VOICE OF DETROIT: The city's independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

Karen "Burberry" Dumas and Dave "Rick" Bing

By David Rambeau
 

With all the controversy swirling around the mayor’s office focusing on the termination of Karen “Burberry” Dumas from her position as communication director for the city of Detroit, it might be difficult to hear the laughing in the background or the smiles on the faces of certain people, but I swear I heard late one night laughter coming from the cell of ex-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick just before he nodded off to sleep with these thoughts fading into pleasant dreams:

Former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in court

…All you high and mighty people thought I was bad news for the city.  Well, at least I got through my first term without all this noise, and reelected to a second term before I ran into a little bad luck.  I’d still be mayor if people would have just minded their own business.  Now look at what’s happening…  And while the cot in his cell might be hard, his face is ringed with a smile of grim satisfaction.  
 
There were others too.  Somewhere in his suburban townhouse or whatever luxury housing he enjoys, I think a smile rippled across the face of our former Chief of Police Warren Evans as he sat on his patio watching the sunset, remembering fondly his days as chief before he too was fired by Mayor Bing.  You remember Warren Evans, the police chief who wanted to be a cable television star, who made the trailer walking heroically into the camera, bandoleers across his chest, looking like an ageing urban ninja warrior. 

Warren Evans

Warren Evans who told our current police chief, Ralph Godbee, to take care of the evidence in the closed up, fenced in former Detroit crime lab.   “I wanted to do a crime drama, thinks Evans, now what they have at city hall is a soap opera.”
 
And in another suburb the creditors of Bing Enterprises, still out about $400,000 for unpaid bills when the mayor was in the steel business, read the papers about the happenings at city hall and burst into a jubilant monologue, “Well, the n….. stiffed us, now he’s got some problems of his own.  What goes around, comes around.”

It is easy to understand their shadenfreude.  Over thirty former employees have been fired by the Bing Administration for various and sundry offenses.  Some have simply resigned to seek other pastures or opportunities.  But with the legal action filed by Rochelle Collins the soap opera will continue, and we’ll obtain more details about the inner workings in the executive chambers and what real transparency actually is.  

Some data is already alleged.  For instance.  Did the director of communications actually convince the mayor to cancel a Washington appointment with the senior senator from Michigan so she could go shopping at a luxury retail store in the nation’s capital?  Could that really be true?  Did she really say, “You can meet with that old dude anytime.  When it’s time to shop, it’s time to shop.”  

One city council member stated that the people of Detroit are exhausted and embarrassed by all the shenanigans going on downtown.  No, we’re not exhausted and embarrassed.  Bing isn’t; Dumas isn’t.  Why should we be?  This is entertainment, tragi-comedy.  If anything in Detroit is a cause for concern, it’s unemployment, rising food prices, homelessness, lack of opportunity, and crime.  The drama at city hall is comic relief.  Where is Efee, the Clowncilwoman, when we need her political commentary?  

City workers demands jobs for youth, not privatization

There’s more.  The elderly are concerned about their aches and pains and Jesus.  Those on fixed income are concerned about the rising cost of living.  The employed are worried about their mortgage payments, foreclosure, falling housing values, high property taxes and credit card payments.  Junkies are worried about drugs, youth about the lack of jobs.  Why should they be exhausted or embarrassed about a city hall dog and pony show?  What we all need is “panem et circenses.”
 
And the plaintiff, Rochelle Collins, out of a job, fired, after twenty-one years with the city.  I’m sure she didn’t expect that when she became executive assistant to the mayor.  Would you?  What a way to end a career. 
 
The mayor and Burberry had their script together on this complaint, but what will they say when another person sues, and then another?  Collins may be the first, but will she be the last?  This may be the end of the first act, but with most full length plays the second act comes next and then, the finale?  
 

Let them eat cake

What we have here is a class problem, not a racial problem.  Burberry has an upper class attitude and life style.  She was making a $140,000 salary with $140,000 in benefits and perks.  That’s $280,000 per annum.  A few Detroit residents have a middle class income and perspective, while over 50% have a lower class environment.  That means the dollar store and used clothing outlets.  That means fast food and missed meals and bus rides.  That means SSI, welfare and no health insurance. Many Detroiters are functionally illiterate, unskilled and out of work.
“Forget about meeting with the senior senator from Michigan; I got to shop.  What’s that you say?  (As Jean-Jacques Rousseau said) The people have no bread.  No bread, let them eat cake.”   
 
Watch for the next episode of Burberry and the Wuss.  
 

References: The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

                      Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable

David Rambeau

David Rambeau is the producer of the television program, For My People, that airs Saturday mornings on Ch. 50 WKBD-TV and publisher of the Urban Theater Magazine.  Episodes of For My People may be found on Project BAIT’s web channel: youtube.com/projectbaitdet.   

Our 40th Anniversary Project BAIT t-shirts are available for $15 plus $5 s&h.  Call 313-871-3333 for or information.

Attorney Allison Folmar addressed media after Maryanne Godboldo’s arraignment in March; supporters listened

Defense fights to quash order that resulted in daughter’s seizure by police, affirm mother’s right to defend child and home 

By Diane Bukowski 

36th District Court Judge Ronald Giles

DETROIT  —  Thirty-Sixth District Court Judge Ronald Giles said June 30 that he is “ready to rule” in the Maryanne Godboldo case, both on a defense motion to quash the civil order police used as an excuse to break down her door to take her 13-year-old daughter in March, and a prosecution motion to suppress any evidence related to the court order. 

At the request of defense attorney Allison Folmar, however, he adjourned Godboldo’s preliminary exam on multiple charges of “assaulting, battering, wounding, resisting, obstructing, opposing, or endangering” Detroit police officers until Monday, July 25, “promptly” at 8:30 a.m. 

