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

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On March 4, VOD will have to pay our quarterly web hosting fee of $380 in order to keep the paper online. This will be a struggle this month. VOD operates on a skeleton budget provided by editors and reporters that live on fixed incomes outside and inside the walls and we sincerely appreciate any donations our readers can afford to keep us going into our 11th year.

We have focused lately on stories related to mass incarceration, the ongoing reincarnation of slavery in the U.S. which disproportionately devastates Black and other communities of color and currently is subjecting millions to virtual COVID-19 execution.

Our many stories on the case of Thelonious ‘Shawn’ Searcy hopefully contributed to his recent appellate victory, We look forward joyfully to his eventual release. Stories on the innocence cases of Temujin Kensu, Larry Smith and Kenneth Nixon are in the works, along with our continuing coverage of the cases of Ricky Rimmer, Carl Hubbard, and Darrell Ewing and Derrico Searcy.

STOP WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS!

END DEATH BY INCARCERATION!

STOP EXECUTION BY COVID-19!

Please DONATE TO VOD at
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13TH AMENDMENT TO U.S. CONSTITUTION SANCTIONS SLAVERY IN PRISON.

Recent VOD stories relating to mass incarceration:

• THELONIOUS ‘SHAWN’ SEARCY WINS NEW TRIAL; MICH. APPEALS COURT CITES HITMAN’S CONFESSION, BALLISTICS | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought
• 150 MICHIGAN JUVENILE LIFERS FACE POSSIBLE DEATH FROM COVID-19 AS THEY SERVE OUTLAWED SENTENCES
• APPEALS COURT TO HEAR SEARCY CASE FEB. 4: HITMAN CONFESSED TO MURDER, LIES TOLD ABOUT FATAL BULLETS
• DO PRISONERS LIVES MATTER? 125 NOW DEAD, HALF IN MICH. DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS INFECTED WITH COVID-19
• ACLU TO MICH. GOV. WHITMER: COVID-19 VACCINES FOR PRISONERS NOW, A MATTER OF LIFE OR DEATH
• NO ONE SHOULD GO TO PRISON FOR A CRIME THEY DIDN’T COMMIT–THE EXONERATED CENTRAL PARK FIVE
• CAPITALISM ON A VENTILATOR: THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 IN CHINA AND THE U.S.–BLACK AGENDA REPORT
• POPE FRANCIS ON COVID-19 VACCINE: NEEDY, VULNERABLE MUST COME FIRST; HE VISITS PRISONERS WORLD-WIDE
• IS MICHIGAN USING TRUMP’S COVID-19 ‘HERD IMMUNITY’ STRATEGY TO KILL OFF PRISON POPULATION?
• MICHIGAN PRISONERS NEED COVID-19 VACCINES NOW, SAY ADVOCATES; A.M.A., OTHERS DEMAND 1st-TIER PRIORITY
• COPING WITH COVID-19 IN MICHIGAN PRISONS: RALLY BY ‘SILENT CRY’ FRI. DEC. 11 AT GUS HARRISON CF IN ADRIAN
• DARNELL SUMMERS FIGHTS GLOBAL 52-YR. WITCHHUNT IN COP KILLING; SUPPORTS OTHERS STILL IN PRISON

(L to r) Thelonious ‘Shawn’ Searcy today; daughter LaShyra with relative and Searcy grandmother Edna Richardson at court hearing in 2018; Searcy with LaShyra as toddler, 2004

Panel says 3rd Circuit Court Chief Judge Timothy Kenny “abused discretion” in nixing Smothers’ confession, committed legal errors

Finds that court repeatedly withheld key ballistics evidence identifying murder weapon  from Searcy jury 

Defense attorney Michael Dezsi calls on prosecution to dismiss charges

By Diane Bukowski 

February 14, 2021

Update April 20, 2021: DeAnthony Witcher, referenced in stories on Thelonious Searcy case, stated in a phone call to VOD Editor Diane Bukowski that he is NOT a police  informant and denies all allegations made against him in any and all stories on the Thelonious Searcy case.

DETROIT—Seventeen years after Thelonious ‘Shawn’ Searcy, now 41, was sentenced to life without parole for murder, a Michigan appeals court has granted him a new trial. A confession by Vincent Smothers, an admitted hit man, to the Sept. 2004 murder of Jamal Segars near Detroit City Airport, and ballistics evidence withheld from Searcy’s jury were key to the unanimous ruling handed down Feb. 11.

“When considering the trial evidence in light of the other evidence that would be presented at retrial, we conclude that Searcy has a reasonably likely chance of acquittal,” the Appeals Court said. “Therefore, the trial court abused its discretion by denying Searcy’s motion for relief from judgment with respect to Searcy’s claim of new evidence relating to [Vincent] Smothers.” See:  http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/COA-Thelonious-Searcy-20210211_C349169_62_349169.OPN-3-1.pdf

Chief Judge Timothy Kenny

Timothy Kenny, now Chief Judge of Wayne Co.’s Third Judicial Circuit Court, presided over Searcy’s trial in 2005 and at his evidentiary hearing in 2018, which Kenny ordered based on Searcy’s own pro se motion for a new trial filed from behind prison walls.

“I can’t thank God enough for his everlasting mercy and grace for my life,” Searcy reacted. “As I stood in the midst of my storm of affliction, He never left me. He bound up every wicked and evil principality scheme that the enemy had for my life, through multiple angels that he surrounded me by on my day of judgment.”

