The Obama administration has ordered a major buildup of American military forces in the Persian Gulf, as punishing economic sanctions imposed by both the US and the European Union within the last week have sharply escalated tensions with Iran. The Pentagon has deployed both a large number of warships in the Gulf itself, as well as advanced warplanes in neighboring countries.
The Strait of Hormuz is strategically located for international oil shipping traffic.
The purpose of this buildup, according to a report published Tuesday in the New York Times, is to send various “signals”—to warn Iran against any attempt to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, to convince Israel not to carry out its own strike on Iranian nuclear facilities and to deflect Republican criticisms of Obama as “weak” on Iran.
Whether or not these are the real intentions of the US military buildup, the effect is to put a hair trigger on the threat of an armed confrontation that could provoke a devastating and potentially nuclear war with untold consequences in terms of human life, physical destruction and economic disruption throughout the region and internationally.
F-22 Raptor warplane
The US Navy, the Times reports, “has doubled the number of minesweepers assigned to the region to eight vessels,” while the Air Force has, since late spring, deployed “stealthy F-22 and older F-15C warplanes” at US bases in the region. These warplanes are in addition to “combat jets already in the region and the carrier strike groups that are on constant tours of the area.”
According to the Times, “Those additional attack aircraft give the United States military greater capability against coastal missile batteries that could disrupt shipping, as well as the reach to strike other targets deeper inside Iran.”
USS Ponce, mothership for fleet in Persian Gulf.
In addition, the military has sent the USS Ponce, an amphibious transport and docking ship specially converted into an “Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB),” into the Persian Gulf. Equipped with a helicopter landing deck, field hospital and a large number of bunks for Special Operations troops, it can be used as a floating staging area for sea, air and land attacks on Iran.
The Times report, which appears to stem from a deliberate attempt by the Obama administration and the Pentagon to intimidate Iran, is laced with highly provocative and bellicose rhetoric from unnamed “senior administration officials.”
President Barack Obama is commander in chief.
“When the president says there are other options on the table besides negotiations, he means it,” said one official, referring to the military buildup in the gulf.
“The message to Iran is, ‘Don’t even think about it’” the Times quoted an unnamed “senior Defense Department” official as saying. “Don’t even think about closing the strait. We’ll clear the mines. Don’t even think about sending your fast boats to harass our vessels or commercial shipping. We’ll put them on the bottom of the gulf.”
The real message is that Washington is treating the Persian Gulf like an American lake under conditions in which the US and its European allies are ratcheting up economic sanctions that more and more resemble a blockade, an act of war.
U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton at World Bank meeting.
On Sunday, the European Union, which previously accounted for one fifth of Iran’s oil exports, put into effect a total embargo on Iranian oil. The move followed even more sweeping sanctions imposed by the United States, which penalizes third countries by denying access to the US banking and financial system to banks and corporations that do business with Iran’s central bank.
These measures come on top of a host of previously enacted sanctions that together have reportedly cut Iran’s oil exports by approximately 40 percent since last year. The real impact of this economic warfare is felt by working people in Iran in the form of sharply rising prices of basic necessities and growing unemployment.
Sanctions against Iran have caused trade with China to increase, endangering Western economies.
The ostensible purpose of these sanctions is to force the Iranian government to bow to Western ultimatums regarding the country’s nuclear program. The US and its allies have repeatedly made unsubstantiated charges that the Iranian government is seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran has denied these allegations, insisting that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Another round of the stalled talks between Iran and the so-called P5+1 countries—the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany—took place in Istanbul on Tuesday, although on a lower level than previous negotiations. The session was held between nuclear experts from Iran and the major powers to determine whether differing technical interpretations were impeding the talks.
Talks held in Moscow last month stalemated, however, because the US and its allies issued a series of ultimatums to Tehran—that it halt its enrichment of uranium to the 20 percent level, relinquish its stockpile of enriched uranium and shutter its enrichment plant at Fordow. The US and its allies, however, brushed aside Iranian demands that they recognize Iran’s right under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium and lift economic sanctions. Continue reading →
Families and even victims of juvenile offenders joined to support "Second Chance" legislation outlawing JLWOP at state legislature in 2006.
Ruling did not completely outlaw juvenile life without parole
Michigan attorneys rally to represent 360 lifers in re-sentencing hearings
By Diane Bukowski
July 2, 2012
"I see my light come shining"
DETROIT, MI – A light has come shining for more than 2600 people in the U.S. sent to die in prison when they were children. There are 360 such cases in Michigan, the second highest number among the states. On June 25, the U.S. Supreme Court required that juveniles given mandatory life without parole sentences in homicide cases be re-sentenced.
The ruling affects all those who were under the age of 18 at the time of the crime and is retroactive.
The decision, Miller v. Alabama/Jackson v. Arkansas (link at end of story) “requires the lower courts to conduct new sentencing hearings where judges will have to consider children’s individual characters and life circumstances, including age, as well as the circumstances of the crime,” according to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI).
EJI’s director Attorney Bryan Stevenson argued the cases of Evan Miller and Kuntrell Jackson, both 14 at the time of the crimes for which they were convicted. His own grandfather was killed by a group of juveniles, but that has not affected his passion for justice for prisoners, especially juveniles. He has also argued many death penalty cases.
EJI Director Bryan Stevenson argued Miller v. Alabama before the high court.
The Court said such sentences violate Eighth Amendment protections against “cruel and unusual punishment.” Writing for the majority, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said the “imposition of a State’s most severe penalties on juvenile offenders cannot proceed as though they were not children.”
The ruling struck down statutes in 29 states, including Michigan. The United States, which has a record 2.5 million people in prison, remains the only country in the world which allows such sentences. It is one of only two countries that refused to sign the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of a Child.
The Court’s ruling in Miller v. Alabama/Jackson v. Arkansas flowed from its earlier decisions outlawing the death penalty and life without parole for juveniles in non-homicide cases, Roper v. Simmons and Graham v. Floridarespectively.
Kuntrell Jackson, 14 when sentenced to life without parole.
“This is an important win for children,” Attorney Stevenson said in an EJI article. “The Court took a significant step forward by recognizing the fundamental unfairness of mandatory death-in-prison sentences that don’t allow sentencers to consider the unique status of children and their potential for change. The Court has recognized that children need additional attention and protection in the criminal justice system.”