Maryanne Godboldo speaks to supporters at vigil outside Hawthorne Center during the time her daughter Ariana was held there involuntarily.

Godboldo has received international support in her stand against Child Protective Services’ attempt to take custody of Ariana, 13, in order to force her to take a dangerous psychotropic medication, Risperdal. A rally in her support is planned for Sunday, July 17 at the Little Rock Baptist Resource Center, 8801 Woodward at Gladstone, from 4 to 6 p.m. (Put “Godboldo” in VOD search engine to access earlier stories on case.)  

“How do you tell me I need to address the prosecution’s issue when I just got their motion today?” Folmar said. “Our issue is that the court order is not presumptively valid. I mean to address the matter of whether or not my client had the right to protect her child in her own home.” 

She displayed a copy of the initial document, “Order To Take Child(ren) into Protective Custody,” in the Godboldo case. It is blank at the line where the individual assigned to take custody is identified, says both that Child Protective Services did and did not “make reasonable efforts to prevent removal of the child(ren) from the home,”, and has only the rubber-stamped signature of Judge Leslie Kim Smith. Click on Order_to_Take_Children_into_Protective_Custody_321602_7[1] to view blank form from Department of Human Services website. 

“You can rubber stamp an order to take a car or a home, but you cannot rubber stamp an order to take a child,” Folmar said. 

Mia Wenk

CPS worker Mia Wenk obtained the order and contacted police to accompany her, although she was not on the porch when police knocked on Godboldo’s door. Folmar said Godboldo opened the door, asked if police had a warrant, and then closed it when they did not produce one. 

Folmar said the court order was stamped at 11:30 a.m. March 24, and police appeared on Godboldo’s doorstep later that afternoon. The order gives 30 days to take whatever action is requested. It is a civil order, not a criminal complaint. 

“Is it OK no judge ever read the order?” Folmar asked. “Is it OK that you can download an order online yourself and get it rubber-stamped with no legal ramifications? Is it OK that police can go to a person’s home to take their child with this order? You don’t kick in their door 10 minutes after being at the scene to execute a civil order. What was stopping them from leaving and going to court to get a warrant?” 

Not only did Detroit police kick in Godboldo’s door, they were part of a Special Response Team armed with assault weapons and armor, and brought armored vehicles to the home where only Godboldo and her daughter lived. 

“The last time Detroit police went storming into somebody’s home, they killed a little girl,” Folmar said. “If they had gotten in, they probably would have killed both Maryanne and her daughter,” Folmar said. Godboldo surrendered voluntarily after a 12-hour stand-off on the advice of community supporters and a judge.

Anastasia Worthy with mother as Kym Worthy was sworn in as WC Prosecutor Feb. 2004; where is justice for two other little girls--Aiyana Jones and Ariana Godboldo?

A Detroit police Special Response Team shot seven-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones to death after bombing her east-side home without warning in May of last year. That case has also engendered world-wide outrage. 

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has yet to file charges against Officer Joseph Weekley or others involved in the child’s death, but hurried to file “one count of Discharge of a Weapon in a Dwelling, three counts of Felonious Assault,  three counts of Resisting and Obstructing an Officer, and a Felony Firearm count” against Godboldo. Godboldo faces up to eight years in prison. 

Worthy herself is the single mother of an only child, Anastasia, who is close to Ariana’s age. Judge Giles and his wife Joyce Hayes-Giles, a DTE executive, are parents of two high-school age daughters. 

Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Paula Humphries earlier stayed all criminal proceedings in the Godboldo case until the Michigan Supreme Court decides People v. Moreno, a similar case involving police entrance into a home without a warrant. 

Ronald Giles with wife Joyce Hayes-Giles; DTE Board member Alfred Glancy and wife Ruth at right

In granting leave to appeal the Moreno case, the Supreme Court said, “The parties shall address 1) whether a person present in his/her own home can lawfully resist police officers who unlawfully and forcibly enter the home, without violating MCL 750.81d; 2) If not, whether so interpreted MCL 750.81d is unconstitutional; 3) Whether a defendant prosecuted under MCL 750.81d for resisting a police officer who unlawfully and forcibly enters defendant’s home can claim self-defense.” 

Judge Edward Ewell, Jr.

Third Circuit Court Judge Edward Ewell overturned the stay, saying the cases were dissimilar because the police had the court order, which he implied was equivalent to a criminal warrant.

According to the state’s court website, the Michigan Association for Justice (MAJ) plans to file an amicus brief on behalf of Angelo Moreno.

Attorney Racine Miller is writing the brief for the 2,000 member MAJ. She said she is in contact with and assisting Folmar in the Godboldo case, and that the Moreno case involves far more than one instance of unconstitutional actions by police.

“We filed (and were granted) leave to participate because the civil rights of our state’s citizens are being eroded in favor of a police state,” attorney Miller said. “Moreno is not just a criminal case nor is it just about what happened to Angel Moreno. The High Court’s decision will have a far broader impact. In 2004, we as citizens lost the right to resist an unlawful command given by a police officer when the [appeals court] decision in People v Ventura came down. The resisting and obstructing statute and Ventura are being called into question here. 

Racine Miller with her teenage daughters

“We have a tremendous opportunity to discuss with the Justices why not only the warrantless, forcible entry into our homes by police officers should not be condoned, but also to reclaim our right to resist unlawful police commands, and reexamine the intent of the resisting and obstructing statute 750.81d,  to ensure that it is constitutionally applied and that our legal system, law enforcement and judicial resources are not squandered by overreaching. I have two teenage daughters who are learning to drive, and police contact is all but certain. It is so painful to explain to them that they must obey an officer, regardless of what they know their rights to be, and fight about any misconduct through the proper channels after the fact. 