Searcy, a father of two daughters, has earned outstanding grades in paralegal courses during his time in prison. He worked closely with defense attorney Michael Dezsi, who represented him at the 2018 hearing and during multiple appeals of Kenny’s denial of his motion.

“I’m happy the Court of Appeals examined the overwhelming new evidence showing that Mr. Searcy didn’t commit the murder for which he has now served almost 17 years in prison,” Dezsi said. “Indeed, the Court of Appeals noted in its decision that my client would likely be acquitted upon presentation of this new evidence.”

COA hearing Thelonious Searcy Feb. 4, 2021 on Zoom/top: Judges Mark Cavanagh, Deborah Servitto, Thomas Cameron; below, (l) WCPO AP Thomas Chambers, (r) defense atty. Michael Dezsi

He said “glaring questions” remain about how the prosecution misled the jury on the bullets found in Segars’ body. “We now know it doesn’t match the gun presented at trial as the murder weapon. Given these obvious problems with the prosecution’s case, it is my sincere belief that the prosecution should dismiss the charges against Searcy.”

Appellate Judges Mark J. Cavanagh, Deborah A. Servitto, and Thomas C. Cameron ruled  per curiam that Judge Kenny “abused his discretion” in his ruling on the evidentiary hearing, which called Smothers’ confession unbelievable. They said that determination is up to a jury, not the judge. They reviewed Smothers’ testimony at that hearing at length in their opinion, and found it

“As our Supreme Court made clear in Johnson, ‘a trial court’s credibility determination is concerned with whether a reasonable juror could find the testimony credible on retrial,” the panel said.

Exonerees Justly Johnson (l) and Kendrick Scott (r) with PI Scott Lewis at Proving Innocence conference in 2019.

“We conclude that, when considering Smothers’s testimony in its entirety, it is clear that his testimony is not wholly incredible, as the trial court found, and that a reasonable juror could find his testimony worthy of belief on retrial. Consequently, the trial court clearly erred when it concluded that Smother’s testimony was entirely incredible.”

The Michigan Supreme Court’s ruling, at People v Johnson, 502 Mich 541 (2018), involved the convictions of Justly Johnson and Kendrick Scott in 1999 for the murder of Lisa Kindred. See ruling at http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/MSC-People-v-Johnson-People-v-Scott.pdf

The Michigan Innocence Clinic and private investigator Scott Lewis, who also interviewed Vincent Smothers on his confession to the murder for which Searcy was convicted, succeeded in obtaining the exonerations of Johnson and Scott.

Searcy’s appeals panel also found that Kenny and the prosecution repeatedly withheld ballistics evidence from his trial jury in 2005, or misinterpreted it.  Asst. Prosecutor Patrick Muscat introduced a .45 caliber gun found in the home of Searcy’s grandmother as the murder weapon. Kenny told the jury that the only bullet casings in “physical” evidence were two from that gun, and that the caliber of the bullets found in Segars’ body “could not be determined.”

“The jury was very interested in information concerning the casings, the type of gun that was recovered, and the type of bullet that was found in the murder victim,” the panel said.

“Importantly, the jury was informed that ‘the gun that is in evidence is a .45 caliber semiautomatic handgun’ and was then informed that the bullet that was removed from the murder victim could not be tested because it was ‘too deformed.’ However . . . .the type of bullet was able to be discerned and had been accurately described as a .40-caliber bullet before trial. Without this important evidence, the jury was left to decide whether, based on the location of the .45-caliber casings and other record evidence, Searcy committed the crimes.”

The court’s opinion clearly showed that it thoroughly examined the transcripts and briefs submitted by Attorneys Dezsi and Chambers, but it stopped short of saying that the judge and/or the prosecution deliberately suppressed ballistics evidence or misled the jury with regard to it.

AP Patrick Muscat, DPD Detective Dale Collins

AP Muscat also handled the trial of 14-year-old Davontae Sanford for murdering  four adults in a house on Runyon St. where drugs, primarily marijuana, were allegedly sold, in 2007. Vincent Smothers told Detroit police and prosecutors shortly after Sanford was sentenced that he had committed the murders and provided a clear, detailed description of the crimes in affidavits submitted during Sanford’s trial. DPD Detective Dale Collins also played a major role in both convictions.

Vincent Smothers recounts details of 2004 murder of Jamal Segars during Thelonious Searcy evidentiary hearing in 2018.

But Smothers’ confession was withheld from Sanford’s defense attorneys just as his confession to the murder of Jamal Segars in 2009 was withheld until the Innocence Clinic received an affidavit from Smothers confessing to the crime, and forwarded it to the Michigan State Police for investigation. Smothers testified that  he withdrew that confession after being told that it might hold up Sanford’s release, but never signed an affidavit to that effect.

He confessed under oath in great detail again, during the 2018 evidentiary hearing in Searcy’s case. He said he had repeatedly submitted additional affidavits regarding the Segars murder. The appeals court noted that he even testified in person against the advice of his attorney.

In Sanford’s case, Judge Brian Sullivan blocked any direct testimony from Smothers, likely further delaying Sanford’s release. Despite that, an appellate court ruled in Sanford’s favor. But that ruling was overturned by the Michigan Supreme Court, which said they would reconsider if Sanford’s attorneys filed a motion for relief from judgment instead of a motion to withdraw his confession. That was later done, finally leading to Sanford’s release.