The decision does not prevent judges from re-sentencing juvenile offenders to life without parole, although it severely restricts their options.
It applies only to juveniles sentenced under mandatory guidelines, which includes the majority of cases. In many states, bindover of a juvenile as an adult for certain crimes is automatic, while in other cases, the decision is made by a prosecutor or judge.
Evan Miller, 14, with co-defendant Colby Smith; Miller tried to kill himself four times due to abuse, the first time at 5 years old.
Michigan has imposed mandatory life without parole sentences in first-degree murder cases since 1931, and now binds over children without regard to age as adults in some cases. Despite a broad campaign demanding a second chance for juveniles, Michigan’s legislature under former Governor Jennifer Granholm refused to enact proposed laws against juvenile life without parole.
Juvenile lifer Edward Sanders has been incarcerated in Michigan prisons since 1975, when he was 17, for aiding and abetting a first-degree murder. He spoke to VOD from Kinross Correctional Facility in Kincheloe, in the state’s Upper Peninsula.
He expressed overwhelming elation as well as anguish, as he looked back on his time behind bars. He was not the shooter in his case, but said he acknowledges his responsibility to the victim and his family, and prays for them every day. He also expressed concern that he be re-sentenced, not on first-degree murder charges, but at least on second-degree or manslaughter charges, because his jury was never properly instructed on those alternatives.
Edward Sanders, who has been in prison since 1975 when he was 17.
“All praise to Allah,” Sanders said. “This is an answer to my prayer which I have been awaiting for 38 years. I long ago repented and asked for forgiveness and mercy for what I did as a kid, and now finally the U.S. Supreme Court has done this after our legislators failed to respond. This is a good decision for our society. It puts us in a position to be a model for the rest of the world.”
He said life without parole does not allow a juvenile offender to move on from his youth.
“What happened was not something I would do as an adult,” Sanders said. “I look back and I see myself then, and we are two different persons. To tell a kid there is a law on the books that will do this to you is not comprehensible to him.”
Since his incarceration, Sanders earned a bachelor’s degree before Michigan banned higher education in the prison system. He is a devout Muslim, who prays and exercises every day. He has also studied law and functioned as a “jail-house lawyer” to help others.
Edward Sanders at 17
He said juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) is both a human rights and a civil rights issue.
“Adults commit crimes against children every day and they are forgiven,” Sanders said. “They have molested children in church and some of these same children are now locked up. Miller tried to kill himself four times, once when he was the age of a kindergartener, because of the abuse he suffered before he went to prison at 14. There are more rapes committed against children by adults than vice versa. Adults abandon children, society abandons children, and they are not punished.”
He said juveniles serve a much longer term of years than adult offenders, making such sentences inherently unequal.
“Mound Road was the prison where I spent the longest, 10 years,” he said. “Do you know what it is like to see the whole prison environment change, to have no one left you even recognize, no one who talks to you in the yard, because so many except you have finally gone home? Not to have anyone say hello to you and call your name?”
He said he has watched as people young enough to be his children have come and gone. He has watched juvenile lifers who came in barely needing to shave grow old and gray, with some ending up in wheelchairs and some dying. He was transferred from Mound after his brother Richard was moved there inadvertently. It was the first time in 35 years that he had seen and spoken to his brother.
Charles Lewis, incarcerated since the age of 17 in 1976.
Wendy Lewis, a disabled veteran and mother, was 12 years old when her brother Charles Lewis, then 17, was sentenced to mandatory life without parole in 1976.
“I was very close to Charles,” Lewis said. “I looked up to him, he was my idol. I tried to follow him everywhere he went. He was a musician who played with Anita Bryant’s group back then. Our basement was full of musical instruments. I would sit on the basement steps and listen as so many people practiced with him. He used to ask me to braid his hair so he could get a girl-friend. But he always had to bring everybody with him when he went to a girl’s house, so it was hard for him to ‘get game.’”
Breaking into tears, Lewis said, “My brother never got the chance to ‘get game.’ I’ll never forget the day police officer Gilbert Hill [who later became City Council President] came to our house and took him away for killing an officer who was actually shot by another cop in a domestic situation. My mother and father had no money to hire an attorney, so he got two court-appointed attorneys who stipulated to his possession of a gun although there was no gun in evidence.”
Charles Lewis as young musician
Lewis said for the last 37 years, she and her mother Rosie Lewis have kept in constant contact with Charles, writing, visiting and now emailing him.
“He never had a social security number, he never had a job, he has never had the chance to have children,” she said. “If he is released, it has been so long since he has been out in the world that he will have to re-learn everything.”
The Supreme Court decision attests to much of the experiences of Sanders, Lewis and their families, along with the experience of thousands of other juvenile lifers.
Justice Kagan summarized many of the reasons why children cannot be treated like “miniature adults” in the decision.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan
“Mandatory life without parole for a juvenile precludes consideration of his chronological age and its hallmark features—among them, immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences,” Kagan wrote. “It prevents taking into account the family and home environment that surrounds him—and from which he cannot usually extricate himself—no matter how brutal or dysfunctional. It neglects the circumstances of his homicide offense, including the extent of his participation in the conduct and the way familial and peer pressures may have affected him. Indeed, it ignores that he might have been charged and convicted of a lesser offense if not for incompetencies associated with youth—for example, his inability to deal with police officers or prosecutors (including on a plea agreement) or his incapacity to assist his own attorneys . . . And finally, this mandatory punishment disregards the possibility of rehabilitation even when circumstances most suggest it.”
Attorney Deborah LaBelle, with the Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, has fought juvenile life without parole sentences for over 10 years. She said Michigan defense attorneys have a monumental task ahead of them.
Attorney Deborah LaBelle
“There are probably 360 prisoners in Michigan serving life without parole for crimes committed before they were 18,” LaBelle told VOD. “Each one is entitled to re-sentencing. It will be necessary to present all the evidence including the prisoner’s juvenile status, his/her home circumstances, and lesser culpability so the court can issue a proportional sentence based on the individual’s youthfulness. There are a total of six factors the decision requires judges to consider in the mitigation hearings.”
She said defense attorneys and their organizations across the state are “gearing up to make sure that each person has very skilled attorneys. Many of the judges who chafed at this mandatory requirement will recognize that a lesser term is necessary.”
She said much of their work will have to be done pro bono due to the circumstances of many juvenile lifers.
