has been free on personal bond while Aiyana’s father and her aunt’s fiancé Chauncey Owens are in jail awaiting trial. They are accused in the killing of 17-year-old Je’Rean Blake two days before Aiyana’s death. Detroit police used that incident as a pretext to stage a midnight raid with grenades, tanks, and assault weapons on the Jones’ home, while cameras for A & E’s “The First 48” rolled.
Charles Jones (front) is comforted by his aunt JoAnn Robinson, now deceased, the morning of Aiyana’s killing May 16, 2010. His cousin Mark Robinson, who warned police children were in the home, is at left.
Police had a warrant for Owens, but did not obtain an arrest warrant for Jones until one and a half years later. Owens did not live with the Jones family, but in an upstairs flat with a separate entrance. He surrendered voluntarily and could have been arrested earlier when he left the house while police were surveilling it, according to nationally-renowned attorney Geoffrey Fieger.
Weekley’s defense attorney Steve Fishman and Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway expressed surprise at the extensive presence of TV cameras and reporters in the courtroom, claiming the hearing was minor.
“I tried to tell the media not to bother,” Fishman said, “but it was like talking to my wife and children.”
Weekley’s attorney Steve Fishman has defended numerous police officers.
At the first hearing Sept. 28 on the Weekley motion to dismiss, Judge Hathaway said she could not rule on it without reviewing extensive files. She asked Assistant Prosecutor Robert Moran and Fishman to produce those documents, including those from a one-man grand jury hearing conducted by Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Timothy Kenny. Judge Hathaway has had the case since November, 2011.
On Oct. 29, the two attorneys said they had compiled records they agreed would be needed, consisting solely of transcripts of testimony by police officers, detectives and two family members. Everything related to the grand jury hearing has been sealed from public view, and both attorneys agreed it should continue to remain so.
Asst. Prosecutor Robert Moran (front) during preliminary exam for Charles Jones, who he is also prosecuting in what many say is a conflict of interest. Jones’ defense attorney Leon Weiss speaks at podium Jan. 26, 2012.
“We didn’t provide photos, evidence technician reports and sketches, firearms reports and the autopsy report because we felt they were not important to the theory of gross negligence,” Moran told the judge.
“One exhibit is a disc of 150 photos,” he added. “We don’t think the court needs to see those. The court doesn’t need to review the entire transcripts. The court might want to focus on the testimony of the Detroit police officers, all the police on the Special Response Team, and the homicide detectives. A number of civilians were not in the room. Just two were there, and the court needs to read those.”
During the raid, numerous members of the Jones family were present in the small flat, including Aiyana’s father, aunt, and younger siblings and cousins, and Owens’ 15-year-old daughter. Her adult cousin Mark Robinson was first detained by police outside the home. He said he warned them that children were present in the house before they fire-bombed it and entered shooting.
Painting of Aiyana Jones on her mother Dominika Jones’ Facebook page.
According to court records, police also brought Owens into the lower flat, seating him on the couch where Aiyana died, with her blood and body fragments still there.
The Wayne County Medical Examiner’s office said in its first autopsy report that Aiyana had been shot through the throat, but later concurred with a second autopsy report by forensic pathologist Daniel Spitz which showed she was shot through the top of her head, with the bullet exiting her throat.
(See video below, in which Fieger explains how the autopsy report is key to the theory of the crime. Channel 7 reported in print, “A Wayne County spokesman is confirming to Action News that the cause of death on the death certificate for Aiyana Stanley-Jones was changed from ‘gunshot wound to the neck’ to ‘gunshot wound to the head.’ The spokesman says it was changed on Friday after the Wayne County Medical Examiner spoke to the Macomb County Medical Examiner, Dr. Daniel Spitz.”
Fishman said, “I feel the same way as Moran as far as the exhibits go, although if the court wants to see them we can have them there.”
Judge Timothy Kenny, the “one-man grand jury” on the investigation of the police killing of Aiyana Jones. He refused to release any documents from court file to VOD.
Hathaway appeared not to be interested in the exhibits, stating, “I would assume the exhibits were included in the probable cause motion to indict.” Judge Kenny granted that motion to indict Weekley on the limited charges, and reviewed those exhibits secretly.