During his sentencing in 2005, Searcy said on the record, “I would like to say for the record–NO, I’m not guilty of these charges that were brought against me. These charges are false. I didn’t kill Jamal Segars and I didn’t shoot Brian Minner. I thought justice would prevail. But still as a young Black man in the system I didn’t have a chance.” – Thelonious “Shawn” Searcy, of Detroit, statement May 23, 2005, prior to being sentenced to life without parole.

Over 20,000 have signed Change. Org petition for Searcy’s freedom at Petition · Michigan Attorney General: FREE WRONGFULLY CONVICTED THELONIOUS SEARCY!!!! · Change.org.

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Voice of Detroit is a pro bono newspaper. VOD’s editors and reporters, most of whom live on fixed incomes or are incarcerated, are not paid for their work. Ongoing costs include quarterly web charges of $380, P.O. box fee of $150/yr. and costs for research including court records, and internet fees, as well as office supplies, gas, etc.

Please DONATE TO VOD at

https://www.gofundme.com/donate-to-vod

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RELATED DOCUMENTS, MAINSTREAM AND VOD STORIES  Continue reading →

I want to hold those in power accountable for my wrongful conviction, and those of others: Searcy; 19,000 have signed Change. Org petition for his freedom at Petition · Michigan Attorney General: FREE WRONGFULLY CONVICTED THELONIOUS SEARCY!!!! · Change.org.

 “It’s hard enough when you’re guilty, it’s twice as hard when you’re innocent.”—Vincent Smothers’ testimony exonerating Thelonious Searcy

‘The bullets don’t lie.” Defense Attorney Michael Dezsi

AP Patrick Muscat, DPD Sgt. Dale Collins played key roles in the convictions of both Searcy and Davontae Sanford

Appeals Court hearing Thurs. Feb. 4, 10 am, Panel 4, on Zoom

National Registry of Exonerations Report: 54 percent of wrongful convictions involved misconduct by prosecutors, police

By Diane Bukowski

January 23, 2021 

Thelonious ‘Shawn’ Searcy with daughter LaShyra Thomas before 2005 conviction. Photo: LaShyra Thomas

DETROIT—The Michigan Court of Appeals will finally consider shocking evidence from a 2018 evidentiary hearing in a high-profile murder case, 15 years after the conviction of Detroiter Thelonious “Shawn” Searcy, now 40, for the crime. Searcy has maintained his innocence from the start.

“As an Asiatic Black man,” Searcy told VOD, my purpose for fighting my case so hard is to speak truth to power and hold accountable those responsible for my wrongful conviction, as well as the convictions of others who’ve been wronged by the corrupt judicial system in the City of Detroit.”

Well-known hitman Vincent Smothers confessed to the murder of Jamal Segars outside City Airport on Conner in great detail at the 2018 hearing. It was held in front of Searcy’s trial judge Timothy Kenny just before he became Chief Judge of the Wayne Co. Third Circuit Court.

Ballistics testimony showed that Wayne County Prosecutor Patrick Muscat, aided by  Kenny, lied to the jury about the gun and the bullets which killed the victim.

Muscat and Detroit Police Detective Dale Collins, a key witness at Searcy’s trial, also helped frame 14-year-old Davontae Sanford for the “Runyon Street killings” of four people in 2007. Smothers’ confession to those murders, which was concealed by prosecutors and ,police  led in part to the dismissal of Sanford’s case eight years later.

Collins has been instrumental in numerous other frame-ups, including those involving the notorious “Ring of Snitches” in the 1990’s, which led to multiple exonerations.

The Appeals Court hearing on Searcy’s case is set for Thurs. Feb. 4 in front of Judges Mark J. Cavanagh, Deborah A. Servitto and Thomas C. Cameron, JJ. (Panel 4). It will be held via Zoom. Searcy’s attorney Michael Dezsi is asking the Court to allow public livestreaming of the event.

Wayne Co. 3rd Circuit Chief Judge Timothy Kenny (l), AP Patrick Muscat

Judge Kenny, who became Chief Judge for the Wayne County Third District in Jan. 2019, denied Searcy’s motion for a new trial six months after the evidentiary hearing, in Dec. 2018.

He said did he not think Smothers’ confession was  “credible,” based in part on Smother’s initial recantation to Michigan State police investigators after lawyers for Davontae Sanford told him it could delay Sanford’s release. Legal experts say that determination should be up to a jury.

Kenny also claimed bullets found around Segars’ car were .45 caliber, not .40 caliber as clearly shown in exhibits at Searcy’s trial in 2005, and at the 2018 evidentiary hearing.  In his confession on the stand in 2018, Smothers said he used .40 caliber bullets, corroborating a police report from the scene.

Searcy filed an application for leave to appeal, but the Michigan Court of Appeals at the time gruffly denied the application, “because defendant has failed to establish that the trial court erred in denying the motion for relief from judgment.” The Michigan Supreme Court later remanded the case back to the Appeals Court, saying, “in lieu of granting leave to appeal, we REMAND this case to the Court of Appeals for consideration as on leave granted.” This meant the COA must address the substance of Searcy’s claims.

Thumb Correctional Facility in Lapeer, MI.

During this appeal process, Searcy has twice suffered severe bouts with the COVID-19 virus which has decimated Michigan prisons. The virus threatened to make his “life without parole” sentence a summary death sentence, but Searcy, the father of twodaughters, has never ceased to fight for his life, his family, and his freedom.