Diane Bukowski under arrest by Michigan State Troopers Nov. 4, 2008 for covering story of trooper chase that result in deaths of two Detroiters

 “Further, after what you’ve personally been through, it’s clear that there are more frequent instances of police abusing the authority they’ve been charged with – we cannot extend their ability to do so without legitimate justification.” 

[VOD ed. Diane Bukowski: I was charged and convicted of two counts under the same statute, while in the performance of my job as a journalist for The Michigan Citizen, in 2008. My appeal was denied, but my lawyers John Royal and Sharon McPhail have filed a motion for reconsideration, and plan to go to the State Supreme Court as well if that fails. Story coming on that matter. For further information on my case, click on http://freedianebukowski.org. ).

MCL 750.81d reads in part, “(1) Except as provided in subsections (2), (3), and (4), an individual who assaults, batters, wounds, resists, obstructs, opposes, or endangers a person who the individual knows or has reason to know is performing his or her duties is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 2 years or a fine of not more than $2,000.00, or both.”

Folmar said police were not lawfully performing their duties when they kicked Godboldo’s door in, and therefore she should not be subject to those charges.

Police state

“It would be outrageous and offend sensibility to think the police can break into a home without a warrant, or that when they knock you to the ground and you defend yourself you could be charged with a felony,” Moreno’s attorney, Craig Haehnel, of Grand Rapids, earlier told VOD. “It’s a violation of the Fourth Amendment.  . . . even under the current statute, the definition of ‘obstruction’ requires that it involves lawful activity [by the police].” 

Sandra Hines, who works with the Justice4Maryanne committee, called on the community to attend both the support rally for Godboldo July 17 as well as the court hearing July 25, en masse. 

From the Justice4Maryanne committee:

You are invited to the

Historic Little Rock Resource Center – 8801 Woodward Avenue at Gladstone
NEXT SUNDAY: July 17, 2011 at 4:00pm for
The Speak Out Rally and Fundraiser

To Stop Child Protective Services corruption, come to sign the Federal and State Petitions for an investigation of CPS. Also, come to enjoy the program and receive information. 

***Maryanne Godboldo is a catalyst for Michigan to put a stop to CPS Corruption.***

It’s time for us to speak up and SPEAK OUT about what CPS is doing. Please join us. Please spread the word about this event and this cause.

For more information, click on http://www.justice4maryanne.com/, call 313-867-4841, or email justice4maryanne@gmail.com

Prisoners must have access to loved ones, lawyers at affordable prices

Posted by Pete Eyre on Thursday, April 14, 2011

Prison Phone Justice – a new campaign launched by our friends at Prison Legal News (PLN) to “challenge prison phone kickbacks and the U.S. Prison Telephone Industry” – could dramatically improve the lives of those caged by lessening their costs when calling the outside world.

This past week PLN announced their exhaustive report that details the bureaucratic kickback structure that has spawned as a result of the warehousing of individuals in cages. According to their press release:

The report, based on several years of research that included submitting public records requests in all 50 states, found that prison phone companies routinely provide kickbacks – euphemistically known as “commissions” – to contracting government agencies, based on a percentage of the revenue earned from prisoners’ phone calls.

These kickbacks, which average 42% of gross revenue, generated over $152 million nationwide in 2007-2008. Since the vast majority of prisoners’ phone calls are paid by their families, either by accepting collect calls or by funding pre-paid or debit accounts, most of the kickback money comes from prisoners’ family members.

According to the Facts page on Prison Phone Justice:

Women prisoners need to talk to their children

Put into simple terms, up to 60% of the costs of calls from prison has nothing to do with the cost of the phone service provided. So when Mary talks to her husband 40% percent of the cost is for the service and 60% is a kickback to the state government.

Though I’ve never been caged in prison, I have experienced the restrictive access and prohibitive cost of making calls from jail. When my friend Ademo was jailed in Las Vegas there was a $10 fee each time he called out, plus a charge for each minute on the phone. For those caged for longer periods of time (prison entails a sentence of over a year) it only compounds the financial burden to the family on the outside. Not only are they left without the income that that caged person may have contributed (a loss), but merely staying in touch erodes their bottom line (another loss).

Help Prison Phone Justice change the Status Quo. Make it easier for those caged to reach their loved ones, to have better access to legal help and other resources, and to do interviews to share their story with others.

Crowd gathered at AFSCME Council 25 hall to kick off referendum campaign against PA 4 chants, "Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights."

Successful referendum petition will immediately freeze PA 4; lawsuit challenges state constitutionality

By Diane Bukowski 

June 30, 2011

DETROIT, – Labor and community groups from across Michigan are determined to deliver a fatal one-two punch to Public Act 4, popularly known as the Dictator Act.

PUNCH #1: VOTER REFERENDUM ROLLED OUT JUNE 18

Cecily McClellan has Morris Mays sign referendum petition against PA 4

“Voters around the state see emergency managers as a naked power grab by Lansing,” the Committee to Stand Up for Democracy said in a release June 17. “Thanks to PA 4, political opponents of officials on the local level don’t have to beat them in elections. They can simply circumvent the vote by getting Lansing politicians to appoint friends who support their political agenda. This is not democracy and it violates the right of Michigan citizens to elect a local, representative government.”

The Committee, a coalition of community, religious, labor and progressive organizations, rolled out a petition campaign at meetings in 13 cities across Michigan June 18, aiming to put a referendum vote on the state ballot in the Nov. 2012 elections. According to the State Constitution, once 161,000 signatures are collected and validated by the state elections bureau, PA 4 will be suspended until the state’s voters have their say.

Greg Bowens, media representative for the Coalition, said at an earlier meeting that current emergency managers would be forced to step down in the interim. He also explained that since the previous Local Government Fiscal Responsibility Act 72 of 1990, was replaced by PA 4, it is no longer on the book and will not be in effect either.