Ron Scott, also working with the Coalition for Justice for Aiyana Jones, questioned why Judge Hathaway would not want to review the same exhibits if she is considering dismissing the case.
Hathaway asked about what she termed “the companion case, for lack of a better term.”
Moran said the hearings on Jones and Owens have been postponed until the beginning of 2013. He said the state Supreme Court should decide by then on an application for leave to appeal filed by Jones’ attorney. An appeals court earlier overturned a ruling by Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Richard Skutt that the testimony of “jail-house snitch” Jay Schlenkerman could not be used against Jones.
Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway
Hathaway subsequently said she would not be ready to rule on the motion to dismiss the charges against Weekley until “early next year.”
The “companion case” to Weekley’s is actually that of Allison Howard, an Arts & Entertainment (A & E) producer who has been charged with perjury and obstruction of justice for her alleged actions related to A&E’s taping of the raid. Her trial has since been severed from Weekley’s.
Former Detroit police chief Ralph Godbee tried to blame Mertilla Jones for the killing of Aiyana, then later retracted statement.
Jones said that when she was deposed during the grand jury proceedings on possible charges in her granddaughter’s death, the court was most interested in details pertaining to the earlier killing of Je’rean Blake.
“Ralph Godbee [who just resigned as Detroit police chief] said I interfered with Weekley and that made his gun go off,” Jones said after the hearing. “But if I had, I would be dead too.”
Hathaway set Nov. 30 as the date for the next hearing on Weekley’s case. She set the same date for a demonstration of the effects of the “flash-bang” grenade which was thrown through the window above the sleeping child and her grandmother just before Weekley entered and shot the child to death.
The contention has been that the detonation “dis-oriented” Weekley, although Moran said that officers in the SRT are specially trained to function while it goes off.
That demonstration was earlier scheduled for July, but Hathaway said Sept. 28 that she was the only person who showed up for it.
Ron Scott at courthouse Oct. 29, 2012.
“This is a total miscarriage of justice,” Ron Scott, who is also working with the Coalition for Justice for Aiyana Jones, said after the hearing. “Since when have you heard of a case of this magnitude being postponed for this long? In this kind of case, the forensic evidence is placed up front and first, but rhere are certain things they don’t want the public to hear or know. The entire Special Response Team, which is a paramilitary unit, and everyone in the police command who told Weekley what to expect and do need to be indicted as well. It will be a travesty if Weekley and all these others walk.”
Mertilla Jones said her family celebrates Aiyana’s birthday every year. She would have been 10 years old July 20, 2012.
Families brought their children to the rally against ICE raids and deportations, held Sat. Oct. 20, 2012 in Clark Park on Detroit’s southwest side.
Stop the raids at schools, churches, homes and jobs
All human beings are legal
By Diane Bukowski
October 30, 2012
DETROIT – Families from Detroit’s southwest side are rallying to stop rampant raids by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), including the recent arrest of a father dropping his child off at Cesar Chavez Academy and the attempted detainment of parents dropping another child off at a Head Start Program.
Another father seized by ICE, Alfredo Avila-Mendez, is awaiting a pre-trial hearing Nov. 6 and trial Nov. 8 in front of U.S. District Judge Julian Abele Cook. Francisco Romero-Caspeto was found guilty of illegal re-entry into the U.S. October 17, and is awaiting sentencing by U.S. District Court Judge Marianne O. Battani on Nov. 13 at 2p.m. at the U.S. Federal Courthouse on Lafayette in downtown Detroit, according to court documents.
(Click on Francisco and Alfredo RALLY for flier describing their situations. Both men had been in the country for many years, are married with children, and were working to support their families and pay taxes.)
Attorneys George Washington, Shanta Driver, and Joyce Schon, all affiliated with the national Coalition for Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary (BAMN), are representing the men in court.
Familes crowded the park to mobilize against ICE raids and in support of two fathers now facing deportation.
“The President has claimed that ICE and DHS (Department of Homeland Security) will only target undocumented people for deportation who pose a ‘threat to society,” said Manuel Mendez, an organizer for the By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) coalition.
Arecely R. tells crowd that her husband, the sole support of herself and three children, was seized by ICE two months ago.