Searcy is incarcerated at the Thumb Correctional Facility, where 60 percent of the prisoners have tested positive for COVID-19. After he tested positive a second time, he was shipped to the Macomb Correctional Facility for two weeks, where one-third of the prisoners have tested positive.

Judge Kenny’s instruction to Searcy’s trial jury that fatal bullets were “too deformed” to identify them, failing to note exhibits showed the bullets were .40 caliber, not .45 caliber.  (Trial transcript pp. 

Since his incarceration, Searcy has devoted his time to studying the law, recently gaining grades of all A’s in criminal law paralegal courses conducted by the Blackstone Career Institute.

He has combed through tens of thousands of pages of his trial transcripts and  his Detroit Police Department homicide file, while staying abreast of the latest court rulings in other cases. Assisted by another “jail-house lawyer,”  he wrote the 2016 pro se motion for a new trial which won his evidentiary hearing in 2018. That motion was based not only on the discovery of new evidence, but also filed under MCR 770.1, which addresses issues of likely innocence.

Searcy is looking forward to re-uniting with his two daughters, present as toddlers when police stormed into his grandmother Edna Richardson’s home in 2004 to arrest the newly-married Searcy.

(L to R) Thelonious Searcy today, daughter LaShyra Thomas with unidentified relative, grandmother Edna Richardson at hearing; grades in criminal law classes.

His daughters have visited him throughout his incarceration and supported him at his court hearings since. Mrs. Richardson hired private investigator Scott Lewis for Searcy’s case, paid for Searcy to obtain his homicide file, and maintained a voluminous trove of other case documents at her home for review by reporters.

Searcy’s supporters have garnered nearly 19,000 signatures on a Change.Org petition for his freedom, at  Petition · Michigan Attorney General: FREE WRONGFULLY CONVICTED THELONIOUS SEARCY!!!! · Change.org.

Additionally, Searcy’s case is featured on Thelonious Searcy | Actual Innocent Prisoners.

NRE Report 2020

54% of Wrongful Convictions Nationally involved Police, Prosecutorial Misconduct–Report by National Registry of Exonerations

In September, 2020, the National Registry of Exonerations released a study, “Government Misconduct and Convicting the Innocent,” which showed that misconduct by prosecutors and police contributed to the false criminal convictions of more than half — 54 percent— of innocent people who were later exonerated.

Reviewers called it the  “by far the most thorough study ever of official misconduct by police, prosecutors and others in criminal cases in the United States. It is the only such study based on a comprehensive database of cases of wrongly convicted defendants: the first 2,400 exonerations recorded in the vational Registry of Exonerations.” Read the full report at comprehensive report.

OFFICIAL MISCONDUCT IN THELONIOUS ‘SHAWN’ SEARCY CASE

In Searcy’s case, Vincent Smothers testified that he repeatedly told numerous police, court and media representatives, in affidavits and letters over three years, that he had committed the Segars murder, but to no avail.

He took the stand at Searcy’s evidentiary hearing over the advice of his own lawyer, to describe the murder first-hand in great detail, as described in Deszi’s brief below:

AP Muscat presented a .45 caliber gun at Searcy’s trial, alleging it was the murder weapon without any fingerprint or other ballistics evidence.

However, he also presented Peoples Exhibit #23 at trial (at left above), in which Detroit Police Officer David Pauch identified the bullets found in Segars’ body at the morgue as .40 caliber. At Searcy’s 2018 evidentiary hearing, independent firearms expert David Balash confirmed Pauch’s report, and testified the bullets were found in Segars’ body.

Additionally, a .40 caliber bullet that the DPD crime lab initially identified as a 9mm shell casing was produced for analysis. The original designation was corrected by Detroit Police Officer Patricia Little of the Conviction Integrity Unit during the evidentiary hearing. The bullet is ET#07191604, shown on the report.

Also during the evidentiary hearing, the testimony of the prosecution’s reluctant key witness DeAnthony Witcher was challenged with newly discovered evidence showing that the DPD had covered up a concealed weapons arrest of Witcher just prior to Searcy’s arrest.

AP Muscat forced Witcher to submit to an investigative subpoena hearing without counsel, and Judge Kenny forced Witcher to testify by giving him “use immunity.”

Below is Private Investigator Scott Lewis’ audiotape of Vincent Smothers’ confession to the Jamal Segars murder, obtained in 2017.

RELATED DOCUMENTS:

Thelonious Searcy Atty. Grievance against Patrick Muscat

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/TSearcy-grievance-PMuscat.pdf

Atty. Michael Dezsi’s Brief on Remand to Court of Appeals:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/TSSearcy.COA_.3.27.2020.pdf

Michigan Supreme Court’s remand of Searcy case to Court of Appeals:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Thelonious-Searcy-MSC-remand-to-COA-3-18-20.pdf

Michigan Court of Appeals denial of Searcy application for leave to appeal:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/TSearcy-COA-denial.pdf

Judge Timothy Kenny’s order denying Searcy motion for relief from judgment Dec. 3, 2018:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Searcy-Thelonious-Opinion-Order-12-03-18-compressed-1.pdf

Searcy’s pro se motion for new trial, filed July 22, 2016:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/TS-motion-for-new-trial-7-22-16.compressed-2.pdf

Part one of Searcy brief with Motion:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/TS-brief-7-22-16-part-one.compressed-1.pdf

Part two of  Searcy brief with Motion:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/TS-brief-7-22-16-part-two.compressed-1.pdf

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Voice of Detroit is a pro bono newspaper. VOD’s editors and reporters, most of whom live on fixed incomes or are incarcerated, are not paid for their work. Ongoing costs include quarterly web charges of $380, P.O. box fee of $150/yr. and costs for research including court records, and internet fees, as well as office supplies, gas, etc.