DPS EM Roy Roberts with Rick-tator Snyder

“Watch out, Joe Harris, Mike Stampfler, and Roy Roberts,” said one PA 4 opponent (who asked not to be identified), recently.  “You are about to lose your fascist powers and you had better hope you don’t meet the fate of previous Emergency Financial Managers (EFM’s) for the Detroit Public Schools as well, because justice WILL be contagious.”

Kenneth Burnley, RIP

Bobb

Former DPS EFM Kenneth Burnley, Jr., 69, who decimated the district with school closings, lay-offs, and massive privatization, died unexpectedly July 2 after undergoing knee surgery in Colorado. His successor, Robert Bobb, has been diagnosed with throat cancer.

Joe Harris

Joe Harris is currently EM of Benton Harbor and has already stripped the city’s mayor and city commissioners of their powers, along with banning the city’s residents from beautiful PUBLIC Jean Klock park and beach during certain hours (see VOD story at http://voiceofdetroit.net/?p=8318.)

Roberts is the current EM for DPS and is carrying out more school closings and charterization of what little remains of the district. Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson reported at an earlier meeting that Roberts told him he plans to abrogate the DFT contract.

Keith Johnson

All of DPS’ teachers have received lay-off notices and it is unclear who, if anyone, will be called back. Johnson said he is waiting to see what happens before taking legal action.

Mike Stampfler

Stampfler, Pontiac’s EM, dismantled Pontiac’s City Commission in May and later proposed that Pontiac be dissolved and merge with Oakland County. Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, however, was averse to taking the majority Black city of Pontiac under the wing of the wealthiest (and predominantly white) county in the country.

At the AFSCME Council 25 hall in Detroit June 18, over one hundred union and community individuals showed up to get petitions and red and white T-shirts declaring “STAND UP FOR DEMOCRACY!” They marched into the hall chanting, “GET UP, STAND UP, STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS,” taken from the famous Bob Marley song.

Herb Sanders

Attorney Herbert Sanders, who is also an international representative for AFSCME, addressed the gathering. Sanders, Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, and a coalition known as “We Are the People” have already held massive rallies up to 10,000 strong in Lansing, Michigan to denounce PA4, Governor Rick Snyder and the state’s anti-labor, anti-community legislators.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON HOW PEOPLE CAN VOLUNTEER TO STAND UP FOR DEMOCRACY, AND COLLECT PETITION SIGNATURES, CALL 1-866-306-5168. The Committee is headquartered at 1034 N. Washington, Lansing, MI. 48906. Facebook page is at

http://www.facebook.com/LansingCommunityActionTeam?sk=wall&filter=2. 

Plaintiff Edith Lee Payne addresses press conference June 22 to oppose PA 4; plaintiffs Evelyn Foreman and Les Little are to her left; Attorneys Darius Charney and John Philo at far left, Monica Patrick (next to sign), Charles Brown and Councilwoman Joann Watson at far right

PUNCH#2:  STATE-WIDE LAWSUIT FILED IN INGHAM COUNTY JUNE 22

Four local law firms and New York City’s Center For Constitutional Rights filed suit against PA 4 on  June 22 in Ingham County Circuit Court. There are 28 plaintiffs from across the state from all walks of life. Defendants are Governor Rick Snyder and State Treasurer Andy Dillon.

The lawsuit, #11-685-CZ, has been assigned to 30^th Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie E. Aquilina, but no hearings have been set to date. Aquilina was elected to her seat in 2008 after serving as 55^th District Court Judge since 2004.  She is a major in the Michigan Army National Guard, where she received a commendation medal for Operation Desert Storm and the Army Achievement Medal, and also an adjunct professor at Thomas Cooley Law School.

Press conferences announcing the filing of the lawsuit took place in Detroit, Lansing, Benton Harbor, Pontiac, Flint, and Grand Rapids June 22.

In Detroit, City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, along with three of the Detroit plaintiffs, Edith Lee-Payne, Evelyn Foreman, and Leslie Little, stood in front of the Spirit of Detroit statute outside the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. They were joined by attorneys including John Philo of the Sugar Law Center and Darius Charney of CCR, who flew in from New York for the event.

Child wonders when legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. will be fulfilled

“I marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 48 years ago both here in Detroit and in Washington, D.C.,” Payne said. “As a Christian, mother of two sons, grandmother of eight, and civil rights activist with experiences of racial and social injustices, I have a personal and moral duty to ensure my family and community continue to inherit the constitutional provisions they are entitled to morally and legally in every area of their lives. Countless Black Americans met their deaths with freedom papers in their hands because a select few people refused to acknowledge their rights and freedom.”

Payne has been active recently in battling DTE’s shut-off practices, neglect of Detroit neighborhoods, and takeover of the city’s public lighting provision.

Foreman is a retired Detroit Public Schools teacher who decried the damage that state takeovers have done to the district and the city’s youth, while Little is a long-time community activist, currently working with Hood Research.

Juanita Henry

A Benton Harbor plaintiff, The Honorable Juanita Henry, is a city commissioner who was stripped of her duties by EM Joe Harris.

“They are using Benton Harbor as a test case,” Henry said in earlier remarks. “If they have disenfranchised the people so badly they just don’t respond to anything, they can do this all over the country.”

Unionists and community activists confronted Governor Rick Snyder in person at the area’s Blossomtime Festival in Benton Harbor and St. Joseph (date go to), and previously protested outside City Hall (Click on http://voiceofdetroit.net/?p=7162 for story.)

Tameka Ramsey

Pontiac plaintiff Tameka Ramsey said, “At a time when every community is struggling and tightening their belts, what Michigan families need and deserve are real solutions from Lansing. Instead, they now face bagmen from big banks who will end services and cut jobs with zero input from local families.”