“Yet they are detaining and criminalizing thousands of innocent people whose only so-called ‘crime’ is crossing the border for a better life, just as the ancestors of most Americans did in the past. If this is not the administration’s policy, we demand that the President send out a clear message by firing Detroit ICE Director Rebecca Adducci immediately.”
To date, families including mothers and children deprived of their husbands and fathers have gathered in Clark Park at rallies Oct. 20, 27, and 28. They said ICE has been showing up not only at schools, but churches, homes and workplaces.
“Two months ago, ICE picked up my husband,” Arecely R. said, weeping. “I want them to let him out and stop harassing people. His family, me and our three children, need his support. He is hard-working, responsible and dedicated. We have to join together to stop this. We have a lot of support in the community.”
Western High School student Lydia M. also broke down crying as she said that her grandmother in Mexico is very sick.
Lydia M. weeps as she tells how her father cannot go to visit her sick grandmother in Mexico for fear of not being able to come back home.
“My father really wants to go see his mother, but he is scared that if he does, he will not be able to come back home to us. I am so proud of my sister who is going to law school. She wants to be an immigration lawyer. I want her to go for that dream.”
Another speaker who attends the University of Berkley California said that people there have mobilized a direct action system to stop the ICE raids.
“We had an alert system for when ICE was coming to our school,” he said. “We would surround the student they were looking for with a lot of students so that they couldn’t single out the individual. We need to do the same thing here, to stop ICE from showing up anywhere they please. President Obama’s program to allow students to apply for deferred action is very limited, but it can become a pathway for citizenship.”
Many youth from the Latina/o community in southwest Detroit came to the Oct. 20 rally.
Benjamin Royal reminded the crowd of the spring of 2006, when massive rallies for immigrant rights across the U.S. defeated right-wing anti-immigrant legislation in the U.S. Congress.
“We must build a movement independent of the Democrats and Republicans to demand equality for all people, and put an end to this policy of kidnapping and deporting our friends, neighbors and family members,” Royal said.
Benjamin Royal, Issamar Almaraz, Monica Smith and Leroy Lewis all spoke at the rally; here Almaraz and Smith read position paper on ICE raids.
BAMN attorney Monica Smith co-chaired the rally with Issamar Almaraz translating for Spanish-speakers.
The two read a position paper in both English and Spanish to the crowd. (Click on ICE flier to read entire statement.)
“With only a few weeks remaining until the elections, a mobilization of the Latina/o and immigrant communities can send a message to the President, who is commander of the ICE, that he call off his dogs now,” the two said. “The President or one of his cabinet members could, with a single phone call, end the ICE harassment we face everyday.”
As world-renowned activist and author Angela Davis told a crowd in Detroit Oct. 24, the two said that the people’s power at the polls pales in comparison to the real power communities possess.
“When we stand together, documented and undocumented and take to the streets, we can change the course of history, not just the outcome of a single election,” they said. “Those without a vote—the youth, the undocumented and others, have more social power acting together than individual voters in our communities can cast. . . .Just a few of us need to rival the boldness of the ICE to begin to loosen the fear imposed by them on the majority of people in Southwest Detroit.”
For more information on the growing movement to stop ICE terror on Detroit’s southwest side, contact organizers Monica Smith at 313-585-3637, and Issamar Almaraz (Spanish speaker) at 313-421-2513 or
The Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, & Immigrant Rights, and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) at 855-ASK-BAMN (855-275-2266), email@bamn.com. www.BAMN.com and twitter: @followbamn.
Rally participants spread out to march to the campaign offices of Pres. Barack Obama at 2727 Second to ask that he stop the raids and deportations.
Bullock said it is their position that Public Act 72, a limited version of PA 4 which does not grant administrative duties to “emergency financial managers,” is no longer on the books either. State Attorney General Bill Schuette earlier issued a non-binding opinion that it is in place.
During a hearing July 25 on whether to put a referendum to repeal Public Act 4 on the ballot, Young read into the record MCL 8.4, which says, “Whenever a statute, or any part thereof shall be repealed by a subsequent statute, such statute, or any part thereof, so repealed, shall not be revived by the repeal of such subsequent repealing statute.” 