Please DONATE TO VOD at

https://www.gofundme.com/donate-to-vod

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A PDF of this article is available for printing at 

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/APPEALS-COURT-TO-HEAR-SEARCY-CASE-FEB.-4_-HITMAN-CONFESSED-TO-MURDER-LIES-TOLD-ABOUT-FATAL-BULLETS-_-VOICE-OF-DETROIT_-The-citys-independent-newspaper-unbossed-and-unbought.pdf

VOD STORIES ON THELONIOUS SEARCY’S WRONGFUL CONVICTION IN 2005, EVIDENTIARY HEARING 2017-18, IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER:

Continue reading →

COVID-19 Rally vs. inhumane treatment of prisoners at Gus Harrison Correctional Facility Dec. 11, 2020 Photo: Honeysuckle Magazine

By Ricardo Ferrell

Ricardo Ferrell, VOD Field Editor

Field Editor, Voice of Detroit;

Senior Writer, My Life Matters Too

January 10, 2021

Do Prisoners’ Lives Matter?

That’s a question repeatedly asked by people on the outside trying to look inside Michigan’s Prison system to understand why now 125 of its most vulnerable have die, and more continue dying daily, after contracting COVID-19.

In the spring of 2020, the MDOC saw its first prisoner test positive for the coronavirus. Before long there were hundreds of prisoners testing positive in a single facility.

On April 17, 24 positive cases were identified. And the death of four prisoners who had tested positive for COVID-19 brought the number to 17 prisoners in the MDOC to die from this virus.

On May 18, 830 positive cases were identified. Gus Harrison Correctional – had 612 positives. And the death of two prisoners who tested positive for COVID-19. The prisoners had been housed at Lakeland Correctional Facility and Gus Harrison Correctional Facility. This brought 57 prisoners in the MDOC to die from this virus.

Families protest outside prison in Santa Barbara, California.

The above dates reflect early on in the crisis. As the summer rolled in, we began to see several more facilities to catch on fire with COVID cases, and sadly more deaths.

By the fall, there were over a thousand cases reported in daily updates. In fact, on Nov. 12, there were 1,006 positive cases, and on Dec. 3, there were 1,362 positive cases to report.

The number of prisoner deaths continued to rise, for an example: On May 18th, they reported 57 prisoners who had died from COVID-19, then on Nov. 12th, it rose to 75 deaths, and by Dec. 29th, there were 116 deaths.

William Garrison, Family Photo, 2009

I am both angry and sad about how so many prisoners (over 22,000) have caught this invisible deadly disease and many losing their lives due to improper responses by corrections officials and prison administrators who both are responsible for assuring the safety and safeguard of those under its care against communicable diseases. When I learned of my friend William Garrison dying from COVID in April 2020, just two weeks before he was scheduled to be released, it saddened me to my core. Garrison had served 44 years, only to die at the end of his sentence because of gross negligence on the part of staff.

In mid November, we were hit particularly hard on the level II side of the facility at Gus Harrison. First, there were about 25 who tested positive, then on or about Nov. 23rd, the test results started coming in, and upwards of 200 of us received a ‘Final Results Report’ from Curative Labs in Washington, DC, showing us to be positive for SARS-CoV-2. Imagine the alarm this must have caused.

I sat on the bunk for 5 minutes staring unbelievably at the test results. Asking myself, how in the hell did this happen to me? Then immediately began to worry like crazy because I have an underlying medical condition which puts me at higher risk of dying from this deadly virus. The psychological effect brought on by knowing what type of damage this coronavirus can cause, is maddening to say the least.

GARWOOD TURNER, 76: Died while commutation on Gov. Whitmer’s desk

Garwood Turner

Within 3 days after he contracted the coronavirus, Garwood Turner, 76, an elderly sick prisoner at the Gus Harrison Facility was pronounced dead from COVID complications, Dec. 17, 2020. He locked just a few doors down across the hall from me before he was moved to another housing unit. Its obvious COVID killed Turner, but had staff properly checked on him during their required 30 minute rounds his condition could have been detected more quicker, and medical attention provided which could’ve help to save his life.

His frailty and poor health should have been of significant concern to both custody staff, as well as health care providers. In short, Garwood Turner wasn’t given adequate attention by those responsible for assuring that his safety and health was protected. Staff simply dropped the ball in Turner’s situation. His family deserves to know of the negligence and incompetence by staff who failed to afford him the common decency of proper care. Sadly, Turner’s commutation was on Gov. Whitmer’s desk.

LEE W. “BABY” LAWRENCE, 83

Lee Weber Lawrence

Less than 12 days after Turner’s death, another elderly prisoner Lee W. Lawrence, 83, who had been in prison since the early 70s died from complications of COVID-19 on Dec. 27, 2020. He was known throughout the prison system as Baby Lawrence. I met him about 40 years ago, we were chained together on the infamous ‘Snow Bird’, en route to Marquette Branch Prison in the Upper Peninsula. We ended up in the same cellblock. I didn’t bump back into him until 1997 at Carson City, then it took 22 years before I would see him again. I would kick it with the ‘Babe’ from time to time about the old days.