Philo said the country’s big corporations and financial institutions are behind the enactment of laws like PA 4, which will make it easier for them to pillage the assets of local governments during their own economic crisis.

The lawsuit says PA 4 violates numerous provisions of the Constitution of the State of Michigan.

They include the Nondelegation Doctrine, which provides that powers of legislative bodies (like Detroit’s City Council) cannot be delegated to the city’s chief administrative officer (like Mayor Dave Bing, who was recently exposed in a lawsuit claiming that he met with Gov. Snyder and others to make sure PA 4 would include such provisions.
The Nondelegation Doctrine also bars powers of local officials from being delegated to emergency managers, says the lawsuit.

It says PA 4 delegates more power than the legislature possesses by allowing emergency managers to repeal acts taken by local government bodies, abrogates the right of local electors to form charters such as the Detroit City Charter, and to elect their own officials.

It also cites the Headlee Amendment, which requires that new rules enforced on local governments must be accompanied by adequate financing. PA 4 requires local governments to fund all the expenses associated with emergency managers, without providing any additional funds .

The lawsuit asks for a declaration by the court that the Act violates the State Constitution, and for injunctive relief “restraining present and future emergency managers appointed under the act from implementing or exercising authority and powers” conveyed by the act.

Philo said the lawsuit does not ask for monetary damages to citizens, although it does ask for “attorneys’ fees and costs, and for such further relief as is just and equitable.”

We are the People rally in Lansing April 13

Tanks roll down Linwood to confront Maryanne and Ariana Godboldo, a lone mother and child in their home, on Mar. 24, 2011

AlterNet / By Rania Khalek

Why Do the Police Have Tanks? The Strange and Dangerous Militarization of the US Police Force

The federal government has supplied local police departments with military uniforms, weaponry, vehicles, and training.

July 5, 2011  |  

Aiyana Stanley-Jones, murdered by Detroit police assault team

Just after midnight on May 16, 2010, a SWAT team threw a flash-bang grenade through the window of a 25-year-old man while his 7-year-old daughter slept on the couch as her grandmother watched television. The grenade landed so close to the child that it burned her blanket. The SWAT team leader then burst into the house and fired a single shot which struck the child in the throat, killing her. (VOD ed. correction: the bullet struck her in the top of the head). The police were there to apprehend a man suspected of murdering a teenage boy days earlier. The man they were after lived in the unit above the girl’s family.

The shooting death of Aiyana Mo’Nay Stanley-Jones sounds like it happened in a war zone. But the tragic SWAT team raid took place in Detroit.

Shockingly, paramilitary raids that mirror the tactics of US soldiers in combat are not uncommon in America. According to an investigation carried out by the Huffington Post’s Radley Balko, America has seen a disturbing militarization of its civilian law enforcement over the last 30 years, along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary police units for routine police work. In fact, the most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home.

Police with assault weapons stalk Maryanne and Ariana Godboldo March 24, 2011

Some 40,000 of these raids take place every year, and are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they’re sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. And as demonstrated by the case of Aiyana Mo’nay Stanley-Jones, these raids have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and injuries.

How did we allow our law enforcement apparatus to descend into militaristic chaos? Traditionally, the role of civilian police has been to maintain the peace and safety of the community while upholding the civil liberties of residents in their respective jurisdiction. In stark contrast, the military soldier is an agent of war, trained to kill the enemy.

Clearly, the mission of the police officer is incompatible with that of a soldier, so why is it that local police departments are looking more and more like paramilitary units in a combat zone? The line between military and civilian law enforcement has been drawn for good reason, but following the drug war and more recently, the war on terror, that line is inconspicuously eroding, a trend that appears to be worsening by the decade.

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 is a civil war-era law that prohibits the use of the military for civilian policing. For a long time, Posse Comitatus was considered the law of the land, forcing militarization advocates to come up with creative ways to get around it. In addition to assigning various law enforcement duties to the military, such as immigration control, over the years Congress has instituted policies that encourage law enforcement to emulate combat soldiers. Hence, the establishment of the SWAT team in the 1960s.

Birth of SWAT in LA police raid on Black Panthers

Originally called the Special Weapons Attack Team, the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) units were inspired by an incident in 1966, when an armed man climbed to the top of the 32-story clock tower at the University of Texas in Austin and fired randomly for 90 minutes, shooting 46 people and killing 15, until two police officers got to the top of the tower and killed him. This episode is said to have “shattered the last myth of safety Americans enjoyed [and] was the final impetus the chiefs of police needed” to form their own SWAT teams. Soon after, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) formed the country’s first SWAT team, which acquired national prestige when used against the Black Panthers in 1969. (VOD ed: Click on  http://witnessla.com/lapd/2011/admin/41st-and-central-1969-the-black-panther-shootout-the-birth-of-swat/.)

Continue reading →

Rennie Gibbs (Facebook photo)

 A new front in the culture wars over abortion.

The Guardian / By Ed Pilkington

July 4, 2011  

Rennie Gibbs is accused of murder, but the crime she is alleged to have committed does not sound like an ordinary killing. Yet she faces life in prison in Mississippi over the death of her unborn child.

Gibbs became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006 in a stillbirth when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy. When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit – though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do with the baby’s death – they charged her with the “depraved-heart murder” of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence.

 Gibbs is the first woman in Mississippi to be charged with murder relating to the loss of her unborn baby. But her case is by no means isolated. Across the US more and more prosecutions are being brought that seek to turn pregnant women into criminals.

 “Women are being stripped of their constitutional personhood and subjected to truly cruel laws,” said Lynn Paltrow of the campaign National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW). “It’s turning pregnant women into a different class of person and removing them of their rights.”