Attorney Mark Fancher
The organizations, including the Michigan ACLU, the State Appellate Defender’s Office (SADO), the Michigan Criminal Defense Attorneys Association, and various law school clinics, are planning to hold training sessions for defense attorneys beginning July 27, with the details still to be worked out.
“I hope Michigan will begin to move on reforming its laws that automatically designate 17-year-olds as adults, in light of this decision,” LaBelle said. “That is the case in civil law. If a 17-year-old cannot be responsible enough under civil legislation, they shouldn’t be criminally punished as adults.”
LaBelle is still pursuing a precedent-setting federal case known originally as Hill v. Granholm. In it, the plaintiff juvenile offenders are requesting a broader decision than that issued by the U.S. Supreme Court—to outlaw all juvenile life without parole sentences period. A status conference in the case has now been set for July 11, 2012 at 1:45 p.m. before U.S. District Court Judge John Corbett O’Meara in Ann Arbor.
Detroit Central High School student placed on police bus after sweep in 2009.
Attorney Mark Fancher also has long fought for the rights of juveniles, particularly those of color. He was co-authored the Michigan ACLU study, “The School to Prison Pipeline.” It found that children of color are far more likely to be suspended from school in districts throughout the state, leaving them vulnerable to the influence of the streets and eventual incarceration.
“We are extremely pleased by this development,” Fancher said. “It is welcome news to anyone at all concerned about maintaining the most basic morality in our criminal justice system. Juvenile life without parole disproportionately affects youth of color, which compounds the injustice of this sentence. Lately, the public has been very anxious to ignore the impact of race in so many situations, but this ruling came from a Court not known to be bleeding heart liberals who bend over backwards on racial issues.”
Fancher added, “Hopefully this will not be an uphill battle for our state’s juvenile lifers, and the state’s judges will take their cue from the Supreme Court, which said that juvenile life without parole is at the very least disfavored if not outright unconstitutional.”
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy testifies before state legislature, with top assistant prosecutor Robert Moran at right.
But it appears that state officials are gearing up for a battle.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s communications officer Maria Miller said, “Currently our office is working with the Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council and the Michigan Prosecuting Attorneys Association (PAAC/PAM) to formulate a uniform policy that will be applied by the 83 elected prosecutors across the across the state.”
Worthy, along with other prosecutors across the state, testified before Michigan legislators against the proposed “Second Chance” legislation for juvenile lifers.
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette issued a statement that further gives advocates for juvenile lifers cause for concern.
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette
“The Supreme Court did uphold the discretionary ability of sentencing judges to issue life without parole sentences when appropriate,” Schuette, known for his right-wing views, said. “”We will comply with the Court’s ruling, and will work aggressively to ensure reviewing judges never lose sight of the victims and families who were permanently damaged by these vicious murders. I intend to work closely with prosecutors throughout Michigan to ensure the courts are fully informed of the facts and circumstances surrounding the murders that tragically took victims’ lives and merited these life sentences.”
His release stressed, “At these hearings, the judges will maintain the ability to affirm the sentences of life without parole, or to modify them to make the life sentences subject to parole.”
In fact, justice cries out for juvenile lifers like Edward Sanders, who has spent nearly 60 percent of his life behind bars, to be re-sentenced to “time served.” The majority of countries in the world do not even have life without parole sentences for any category of offender, with many limiting sentences for ANY crime to no more than 15 years.
Former parole board head Stephen Marschke has long been suspected in the drowning death of a Black Benton Harbor youth in 1994, when he was county sheriff.
Even sentences of life with parole will subject Michigan’s juvenile offenders to the proclivities of a parole board that has refused to release thousands of parolable lifers. In many of these cases, sentencing judges have said they intended the individuals to become eligible for parole after 10 to 15 years if they showed evidence of rehabilitation. That was the parole board’s practice prior to the advent of former Governor John Engler’s administration.
Under Engler, then Parole Board head Stephen Marschke, a former Berrien County Sheriff, declared, “Life means life.”
In fact, for juveniles and for all prisoners, “life” means “death” in prison.
Today the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion abolishing life without parole (LWOP) sentences for the 2,500 prisoners across the U.S. who were condemned to die in prison for crimes they were convicted of as juveniles.
Some of Michigan’s juvenile lifers, from 2005 ACLU publication
Courts will now have discretion to impose a lesser sentence in those cases and consider age as a factor in sentencing. Juveniles can receive LWOP sentences, however, it is a discretionary sentence now, not a mandatory sentence in cases involving homicide. Prisoners already serving LWOP sentences for crimes they were convicted of as juveniles are now eligible for resentencing. How that process occurs will vary by state.
The court conveyed what any parent, educator and common sense can tell us: children are different than adults. They possess the unique capacity for change and growth because they are still cognitively developing, and should be provided a path for rehabilitation during their incarceration.
Children are not “miniature adults”
Children are not incorrigible or expendable, nor are they miniature adults. They are not transformed into adults because they make mistakes or bad choices no more than they are transformed into adults for positive achievements or making good decisions.
It is undisputed that young people must be held accountable for their actions. This accountability, however, can only be achieved in ways that reflect the young person’s age and his/her capacity for change. Just as the punishment should fit the crime, the punishment should also fit the offender.
In Michigan, 73% of the prisoners serving LWOP sentences for crimes they were convicted of committing when they were juveniles are people of color, yet they comprise only 27% of the youth in the state.
Earlier chart on states with highest JLWOP sentences; Michigan’s have since increased to 360.
Nearly half of those convicted are also first-time offenders. Most grew up in impoverished areas, were victims of abuse, and were regularly exposed to drugs and violence.
The International Journal of Forensic Mental Health reports that 2/3 of males and 3/4 of females in the juvenile justice system show signs of one or more psychiatric disorders.
Taken together these findings reflect a very vulnerable demographic of 200,000 to 250,000 juveniles annually transferred to adult courts that are disparately being subjected to the harshest sentences meted out by judges.
Juvenile lifers Terrance Graham, 14 at time of crime, in prison since 2002; Joe Sullivan, 13 at time of crime, in prison since 1989.
Sadly, the vast majority of these juveniles are incapable of defending themselves against the political gamesmanship and cascade of abuses and mistreatment they are subjected to by older, experienced professionals in the criminal justice system.