He was quite the storyteller. He use to tell me some interesting tales about his time in Cuba, during the Bay of Pigs, back when Fidel Castro came out of the hills to oust Batista and his regime from power, and how he grew up in St. Louis, Missouri as a young man. He would tell me about his daughter Billie Lawrence, she’s a singer. Baby Lawrence was so proud of Billie and I think in his own way, he wished they could’ve visited one last time, to tell her face to face just how much he loved her. Baby, you will be missed by your family, your comrades and those who knew you best.

CURTIS ‘SUICIDE’ WATKINS, 68: 

Curtis Ray “Suicide” Watkins (family photo)

Also, we lost Curtis ‘Suicide’ Watkins, 68, one of the realest brothers these penitentiaries have ever seen. Back in 1975, when I first came to prison at age 17, ‘Cide’ was one of those cats I had heard about and wanted to meet. We had a mutual friend and based on that connection, we always had respect for one another. I remember his daughter Sharon Phillips back when she use to be on television. His family is going to miss him, just as thousands of incarcerated brothers are going to as well.

Its a shame how Garrison served 44 yrs, Turner 46 yrs, Lawrence 48 yrs, and Watkins 48 yrs., then ended up killed by COVID. This should be a shock to the conscience of officials in charge of the MDOC response to this pandemic.  It makes you wonder whether if the negligence by staff is intentional. There’s no justifying the lack of concern or the disregard for our lives by staff. Someone needs to be held accountable.

(RIP, RIP, RIP, RIP)

See “Suicide” Watkins’ obituary with video from ceremony, comments at

Curtis Ray “Suicide” Watkins Obituary – Visitation & Funeral Information (lawrenceemoonfuneralhomepontiac.com)

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Curtis-Ray-Watkins-wall.pdf

SIGN OUR PETITION TO GOV. WHITMER NOW!! 

https://www.change.org/COVID-19VaccinesforMichiganPrisoners

Related:

ACLU TO MICH. GOV. WHITMER: COVID-19 VACCINES FOR PRISONERS NOW, A MATTER OF LIFE OR DEATH | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

Quentin Jones

In the story below, Quentin Jones, a leader of the My Life Matters Too Newspaper inside Gus Harrison CF along with Ricardo Ferrell, recounts how MDOC officials wrote him up for helping Shawanna Vaughn of NYC organize the Dec. 11 protest. On Dec. 23, he says he was transferred to Lakeland CF, a prison that has had 24 deaths from COVID-19 to date, by far the highest number of any facility in the state.

On Michigan Department of Corrections’ Negligent Handling of COVID-19: A Message From Prisoner Quentin Jones – Honeysuckle Magazine

Activists Organize Rally in Michigan to Protest Inhumane Treatment of Prisoners Affected by Covid-19 – Honeysuckle Magazine

Michigan Department of Corrections Under Fire for Failing to Take Appropriate Measures to Combat Covid-19 – Honeysuckle Magazine

RELEASE AGING PEOPLE IN PRISON BEFORE THEY DIE; END LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

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Voice of Detroit is a pro bono newspaper. VOD’s editors and reporters, most of whom live on fixed incomes or are incarcerated, are not paid for their work. Ongoing costs include quarterly web charges of $380, P.O. box fee of $150/yr. and costs for research including court records, and internet fees, as well as office supplies, gas, etc.

Please if you can 

DONATE TO VOD at

https://www.gofundme.com/donate-to-vod

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Protest outside San Quentin Prison in California, March 2020

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and the most inhuman.”

 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. March 25, 1966

Sign Voice of Detroit’s petition to Gov. Whitmer at:

https://www.change.org/COVID-19VaccinesforMichiganPrisoners

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in jail during the Birmingham Bus Boycott.

ACLU to Gov. Whitmer, MDHHS Director Gordon: “A prison that deprives prisoners of basic sustenance, including adequate medical care. . . .has no place in civilized society.”

State’s failure to prioritize Michigan prisoners for COVID-19 vaccines violates 8th Amendment

Other states including Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Nebraska, New Mexico and Pennsylvania prioritize prisoners

Michigan prisons have second highest number of COVID-19 cases,  third highest number of deaths in the country

January 16, 2021

Editor: We are very heartened to see that a coalition of human rights groups formed by the Michigan ACLU called on Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Michigan Dept. of Health and Human Services Director Robert Gordon on Jan. 13 to prioritize people in prisons and jails for COVID-19 vaccine distribution, in tier one.

VOD began a petition asking the same officials to do so on December 18, 2020 and calls on readers to continue to sign it while state officials respond to the ACLU letter. Sign at https://www.change.org/COVID-19VaccinesforMichiganPrisoners.

We are hearing many frantic and heartbreaking accounts from  state prisoners with COVID-19 and about those who have died from the unchecked spread of this pandemic in the Michigan Department of Corrections. One hundred twenty-five (125) prisoners have now died, while nearly 60 percent of all MDOC prisoners, 23,400, have tested positive since the pandemic began, according to MDOC figures.

THE MICHIGAN CONSTITUTION HAS OUTLAWED THE DEATH PENALTY SINCE 1847, the first state to do so. No prisoner has been sentenced to death!