Bei Bei Shuai

 Bei Bei Shuai, 34, has spent the past three months in a prison cell in Indianapolis charged with murdering her baby. On 23 December she tried to commit suicide by taking rat poison after her boyfriend abandoned her.

 Shuai was rushed to hospital and survived, but she was 33 weeks pregnant and her baby, to whom she gave birth a week after the suicide attempt and whom she called Angel, died after four days. In March Shuai was charged with murder and attempted foeticide and she has been in custody since without the offer of bail.

 In Alabama at least 40 cases have been brought under the state’s “chemical endangerment” law. Introduced in 2006, the statute was designed to protect children whose parents were cooking methamphetamine in the home and thus putting their children at risk from inhaling the fumes.

Amanda Kimbrough

Amanda Kimbrough is one of the women who have been ensnared as a result of the law being applied in a wholly different way. During her pregnancy her fetus was diagnosed with possible Down’s syndrome and doctors suggested she consider a termination, which Kimbrough declined as she is not in favour of abortion.

 The baby was delivered by caesarean section prematurely in April 2008 and died 19 minutes after birth.

 Six months later Kimbrough was arrested at home and charged with “chemical endangerment” of her unborn child on the grounds that she had taken drugs during the pregnancy – a claim she has denied.

 “That shocked me, it really did,” Kimbrough said. “I had lost a child, that was enough.”

 She now awaits an appeal ruling from the higher courts in Alabama, which if she loses will see her begin a 10-year sentence behind bars. “I’m just living one day at a time, looking after my three other kids,” she said. “They say I’m a criminal, how do I answer that? I’m a good mother.”

Women’s rights campaigners see the creeping criminalization of pregnant women as a new front in the culture wars over abortion, in which conservative prosecutors are chipping away at hard-won freedoms by stretching protection laws to include foetuses, in some cases from the day of conception. In Gibbs’ case defence lawyers have argued before Mississippi’s highest court that her prosecution makes no sense. Under Mississippi law it is a crime for any person except the mother to try to cause an abortion.

US judge frees 2 men wrongly jailed 30 years; Phillip Bivens, second from right, with (from left) attorney Robert McDuff and Emily Maw and Richard Davis of the Innocence Project New Orleans.

“If it’s not a crime for a mother to intentionally end her pregnancy, how can it be a crime for her to do it unintentionally, whether by taking drugs or smoking or whatever it is,” Robert McDuff, a civil rights lawyer asked the state supreme court.

 McDuff told the Guardian that he hoped the Gibbs prosecution was an isolated example. “I hope it’s not a trend that’s going to catch on. To charge a woman with murder because of something she did during pregnancy is really unprecedented and quite extreme.”

He pointed out that anti-abortion groups were trying to amend the Mississippi constitution by setting up a state referendum, or ballot initiative, that would widen the definition of a person under the state’s bill of rights to include a fetus from the day of conception.

Some 70 organisations across America have come together to file testimonies, known as amicus briefs, in support of Gibbs that protest against her treatment on several levels. One says that to treat “as a murderer a girl who has experienced a stillbirth serves only to increase her suffering”.

Another, from a group of psychologists, laments the misunderstanding of addiction that lies behind the indictment. Gibbs did not take cocaine because she had a “depraved heart” or to “harm the fetus but to satisfy an acute psychological and physical need for that particular substance”, says the brief.

Lynn Paltrow, second from left

Perhaps the most persuasive argument put forward in the amicus briefs is that if such prosecutions were designed to protect the unborn child, then they would be utterly counter-productive: “Prosecuting women and girls for continuing [a pregnancy] to term despite a drug addiction encourages them to terminate wanted pregnancies to avoid criminal penalties. The state could not have intended this result when it adopted the homicide statute.”

Paltrow sees what is happening to Gibbs as a small taste of what would be unleashed were the constitutional right to an abortion ever overturned. “In Mississippi the use of the murder statute is creating a whole new legal standard that makes women accountable for the outcome of their pregnancies and threatens them with life imprisonment for murder.” 

From protection to punishment

At least 38 of the 50 states across America have introduced fetal homicide laws that were intended to protect pregnant women and their unborn children from violent attacks by third parties – usually abusive male partners – but are increasingly being turned by renegade prosecutors against the women themselves.

 South Carolina was one of the first states to introduce such a fetal homicide law. National Advocates for Pregnant Women has found only one case of a South Carolina man who assaulted a pregnant woman having been charged under its terms, and his conviction was eventually overturned. Yet the group estimates there have been up to 300 women arrested for their actions during pregnancy. 

In other states laws designed to protect children against the damaging effects of drugs have similarly been twisted to punish childbearers. 

Ed Pilkington is the Guardian’s New York correspondent. He is a former national and foreign editor of the paper, and author of Beyond the Mother Country.

2004 March for Women's Lives Photo by Jo Freeman

Students and supporters rally against Prop. 2 in Lansing in 2006

• Tyranny of the majority overcome in Michigan

• “Thousands of talented Black, Latino and Native American students now have chance to receive education at the state’s finest universities”

By Diane Bukowski

BAMN attorney Monica Smith describes her experience in law school as Shanta Driver and George Washington listen, July 1. 2011

DETROIT, July 1 — In a stunning and long-thirsted for victory against the forces of reaction in this country, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals declared Michigan’s Proposal 2 unconstitutional July 1, paving the way to re-instate affirmative action programs in the state.

Michigan voters passed Proposal 2, a state constitutional amendment, in Nov. 2006. It struck down all programs in public educational institutions granting “preferential treatment . . . to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.”

That included not only students, but workers and businesses contracting with the institutions. Nine out of ten Black voters voted against Proposal 2, but it passed by 58 percent because white voters supported it two to one.