It is a moral imperative that we now amplify the national conversation about the draconian policy of sentencing juveniles in adult courts. Rather than abandon and demonize young people, citizens should urge legislators to reform sentencing guidelines and work to ensure fairness in the parole process.
Life sentences in any form are veritable death sentences in Michigan. As long as they remain sentencing options for juveniles their opportunity for serious parole consideration will remain unattainable reality.
(Efren Paredes, Jr. is a Michigan prisoner sentenced to LWOP as a juvenile in 1989. Learn more about Efren at www.4Efren.com)
For millions of people, who groaned under the gross, lumbering stupidity of the Bush years, the advent of the Obama administration seemed like the rising of a sweet springtime sun after storms of bleak chaos.
Who knew that the rise of Barack H. Obama would echo, in some ways, the Bush years?
Bush reveled in war, and boasted of being a ‘War President.’
Obama, by contrast, seldom speaks of war, never brags of it, and wages it with an intensity that can only be called chilling.
According to a recent New York Times article, Obama has become a secret warrior, unleashing drone attacks on suspected (!) enemies of the State at a rate that would have dizzied his bellicose predecessor, George W. Bush.
In Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in the Federated Territories (bordering both countries), in Yemen, in Somalia the drone wars reign, silent, computerized death from the skies, killing ‘suspects’, their clansmen, families and neighbors.
President Barack Obama greets U.S. troops in Afghanistan; the slaughter of Afghanis, Pakistanis, and U.S. troops as well continues unabated.
The wonder is that anyone could claim surprise, for Obama said exactly what he would do –attack terrorist suspects no matter where they were; and capture or kill Osama bin Laden.
His giddy supporters, so sick of Bush’s clumsiness and malapropisms, ignored Obama’s promises, or pretended not to hear them.
But Obama at war is more martial that Bush, more technological, more targeted – and less oral.
One wag, offered the view that Obama was Bush on steroids—quieter, more aggressive, more ruthless.
And that – albeit unwittingly—is the world we voted for.
VALERIE BURRIS, WHOSE SISTER KILLED HERSELF IN DESPAIR JUNE 19, TELLS COUNCIL TO SUPPORT KRYSTAL CRITTENDON AT THEIR MEETING THE SAME DAY.
Public Council session Fri. June 22, 2 pm, CAYMC 13th floor
Court hearing on Judge Wendy Baxter’s TRO barring shutdown of city’s Health, Human Services, and Workforce Depts. same day, 11:30 am.
By Diane Bukowski
June 21, 2012
DETROIT – Buckling to pressure from Wall Street banks, the daily media, and state politicians, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing has called a special session of the City Council for Friday, June 22 at2 p.m. He wants at least six Council members to vote for the discharge “without cause” of the city’s Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon.
Detroit Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon
The meeting, to be held in Council chambers on the 13th floor of the Coleman A. Young Center at 2 Woodward Ave., is open to the public.
“We need to stand behind Krystal Crittendon,” Valerie Burris told City Council members at their evening community meeting June 19 on the day her sister died.
“It seems like she’s the only one following the law,” Burris explained. “The other day, I went outside. It was pitch black, and all these people were out in the streets. I asked my husband, ‘What are they doing?’ and he told me they live there, they’re homeless. Today, my sister shot and killed herself because she was so depressed. It is the policy of those who runDetroitthat is creating this situation – no streetlights, no jobs, no parks, nothing for the people.”
Mayor Dave Bing and minions listen intently to Atty. Michael McGee, a co-author of Public Act 4, during council session June 11.
The City Charter requires a supermajority vote of the Council to fire Crittendon. Bing has repeatedly said that Crittendon was doing her duty as she saw fit when she filed a complaint for declaratory relief against the city’s Public Act 4 “Fiscal Stability [consent] Agreement.”
Ingham County Circuit Court Judge William Collette, saying he had his mind made up from the beginning, dismissed the complaint June 13. He did not address Crittendon’s contention that the consent agreement is void because the state owes Detroit over $230 million. Instead, he opined that the Mayor is in charge despite Charter language which gives Detroit’s Corporation Counsel broad powers, including taking judicial action.
Angela Armstrong tells Council they should take action against Mayor Dave Bing.
“The Mayor hired outside counsel to advise him without getting permission from Corporation Counsel in violation of the Charter,” Angela Armstrong told the Council June 19. “Everybody else is running renegade, not Krystal Crittendon. The mayor himself said the state owes us money, but she picks up the gauntlet and SHE’s the one in trouble.”
Bing hired Michael McGee of the law firm of Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone to argue for the consent agreement prior to council’s approval of it June 4. McGee is a co-author of Public Act 4, along with other conflicts of interest.
Bing also used McGee’s firm to represent him in Collette’s court against the Corporation Counsel’s complaint.
Edith Lee Payne marched on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a young girl in 1963.
“Under the Charter Section 7.5-201, the Corporation Counsel was duly authorized to take court action,” Edith Lee Payne told the Council. “I resent Mayor Bing’s scare tactics. If you should choose to deal with any issue, you need to bring Bing up on charges for violating Section 2.106.1 of the Charter by willfully and grossly neglecting to discharge his duties. If Gov. [Rick] Snyder wants to runDetroit, let HIM resign and just TRY to run for Mayor!”
“It is Dave Bing who needs to be brought up on charges and resign,” Cecily McClellan, a member of “FreeDetroit-No Consent,” said.
Free Detroit-No Consent placard
In a campaign sponsored by the group, Detroiters have so far filed 11 ethics complaints against Bing, Deputy Mayor Kirk Lewis, Chief Operating Officer Chris Brown, and City Council members Charles Pugh, Gary Brown, Saunteel Jenkins, Kenneth Cockrel, Jr. and James Tate, the “Fatal Five” who voted for the consent agreement.
Tyrone Travis called on Detroiters to take the issue to people at the offices of the Detroit Departments of Health and Wellness Promotion, Human Services and Workforce Development. The three departments have been slashed from the city’s 2012-13 budget, except for temporary transition funding while they are privatized.
A follow-up hearing on a temporary restraining order granted by Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Wendy Baxgter against the closure of the three departments, which are almost wholly federally-funded, is also set for Friday, June 22 at 11:30 a.m.in Baxter’s courtroom at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center.
Children wait for medical assistance at Herman Kiefer Health Center, part of the Detroit Department of Health and Wellness Promotion. It is slated to be shutdown in this year’s city budget.