Carl Hubbard/MDOC photo

Carl Hubbard just returned to the Carson City Correctional Facility after weeks of hospitalization outside the walls. He is  suffering severe and likely permanent damage to his entire body including his lungs, heart, and circulatory system. He is in imminent danger of death. But he has been placed once again in an all COVID-19 unit.

Prior to his hospitalizations, he told VOD: “I have been very sick with this COVID-19. They tested me eight times and the last time it came back positive after Thanksgiving.  I have been sick ever since, lost all my taste and smell, and am having chest pains. There have been least three deaths here. I’m in the COVID unit 900 where everybody has COVID. But there is really no treatment going on here because an officer infected everybody here.  There are 240 prisoners with COVID in the unit, and in the whole compound,  2100 prisoners and at least 100 C.O.’s with it as well.”

As of Jan. 11, 2021, 2101 of 2,514 prisoners at Carson City have tested positive for the virus; 1,629 cases (65 percent of the total CCF population), are currently active.  Six CCF prisoners have died.

Hubbard was wrongfully convicted and incarcerated  in 1992, based solely on one man’s coerced testimony. Prosecutors had the man arrested for alleged “perjury” as he left the stand on the second day of the trial after recanting, but he has done so repeatedly since. The Wayne County Prosecutor’s office continues to oppose all Hubbard’s appeals.

Thelonious Searcy, Ricky Rimmer-Bey, and Darrell Ewing also have strong cases for exoneration. They have each suffered severely from COVID-19 and are fighting not only for freedom, but their very lives.

Searcy has a Court of Appeals hearing Feb. 4 on a Michigan Supreme Court remand of his innocence case ordering the COA t0 address factual issues including the testimony of hitman Vincent Smothers that he committed the crime for which Searcy was charged. Ewing is waiting to see whether Wayne Co. Prosecutor Kym Worthy will appeal his case further after eight judges ordered a new trial over the last three years. Rimmer-Bey, who is 67 and has been incarcerated since 1975,  has a motion pending in trial court for emergency re-sentencing due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its particular effect on him.  Will they survive long enough?

Some experts estimate that at least 30 percent of MDOC prisoners are innocent. There are tens of thousands of others sentenced to terms of 20 years up to life (a/k/a death by incarceration), These sentences are considered cruel and unusual in most of the rest of the civilized world, where a term of 15 years upon review is generally the most severe penalty for any crime. Why should any human being incarcerated in Michigan have to fear a horrible death from COVID-19 as well?

Release: ACLU Coalition Letter to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, MDHHS Dir. Robert Gordon, Jan. 13, 2021 

(Full letter at http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Civil-Rights-Coalition-Urges-Gov.-Gretchen-Whitmer-and-Michigan-Health-Department-to-Prioritize-Vaccinating-People-who-are-Incarcerated-_-ACLU-of-Michigan2.pdf.)

Mich. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, MDHHS Dir. Robert Gordon.

DETROIT – Today a coalition of civil rights organizations sent a letter to Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Robert Gordon, urging the state to prioritize COVID-19 vaccinations for people who live in correctional facilities statewide, just as the state has prioritized vaccinations for people who work in these facilities and people who live in other congregate settings.

The coalition sent the letter after previously raising these points prior to the updated release of guidelines as part of an ongoing effort to persuade the Governor and MDHHS to treat everyone in congregate living situations equally, because:

• The average rate of COVID-19 cases among people incarcerated statewide is 983% higher than Michigan’s overall rate, and the mortality rate is 133% higher than Michigan overall.
• In Michigan prisons, there have been at least 22,629 cases of COVID-19, the third-highest rate in the country, and at least 121 deaths, the second-highest rate in the country.
• Statewide, more than 2,000 people incarcerated have been infected, and 20 people incarcerated have died of COVID-19, in the last month alone.

Syeda Farhana Davidson

“Prioritizing who in Michigan gets the COVID-19 vaccine and when they get it must be guided by public health policies,” said Syeda Davidson, ACLU of Michigan senior staff attorney.

“Failing to prioritize people living in jails and prisons defies the recommendations of experts in this field, who recognize that vaccinating this highly vulnerable population as soon as possible is critical to protecting public health. This virus is infecting and killing people who are incarcerated at alarmingly high rates as compared to the general public, and the only way to stop it is to prioritize vaccinations for people in prisons and jails.”

While the MDHHS guidance prioritizes people who live in other congregate living settings, like adult foster care homes and psychiatric facilities, as well as staff for correctional facilities, the guidance excludes people living in correctional facilities from any level of prioritization.

The letter also addresses the racial implications of excluding people who are incarcerated from being prioritized to receive the vaccine. Gov. Whitmer recognized through executive directive last year that racism is a public health crisis, and that this pandemic exacerbates the inequities caused by systemic racism.

Protesters outside Philadelphia City Hall call for release of prisoners due to COVID-19 pandemic. March 30, 2020

“Both the offices of Governor Whitmer and MDHHS have consistently and rightfully followed public health experts’ guidelines while addressing this pandemic –  including the recognition that this deadly virus is disproportionately ravishing the Black community,” said
Jonathan Sacks, State Appellate Defender Office director.

“Leaving people in jails and prisons out of the state’s vaccine priority plan is contributing to the systemic racism Governor Whitmer and her administration has been fighting so hard to dismantle. Prioritizing people incarcerated is critical in fighting systemic racism in Michigan.”