NAACP, ACLU and others also rallied at state capitol in 2006, following BAMN's lead

“This decision means that thousands of talented Black, Latino and Native American students will now have a chance to receive an education at the state’s best universities,” said attorney Shanta Driver, who is National Chairperson of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), the plaintiff in the case. “It is a great victory for the new civil rights movement.”

Driver and attorneys George Washington and Monica Smith spoke at a press conference in their downtown Detroit law offices July 1. They said the Sixth Circuit essentially ruled that Michigan could not prevent minorities from seeking admission programs that benefited them while allowing other groups, including children of alumni, athletes, and those scoring good grades in privileged high schools, to seek their own admission programs.

California "Civil Whites Initiative" 209

BAMN has a similar lawsuit pending in the Ninth Circuit against California’s Proposition 209.

“This puts affirmative action back on the national agenda,” Washington said. “The Sixth Circuit’s decision today applies to Proposition 209 and means that the Ninth Circuit has to reexamine its 1996 decision upholding 209.”

The 2-1 decision by the Sixth Circuit, authored by Judge Ransey Cole, Jr., was bold and unequivocal. (Click on  Prop 2 DECISION_BY_SIXTH_CIRCUITto read the full decision.)

“Our task is to determine whether Proposal 2 is constitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” Cole wrote. “Fortunately, the slate is not blank. The Supreme Court has twice held that equal protection does not permit the kind of political restructuring that Proposal 2 effected. . . . we find that Proposal 2 unconstitutionally alters Michigan’s political structure by impermissibly burdening racial minorities. Accordingly, we REVERSE the district court’s grant of summary judgment for the Defendants-Appellees and order the court to enter summary judgment in favor of the Plaintiff-Appellees.”

Students at UM rally against Missouri Civil Rights Initiative April 2008 Photo by Nick King

The Sixth Circuit also denied motions by the presidents and boards of the University of Michigan, Wayne State University, and Michigan State University to be dismissed as defendants, in effect ordering them to restore their affirmative action programs.

Cole wrote that two previous Supreme Court decisions, Seattle, 458 U.S. at 467, and Hunter, 393 U.S. at 393, clarify that equal protection of the law is also “an assurance that the majority may not manipulate the channels of change in a manner that places unique burdens on issues of importance to racial minorities . . . . an electoral minority is by definition disadvantaged in its attempts to pass legislation.”

U.S. Sixth Circuit Judge Ransey Guy Cole, Jr.

He thereby shot down arguments by the State Attorney General that people of color in Michigan could overturn the law by conducting their own referendum campaign.

In effect, he took a page straight out of The Tyranny of the Majority, Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy, by Lani Guinier, former candidate for head of the U.S. Justice Civil Rights Department. She proposes alternative scenarios for an electoral process that inherently disadvantages citizens in “minority” groups, who will always lose in a racially-charged climate.

Washington, Driver and Smith said the BAMN court victory resulted from years of struggle by hundreds of .thousands of people, beginning with a 2003 march of 50,000 on the U.S. Supreme Court, when the Court was about to hear two lawsuits challenging the University of Michigan’s affirmative action programs.

Smith entered Wayne State’s law school in 2006 just before Prop 2 passed, and graduated in 2009.

WSU Law School Student Board of Governors

“There were 22 Black students in my class [a total of 145 students graduated in 2010 according to WSU law website],” Smith said. “The next year that number dropped to 11. We have been fighting for years for equality, for the right to live up to our full potential. I graduated from Cass Technical High School, which was 95 percent Black, and I faced many kinds of discrimination at Wayne State, but I passed the bar on my first try. The reason we are victorious now is because we built a movement, we showed our opponents that we do have the power and we will win!”

UM Med School residents, class of 2013

Driver added, “As we watch the rise of the new Jim Crow, this victory is really sweet. Affirmative action programs were always desegregation programs. We saw the most dramatic effects of Proposal 2 in law schools and medical schools. WSU’s medical school used to rank among the best in the country in graduating Black doctors. Their numbers dropped dramatically after Prop 2 passed. At UM’s law school, there was a 75 percent drop in the number of Black and Latino students. We had seen it happen in California with Proposition 209, and we knew it would happen here.”

Michigan’s Attorney General Bill Schuette said in a statement that he will appeal the ruling through a formal request for rehearing enbanc (with the full U.S. Sixth Circuit Court). He claimed Proposal would remain in force pending their decision.

Michigan Attorney Bill Schuette

He cynically called Proposal 2 “The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative” (MCRI), the name used by the group which put it on the ballot, led by California regent Ward Conerly and financed by millions in donations from right-wing foundations. BAMN battled to keep the proposal off the ballot, gathering numerous affidavits from witnesses indicating that its petition gatherers were telling signers that it supported affirmative action.

“MCRI embodies the fundamental premise of what America is all about: equal opportunity under the law,” said Schuette. “Entrance to our great universities must be based upon merit, and I will continue the fight for equality, fairness and rule of law.”

But BAMN’s attorneys welcomed the opportunity to broaden the struggle. They said if the case ends up at the U.S. Supreme Court, they will mobilize millions more across the U.S. in support of affirmative action.

George Wallace standing in Mississippi school door to prevent Blacks from attending

“Schuette and Michigan’s Governor Rick Snyder are standing in the schoolhouse door just as George Wallace did in Mississippi,” Washington said.

The attorneys also stressed the necessity of building a movement for fully-financed, free public education at all levels.

Smith recently coordinated the battle to save Catherine Ferguson Academy, a Detroit Public School which garnered national attention because it educates teen mothers and their children as well. On June 16, CFA achieved a partial victory, when the district announced the school would remain open as a charter.