“We REFUSE to consent to the hostile takeover of Detroit by the state,” Sandra Hines told the Council. “We are determined to get our city back and will continue to fight. We haven’t seen YOU fighting for us, in the back room negotiating deals. We are fighting to maintain our constitutional rights, which our fathers, mothers and their forebears fought and died for.”
Hines said she was “standing on the shoulders” of Zeline Richards, a prominent Detroiter who addressed the Council at length.
Prominent Detroiter Zeline Richards tells Council to STAND UP FOR THE PEOPLE.
“I was born Jan. 12, 1927 here in Detroit,” Richards said. “Kenneth Cockrel, Sr. was among my students during my teaching career. They are taking us back to sharecropping days. My father was from Waynesboro, Georgia and used to plant for his father, who sharecropped. He left and came here and worked at Ford’s. I was 15 years old when the first riot in Detroit happened in 1943, and we were put out on Belle Isle. They wouldn’t let my mother teach in the Detroit Public Schools back then, but later I became Executive Director of the DPS Human Resources Department and I put a stop to all of that. I challenge you all to STAND UP AND FIGHT FOR US!”
The Detroit Free Press’ Daniel Howes condemned Bing today for allegedly not being able to get the six votes needed on City Council, calling concerns of Detroiters over the consent agreement “silly.” Several Council members including Pugh and Jenkins have said in published remarks that they will not vote to remove Crittendon.
Fitch Ratings, which along with the other Wall Street bond ratings agencies is paid by the banks, downgradedDetroit’s debt to “C” last week, citing Crittendon’s lawsuit, but also stating that the state had the means to resolve the matter.
Council members have said that the state could have just paid what it owed the city out of its surplus funds and laid the issue to rest.
PNC: Return the Cruz Family Home PNC: Reverse Jerome Jackson Foreclosure
Note from Alejandra Cruz:
Friends and Supporters,
Our family can’t believe how much support we have received from around the country in our fight to save our home. We are so thankful for each and every one of you.
Jerome Jackson (in wheelchair) at GE shareholders meeting protest April 25, 2012.
After PNC committed to working with our family to resolve this issue 23 of our supporters were arrested during 5 eviction attempts in one week and PNC stopped returning our calls. That’s when we decided it was time to raise the stakes.
In just a couple hours, my brother David and I will embark on a caravan to PNC Bank’s national headquarters in Pittsburgh to attempt to hand deliver our family’s loan modification documents to Jim Rohr, the CEO. We hope to give him a chance to personally correct PNC’s mistake and make things right for our family.
Over 15 cities across have committed to rallying at PNC Bank branches in support of our family as part of the #J21 national day of action, and we believe that we are on the verge of finally getting justice for our family.
Can you take a few minutes to support our family and share my petition with 5 friends?
In addition, please like and share this #J21 facebook image which was shared over 1,000 times in under 24 hours! http://ow.ly/bGBDE
You can also follow: www.twiitter.com/OccupyHomesMN and hashtags #J21 and #CruzHome for more updates on our trip.
We are in need of support to finance the caravan and week of action. If you are able, you can donate to our efforts here: www.wepay.com/occupyhomesmn
Thank you so much for your support.
Si se puede,
Alejandra Cruz
Sign the petition supporting HR 4848, which calls for a MORATORIUM on FORECLOSURES for THREE YEARS; http://nationalmoratorium.org/
The Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions, and Utility Shutoffs is open to all those who want to fight for a moratorium on foreclosures, evictions, layoffs, and utility shutoffs. We meet every Monday, 7 PM, at 5920 Second Ave., Detroit.
Rev. David Bullock speaks at right as Pastor Ed Rowe, Attorneys Julie Hurwitz and Butch Hollowell, and Rev. Wendell Anthony listen outside Detroit COA offices June 20, 2012
Motions for Appeals Court to order ballot placement filed today (Links to all court actions at story conclusion)
By Diane Bukowski
June 20, 2012
DETROIT – A broad coalition of community groups, churches and unions declared today that there will no longer be “business as usual” in Michigan unless the State Board of Canvassers places a referendum to repeal Public Act 4, known as the “Dictator Act” on the ballot during its meeting Tues. June 26.
Former Detroit school board member Marie Thornton holds Democracy Emergency sign as supporters listen to leaders against PA4 June 20 outside the Detroit office of the state Court of Appeals.
Backed by a hallway full of supporters, attorneys for Stand Up for Democracy filed two motions with the State Court of Appeals (COA) in Detroit’s Cadillac Building on W.Grand Blvd.
The motions ask that the COA give immediate effect to its June 8 order which the attorneys say mandates that the state’s people be allowed to vote on the PA 4 referendum in November.
“A quarter of a million voters signed this petition,” Attorney Melvin Butch Hollowell of the Detroitbranch of the NAACP said. “The Court of Appeals ordered that it should be on the ballot. Now, nearly a week later, there has been no movement to comply with the law.”
As major TV and print media covered the event, Hollowell said the coalition is already organizing alternate plans.
Atty. Melvin Butch Hollowell points out type size smaller than 14 pts. on petition accepted for state ballot.
“We have a full arsenal of options [if court action is not taken], including the right of appeal at both state and federal court levels, and direct action by the people. We intend for this t0 be a full court press.”
The state-wide coalition supporting Stand Up for Democracy has formed committees and is training some members in civil disobedience tactics, according to their literature. Their D-Day for action is June 28, two days after the BOC meeting. Petition language must be ready for the ballot by Aug. 27.
Attorneys Hollowell, Herbert Sanders, Julie Hurwitz, William Goodman and John Philo signed the motions and accompanying briefs.
In their pleadings, they cite the June 8 decision of the Court of Appeals on a challenge to the referendum by Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility.
Atty. Hollowell files pleadings at COA as crowd of supporters watches.
“Defendants [Board of Canvassers] have a clear legal duty to certify the petition for the ballot because the petition has the requisite number of signatures and meets all other statutory requirements,” the COA ruled. “Under all of the circumstances presented here, the act of placing the petition on the ballot is ministerial . . . .we direct the Board [ofCanvassers] to certify plaintiff’s petition for the ballot.”
The COA panel, however, still ruled that the print font size on the petitions was not legal, but declared it a minor matter. They stayed their order until all 28 Court of Appeals Judges could be polled to determine whether a special panel of seven judges should hear the case. On June 14, the Court of Appeals en banc ruled that it would not do so.
"Free Detroit-No Consent" members Valerie Glenn, Tyrone Travis and Sandra Hines were present in crowd of supporters.
Demonstrating with an outsize petition, Hollowell said the coalition’s attorneys have examined numerous petitions allowed on the ballot, and found that many of them did not comply with a “14 point” type font size. He said that in fact the PA 4 referendum petition does, according to an expert whose testimony the Board of Canvassers and the COA barred.
Public Act 4, passed in 2011, gives unelected “emergency managers” and s0-called “consent agreements” enforced by Wall Street dictatorial powers. It is rapidly dismantling the cities of Detroit, BentonHarbor, Pontiac, Flint,and Inkster, as well as school districts in Muskegon Heights and Highland Park, among other mainly majority-Black entities across the state. It has in effect disenfranchised over half ofMichigan’s African-American voters.
“Governor Snyder should not just be the governor of corporateMichigan,” Rev. David Bullock, director of the Detroit chapter of Rainbow PUSH, said.
Protest demanding moratorium on Detroit’s debt to the banks May 9, 2012.
“Detroit and Michigan represent a battleground for the soul of the nation. We will not stand by while they destroy democracy and lynch liberty. Some seek to take us back to the days of slavery, racism, and no unions, but we intend to move not onlyMichigan, but our whole country, forward. WE SAY NO!”
Gerald Thompson, President of AFSCME Local 1220, told VOD June 19, “The Detroit [PA4] consent agreement was an opportunity to continue to pay the banks at enormous interest rates and treat life-long Detroiters, poor and working people, as the problem, when in fact they are the solution. Instead of laying off 2566 city workers, why not renegotiate the bank debt? We continue to give Third World countries billions in assistance and then forgive their debt, but why can’t Detroit, a Third World city, be forgiven as well?”
The City of Detroit paid $596 million to the banks this year alone, with a total debt of $12.6 billion. Fitch Ratings downgraded Detroit’s debt to a “C,” the lowest rate possible and the lowest of any major city in the country. They did so simply becauseDetroit’s Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon challenged the consent agreement in the Ingham County Court of Claims.
Detroit Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon
On Friday, Detroit’s City Council is scheduled to meet in a closed session at 11 a.m. to hear Crittendon’s June 20 opinion on parts of the consent agreement that may survive even if Michigan voters void Public Act 4. She had warned the Council regarding that issue in an opinion issued April 1, but the Council’s “Fatal Five” members still voted for the agreement.
It is unclear whether Crittendon will appeal Ingham County Circuit Court Judge William Collette’s order dismissing the lawsuit, not on legal grounds, but on his personal opinion that the mayor, not the corporation counsel, is in charge regardless of Charter provisions.
(See upcoming VOD story on Mayor Dave Bing’s request for Crittendon’s resignation, which she refused, and subsequent support for her at community City Council meeting June 19.)
Click on the following links to read motions and briefs filed June 20.
Aiyana Jones' grandmother Mertilla Jones holds her sleeping grandchildren after police assault; she was resting on the living room couch with them when police assaulted her home June 16, 2012.
By Diane Bukowski
June 16, 2012
DETROIT – On the night of a motion hearing in the case of Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley, who shot seven-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones to death two years ago during a violent raid, police in riot gear again invaded her family’s new home on Detroit’s side.
Rafael Jones, 14, shows where he defended his grandmother after police struck her in the face with a flashlight and called her sexist names.
Family members said they were struck, shoved and called racist and sexist names as police officers, some in plainclothes, forced their way into the home on Detroit’s far east side.
Five children were there at the time, including a one-month old baby, a two-year-old toddler, and a five-year old.
“I was just sitting here watching my grandson,” Mertilla Jones, Aiyana’s paternal grandmother said. “Four cop cars pulled up and then they were coming from all over. They tried to grab Bobbie (Aiyana’s cousin), but he came in the house and me and Lakiya and R. J. [Rafael Jones] went out on the porch. The Black cop hit me in the mouth with a flashlight, and pushed and shoved me.”
Bobbie Williams III said he had been outside sitting next to a small fire the family has been burning on the sidewalk to keep the mosquitoes away for some weeks. He said police officers had driven by before and said nothing. But this time, he said, one of the cops told him to put the fire out, saying, “What are you n—–s doing, trying to burn down the city?”
AIyana’s aunt LaKrystal Sanders shows camera phone which she used to film police assault on her family’s home June 16, 2012.
Bobbie said he complied and doused the fire with water but a white cop jumped out, calling to his sergeant to follow him, and pursued him anyway. Bobbie warned them he had a permit to carry a concealed weapon for self-defense, then retreated into the house.
Jones’ 14-year-old grandson Rafael went to the defense of his grandmother, he said.
“They hit my grandma in the mouth and the white cop called her a whore and slut, and when I said something to him, he tried to grab me off the porch, and he called me a little shit and a bastard.”
Rafael demonstrated exactly where he and his grandmother were standing on the porch. He said he was on the right of the steps while his grandmother was on the left (facing the house), when he went to her defense.
Meanwhile, Jones’ daughter LaKrystal Sanders videotaped the events on her camera.
Killer cop Joseph Weekley (l), Aiyana Stanley-Jones (r) and depiction of her killing after attorney Geoffrey Fieger obtained new autopsy results showing she was shot in the head, not the neck on May 16, 2010.
“I told them one of you cops just went to court today because he murdered my niece,” Sanders said. “I screamed that Aiyana Jones was murdered by the cops. I told them you better call your lawyers, because I’m recording you all. I told them I want your badge numbers after they hit my mother with the flashlight. They started backing off then.”
She said the cops were “pulling on their guns” as if about to shoot. She said the family was concerned about Bobbie and other young Black males in the house.
Detroit Gang Squad members in 2009; many have been cut since then due to complaints of excessive force.
Family members said a white female officer who knows the family finally told the cops to leave after at least ten minutes of terror, but the cops still kept shining lights into their faces and into the house, blinding them.
“The cops have known where we lived ever since we moved here,” Jones said. “They drive by here all the time shining their lights into the house.”
Family members said the officers were in blue-and-white marked cars, some of them in plainclothes and some in uniform. They said they appeared to be from the gang squad in the seventh precinct, riding four to a car.
Detroit Police Department Assistant Chief Ralph Godbee addresses the media about the shooting of Aiyana Stanley-Jones in 2010.