Rally to save CFA May 11, 2011

Most of the Detroit Public School system has been decimated. Over half of its schools have closed during two state take-overs since 1999, thousands of Detroit resident teachers and support staff have lost their jobs, and private contracts have been doled out to wealthy corporations like candy.

Under state law, Detroit Public Schools students receive approximately $7,600 in state per-pupil aid, while students from wealthy suburbs like Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills receive approximately $12,000.

Smith said the effect on Detroit’s youth has been disastrous, and along with the ban on affirmative action further limits their opportunities to achieve their full potential by attending college and securing well-paying jobs to support their families.

Go to www.bamn.com for more information on the group’s national struggles; Monica Smith can be reached at 313-585-3637,

Translation of Gaddafi speech by Karim Budabuss:

The leader is talking now. He is saying that this is a historical day, and he is challenging Sarkozy, Cameron and Obama to switch on their TVs and watch the crowds and he is saying that they will find out that they are delusional because they entered a war which they never win, he also says if you continue targeting our houses we can do the same because Europe is not far away but he said let’s not do this and watch the crowds, kids and women. They are not here because I ordered them to, it is their free will. In this war you are not facing me you are facing these crowds. I am nothing, if you want peace with Libyans, it is up to the crowds. If you want anything , negotiate with the crowds. The regime is not a Gaddafi regime, it is a Libyan regime. Even if many got scared, defected and escaped, the Libyans will remain, and each coward will be replaced with a hero. Is it a democracy to bomb the civilians? We don’t want a democracy which comes with bombs. The socialist Jamahyria will win, the real democracy which serves the people.

I advise you to stop bombing, and stop becoming merecenaries for some rebels. The Libyans said their words, they marched, their tribes made it clear that the future is for Libyans, the oil is for Libya, Libya is ours. You are delusional, a group of traitors convinced you that Libya is easy to get, you hired mercenarie , propaganda, psychological war, but all that didn’t allow you to make any progress on the ground. Turn on your TVs and watch the longest Libyan flag 4.5 km, I didn’t make this flag, people donated to make this flag. Those rebels are no different from who betrayed Libya during the Italian invasion. Libyan people go in millions without weapons to liberate the regions under rebel control. You Libyan people are the only one who can finish this war with a victory. If they want to negotiate we welcome that, otherwise we are continuing and they are definitely losing no matter how many weapons they drop with parachutes to the rebels. We will not betray our history nor our children and their future. The glory is for you brave Libyans, the struggle will continue.

Translation from: http://www.facebook.com/VivaGaddafi

(VOD ed. note: Cynthia McKinney is back in the U.S.; at time of press conference sponsored by Min. Louis Farrakhan in video above, she was still in Libya)

Press Conference on War Against Libya
Atlanta, Georgia (in front of Congressman John Lewis’s District Office)
29 June 2011

Pres. Obama places medal of freedom on U.S. Cong. John Lewis; Lewis did not join the majority of the House of Representatives in voting against continued funding for the war on Libya

At a time when the American people have been asked to tighten their belts, teachers are receiving pink slips, the vital statistics of the American people reveal a health care crisis in the making, and the U.S. government is in serious threat of default, our President and Congress have decided that a new war, this time against the people of Libya, is appropriate.

This comes at a time when the U.S., by one estimate, spends approximately $3 billion per week for war against Iraq and Afghanistan.  The President and Congress continue to fund the war against Libya despite the fact that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that the U.S. had no strategic interest in Libya; and despite the fact that the Senate Chairwoman of the Select Committee on Intelligence admits that the U.S. really does not know who the “rebels” are; while the rebels themselves, according to a Telegraph report of 25 March 2011, admit that Al Qaeda elements are among their ranks. 

So while the apparatus of our government has been used for over ten years to inform the American people and the global community that Al Qaeda is an enemy of freedom-loving people all over the world, our President chooses to ally our military with none other than Al Qaeda elements in Libya and other people whom U.S. intelligence say they do not know.

Libyans rally in support of Qaddafi at house where his son and three little grandchildren were murdered by US/NATO bombs

Additionally, U.S. Admiral Locklear admitted to a Member of Congress that one of NATO’s missions was to assassinate Muammar Qaddafi.  And, indeed, NATO bombs have killed Qaddafi’s son and three grandchildren, just as US bombs in 1986 killed his daughter.  NATO bombs just recently killed the grandchildren of one of Qaddafi’s associates in a targeted assassination attempt. Targeted assassination is not within the scope of the United Nations Security Council Resolution and targeted assassination is against U.S. law, international law, international humanitarian law, and international human rights law.  Targeted assassination is also a crime.  We certainly cannot encourage others to abide by the law when we so openly break it.

While in Libya, I witnessed NATO’s targeting of civilians:  NATO bombs and missiles landed in residential neighborhoods, hit schools, exploded near hospitals, destroyed parts of the public broadcasting infrastructure, and narrowly missed killing students at Al Fateh University.  When civilians are targeted in war, or “low kinetic” activities, crimes are committed.

Israel's deadly assault on Gaza

NATO practices in Libya are exactly like Israel’s practices in Gaza:  fishermen are killed as they go about their fishing business, a naval blockade allows arms to flow to NATO’s Libyan allies, but stops food, fuel, and medicine from entering non-NATO ally-held areas.  The entire population suffers as a result.  Collective punishment is illegal when Israel practices it against the people of Gaza and collective punishment is illegal when NATO practices it.

NATO and hyperbolic press accounts have introduced a kind of race hatred that the Libyan people have been trying hard to erase.  Approximately 50% of Libya looks like me.  Innocent darker skinned Libyans have been targeted, tortured, harassed, and killed.

The people of Libya have the right to self-determination.  They have a right to “resource nationalism.”  They have a right to live in peace.  They have a right to determine their future and they need not exercise their rights underneath the shock and awe of NATO bombs and missiles.