Jones said she had just been at the hospital a couple of days before; her health has been deteriorating since the day Aiyana was killed. The incident happened on the anniversary of her sister JoAnn Robinson’s death. Robinson was present in the room on May 16, 2010, when the Detroit Police Special Response team, being filmed by A&E’s First 48 show, threw an incendiary grenade into the house and then shot Aiyana in the head.
Her health had also declined since that time.
Voice of Detroit contacted Mayor Dave Bing’s chief of communications Naomi Patton, who said she would “try” to get back with a response from his office. A message was left with the Police Department communications office for Chief of Police Ralph Godbee’s spokesperson Eren Stephens. A week later, neither has responded.
Family members said neither Bing nor Godbee has ever apologized to them in person for Aiyana’s death.
To watch LaKrystal Sanders’ video of the police raid, click on
14-year-old Rafael Jones leads march April 23 at Frank Murphy, with his grandmother Mertilla Jones, aunt LaKrystal Sanders holding signs behind him.
Judge considers “flash-bang” demo to show Weekley’s “disorientation;” defense and prosecution agree to delete parts of audio from video
By Diane Bukowski
June 16, 2012
Aiyana Stanley-Jones with baby brother before her death in 2010; she had six young brothers.
DETROIT – Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Gray-Hathaway, Prosecutor Robert Moran, and Stephen Fishman, defense attorney for Detroit cop Joseph Weekley, who shot seven-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones to death two years ago in a violent raid. appeared to collude on Weekley’s behalf during motion hearings in the case June 15.
Weekley shot the child in the head, after a so-called “flash-bang” stun grenade was thrown through the window under which Aiyana and her grandmother were sleeping.
The diminutive Weekley, who appears no taller than five feet, faces involuntary manslaughter charges for negligently executing a search warrant, and perjury charges.
Aiyana Jones' father Charles Jones (r) is comforted by his aunt JoAnn Robinson May 16, 2010, the morning of her killing by Weekley; Ms. Robinson passed a year later. Hole from flash-bang grenade is to the left of Robinson's head; Charles Jones sits on bloody couch where his daughter died.
Gray Hathaway took “under advisement” the possibility of providing a real-life demonstration of the impact of the stun grenade on the individuals inside, including Weekley. She scheduled a “trial run” for judge and attorneys only on July 27 at 11 a.m. Press would not be permitted at the trial run, while it remains unclear whether press coverage will be allowed if the jury sees the demonstration.
“I ask the court to be able to allow the jury to experience the impact of a flash-bang [grenade],” Moran said. “The grand juror asked that this be done for him, to understand the effects of the device on people in the house as well as police officers in the home. He said it was ‘enlightening.’”
Moran said the device is intended to disorient people in the home.
Grand juror Wayne County Circuit Court Judge TImothy Kenny, a member of the right-wing Federalist Society.
Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Timothy Kenny was the grand juror who took secret testimony in the case.
Mertilla Jones, Aiyana’s grandmother who was sleeping on the couch below the window with Aiyana at the time, told VOD later that day that Weekley did not enter the home until after the grenade went off, so could not have been affected by it. She said it did not even stun her.
“I heard the flash bang hit the window, and a lot of light came through,” she said. “I hit the floor before it could hit me, but my grandbaby jerked when it hit her blanket and set it on fire. Weekley came in after that with his gun pointed down at her head. I told him, hold on, don’t shoot, that’s a seven-year-old baby girl, but he just went POW.”
Jones said she saw the look in his eyes as he shot Aiyana.
Detroit SRT cop Joseph Weekley, featured on A&E website nicknamed "Brain."
“He didn’t look shocked or stunned or even remorseful,” she said. “They came there to kill, not to arrest someone.”
Moran is also prosecuting Aiyana’s father Charles Jones on first-degree murder charges in a case that was the pretext for a Special Response Team assault on the Jones’ family’s home on Lillibridge May 16, 2010, It was filmed in the dead of night by a camera crew from A&E’s The First 48. Some have questioned whether this is a conflict of interest.
“My client is facing charges for being grossly negligent, but this didn’t have anything to do with him,” Fishman said.
P.O. Kata-Ante Taylor, who executed teen in front of Cantrell funeral home in 2008, carried Aiyana's body out of house; neither he nor anyone else on the SRT team or in police command has been charged in the child's death.
“He didn’t make the decision to have a camera following them, it was made by [then Police Chief] Warren Evans. He didn’t come up with the idea of let’s go out in the middle of the night and use a flash-bang grenade. He was not the person who threw the grenade. That person was inept. He was supposed to have thrown it earlier. I would hate to defend the department in a civil lawsuit on this case.”
Moran said Weekley and other SRT officers have been trained to operate properly while a stun grenade is going off, even nearby.
The Jones’ family’s attorney Geoffrey Fieger said in 2010 that a police car was outside their home during the day and could have arrested the person they had the warrant for, Chauncey Owens, peacefully when he exited the upper flat of the house during the day.
Fishman delayed asking for dismissal of the charges against Weekley, but indicated he would do so in future hearings. A trial date for Weekley was set for Oct. 22, 2012.
Moran and Fishman also agreed to delete certain audio potions of the two videotapes taken by the A & E crew when they are shown to the jury.
Fishman said afterwards there are dogs barking, and crying and wailing from the family on the tapes, but also comments from police officers. He said he could not see whether Weekley was already in the house by looking at the videos.
The case against Allison Howard, a producer for A&E, for committing perjury by claiming she did not show or provide copies of the videotapes to a third party, has been severed from Weekley’s case. She is expected to go to trial in December.
New information came to light during the hearing June 15 on Howard’s case.
Allison Howard at arraignment.
Howard’s defense attorney Robert Harrison said one witness who refused to testify against Howard spent three months in Wayne County jail on contempt of court charges before acquiescing. He said another witness was threatened with the same, and eventually agreed to comply.
Later, he named the two as John Cassar, who runs Italio Collision and Auto at 19049 W. Warren in Detroit, and Lee O’Brien. During the hearing, he implied that some of the witnesses may have criminal records related to “theft and dishonesty.”
“It was common knowledge that she [Howard] went out to a party going on in the Canton home of one of the witnesses that night, with a police officer friend, and that she sold a copy of the tape to a third individual for $2500,” Moran said. Harrison said afterwards that there was no party.
Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway with husband Deputy Sheriff Dewayne Hayes
Gray Hathaway granted a joint motion made by Moran and Harrison for a “bill of particulars” detailing the exact elements of the charges brought against Weekley and Howard.
Jones family members later noted the dissimilar treatment of Weekley, who has been out on personal bond since his arraignment and was allowed to have his trial severed from Howard,” and that of her son Charles Jones and Chauncey Owens. The two face first-degree murder charges in the death of Je’Rean Blakely, 17, during a contentious incident two days before the police raid on the Jones house.
They are being held without bond in Wayne County Jail. Owens has been incarcerated there for two years, after making statements admitting to the killing, while Jones was arrested after an investigation that took more than a year and a half.
Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Richard Skutt, while barring the third-person testimony of jail-house snitch Jay Schlenkerman against Jones, did not sever the cases. Jones has said he had nothing to do with the Blake shooting, and did not provide Owens with the gun as contended by Schlenkerman. Owens refused to testify at his preliminary hearing and was held in contempt of court by 36th District Court Judge E. Lynise Bryant-Weekes.
Stephen Murphy of Standard and Poors and Joe O’Keefe of Fitch Ratings (center) lobbied for $1.5 billion pension bond deal at City Council table in 2004; with Detroit CFO Sean Werdlow at left; Deputy Mayor Anthony Adams at right; now Fitch has downgraded Detroit’s ratings once again over worries it will not pay; Wall Street as a whole engaged in maasive predatory lending to governments during that period, leading eventually to the historic collapse of 2008, signaled by the fall of Lehman Brothers
June 12, 2012
(VOD: note the article below says the state as well as Detroit could have prevented downgrade; it was the state which threatened to withhold the money Detroit’s CFO Jack Martin was counting on to pay the bond debt, in violation of the Fiscal Stability Agreement.)
(Reuters) – Concerns that Detroit may miss a payment due Friday on its pension debt led Fitch Ratings to lower the city’s already junk-level ratings into the C category on Tuesday, denoting a higher chance of default.
Snyder and Bing are colluding to dismantle Detroit.
Fitch analyst Amy Laskey cited statements by Mayor Dave Bing that the city may not be able to make a payment on $1.5 billion of pension debt as it may run out of cash by Friday.
Michigan reached an agreement with Detroit in April to provide the city with some budget relief in exchange for more state oversight over the city’s finances.
But a lawsuit challenging the legality of that agreement has bottled up plans to raise $137 million through a debt sale to keep city operations going.
Detroiters demanded moratorium on debt to banks in march on May 9, 2012.
Michigan’s deputy treasurer said last week that the lawsuit needs to be withdrawn this week or the city will lose $82.5 million in state revenue-sharing payments. With the bond deal on hold, these payments would be diverted to pay off an interim debt issue placed privately in March.
On Monday, Bing sent a letter to Detroit Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon directing her to drop the lawsuit she filed earlier this month. The letter also said he is consulting with “outside legal experts in this matter in order to execute my duties.” Crittendon has not commented so far.
“All of the events in the last week point out the impressive challenges they face,” Laskey said.
Fitch said “there are actions available to both the city and the state of Michigan that would ensure the payment is made but that the current level of uncertainty so close to a bond repayment date is consistent with a higher probability of default than the prior B-category ratings implied.”
Crittendon’s complaint, which was filed against the state in Michigan’s Court of Claims, challenges the validity of the financial stability agreement on a claim that Michigan owes the city more than $230 million. A motion for an expedited hearing in the case is up before Judge William Collette on Wednesday, according to his office.
Ahead of signing the pact, the city and state agreed to a deal to provide some breathing room in Detroit’s budget by restructuring some outstanding debt to push $37 million in debt-service payments into the future.
The longer-term debt issue would also include $100 million of new bonds to fund the city’s fiscal 2012 and 2013 self-insurance payments.
The first step was an $80 million interim financing that was privately placed in March. The second step is issuing a longer-term bond issue later this month to raise $137 million and replace the interim debt.
But Tom Saxton, Michigan’s deputy treasurer, advised the city last week that the lawsuit was derailing issuance of the longer-term bonds and as a consequence $82.5 million in state revenue sharing due to Detroit between this month and December would instead be used to pay off the interim debt issue.
Fitch lowered the city’s unlimited tax general obligation rating on about $511 million of bonds to CCC from B and cut the rating on about $453 million of limited tax GO bonds to CC from B-minus.
The rating on Detroit’s pension obligation certificates of participation was downgraded to CC from B with a warning that the rating could fall to the lowest level of D if the city misses a debt service payment. The city’s GO bond ratings “will likely be adjusted to a level somewhat above D,” Fitch added.
The city has suffered a staggering population decline in recent years, causing its revenue base to shrink. Companies that once paid hefty taxes, including General Motors Co (GM.N), have reduced their presence in a city synonymous with the auto industry.
Naomi Patton, Bing’s spokeswoman, said earlier on Tuesday city officials were working to ensure money is available to make the $34.2 million debt service payment on the pension bonds.
As for the downgrade, Chris Brown, Detroit’s chief operating officer, said in a statement that the downgrade was not unexpected given the outstanding litigation.
“Ultimately, we are working to restore our financial reputation with the rating agencies by stabilizing the city’s finances,” Brown said.
Sara Wurfel, a spokeswoman for Governor Rick Snyder, said the lawsuit is creating uncertainty and delaying needed reforms.
“Governor Snyder and the state are continuing to stay focused on partnering with, and doing everything possible to work with the city to address its historic fiscal crisis, move forward and ensure Detroit succeeds,” Wurfel said.
In March, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services downgraded Detroit’s GO rating to B with a negative outlook from BB, while Moody’s Investors Service dropped the rating to B2 from Ba3 and warned of a further downgrade.
There was no trading in the pension COPs in the U.S. municipal bond market, according to a Municipal Market Data analyst.
In the meantime, the situation led Detroit’s Water and Sewerage Department to postpone a $596 million sewer revenue bond issue that was slated to price this week, said Matt Schenk, the department’s chief operating officer.
“We want to get past the looming deadline on Friday,” he said, adding there was no firm date when the bonds, which are a separate credit from Detroit, will be priced. “There is some headline risk going on right now.”
(Reporting by Karen Pierog, additional reporting by Caryn Trokie in New York; Editing by Richard Chang and Carol Bishopric)