COVID-19 is infecting Black Michigan residents more than three times the rate of white Michigan residents, and the Black death rate is more than four times higher than whites. Black people are also over-incarcerated compared to white people. While the Black population is 14 percent in Michigan, they are 49 percent of the Michigan’s jail and prison population.

Amanda Alexander, founder, Detroit Justice Center

[The Marshall Project reports, “Black prisoners in Michigan have accounted for 49 percent of positive COVID tests, at the same time black residents received 31 percent of positive tests in the state as a whole.]

“This unprecedented, deadly pandemic is disproportionately infecting and killing incarcerated people and Black Michiganders,” said Amanda Alexander, Detroit Justice Center founder and executive director. “It is not only humane, but necessary, to prioritize vaccinating individuals who are behind bars just as every other person the state is prioritizing.”

In addition to the ACLU, the State Appellate Defender Office, and the Detroit Justice Center, the letter was signed by Safe & Just Michigan, Michigan Liberation, the Michigan Center for Youth Justice, the American Friends Service Committee, the Neighborhood Defender Service of Detroit, and the Michigan League for Public Policy.

Related from Detroit News:

Opinion: Those in Michigan prisons face a humanitarian crisis during COVID-19 (detroitnews.com)

Related from Detroit Free Press:

Michigan can’t confirm if 115 prisoner cases were COVID-19 reinfection (freep.com)

Related from VOD:

MICHIGAN PRISONERS NEED COVID-19 VACCINES NOW, SAY ADVOCATES; A.M.A., OTHERS DEMAND 1st-TIER PRIORITY | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

IS MICHIGAN USING TRUMP’S COVID-19 ‘HERD IMMUNITY’ STRATEGY TO KILL OFF PRISON POPULATION? | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

COPING WITH COVID-19 IN MICHIGAN PRISONS: RALLY BY ‘SILENT CRY’ FRI. DEC. 11 AT GUS HARRISON CF IN ADRIAN | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

STATE OF EMERGENCY IN MICH. PRISONS: COVID-19 CASES, DEATHS SKYROCKET, PRISONER UPRISINGS INCREASE | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

U.S. HOUSE BILL: DISMANTLE MASS INCARCERATION, RELEASE PRISONERS FACING COVID-19 DEATH SENTENCE | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

MASS MURDER IN MICH.: GOV. SAYS ‘NOTHING SHE CAN DO’ TO RELEASE MORE PRISONERS AS COVID ENGULFS MDOC | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

PROTESTERS URGE WHITMER TO RELEASE MICHIGAN INMATES FACING RISK OF CORONAVIRUS IN STATE PRISONS | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

WAYNE CO. JAIL RESIDENTS SAY MANY SICK, DYING WITH COVID-19; MDOC PRISONERS SAY LARGE NUMBERS TOO | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

Related from other media:

America’s Innocent Prisoners Are Going to Die There – The Atlantic 

Is COVID-19 Falling Harder on Black Prisoners? Officials Won’t Tell Us. | The Marshall Project

COVID-19 and mass incarceration: a call for urgent action – The Lancet Public Health

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From left: Raymond Santana, Yusef Salaam, Korey Wise, Kevin Richardson, and Antron McCray in 2019.Credit…Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for BET

Opinion: By Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson and Raymond Santana

January 4, 2021

On Dec. 19, 2002, a judge vacated our convictions for the brutal attack of Trisha Meili, who many know as the “Central Park jogger.” On that day, our 13-year fight for justice came to an end. The lies that we were told by detectives to wrongly convict us were finally exposed and ceased to hold power over us. Now, we are fighting to prevent others from facing the same fate.

At the time of our arrests in 1989, we were just boys — Kevin and Raymond, the youngest among us, were only 14 — and we came to be known as the “Central Park Five.” Now we are known as the “Exonerated Five,” and, largely because of Ava DuVernay’s series “When They See Us,” the world knows our stories.

Central Park 5 after arrest.

But what people may not realize is that what happened to us isn’t just the past — it’s the present. The methods that the police used to coerce us, five terrified young boys, into falsely confessing are still commonly used today. But in its coming session, New York State legislators have the power to change that.

It’s hard to imagine why anyone would confess to a crime they didn’t commit. But when you’re in that interrogation room, everything changes. During the hours of relentless questioning that we each endured, detectives lied to us repeatedly. They said they had matched our fingerprints to crime scene evidence and told each of us that the others had confessed and implicated us in the attack. They said that if we just admitted to participating in the attack, we could go home. All of these were blatant lies.

With these tactics of deception and intimidation, detectives sought to exhaust, disorient and confuse us. They hoped to make us so fearful of never seeing our loved ones again that we’d say anything to protect ourselves and our families. Ultimately, that’s what nearly all of us did.

It felt like the truth didn’t matter. Instead, it seemed as though they locked onto one theory and were hellbent on securing incriminating statements to corroborate it. A conviction rather than justice felt like the goal. And with those false confessions, they were able to secure our wrongful convictions. These deceptive tactics aren’t right — but they are 100 percent legal.

One of many protests in support of wrongfully convicted Central Park 5.

The miscarriages of justice in our cases weren’t isolated incidents. False confessions played a role in nearly 30 percent of wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA evidence. In New York State alone, 43 people who have been exonerated, including us, were wrongly convicted based on false confessions. Several of those innocent people were, like us, teenagers at the time they were wrongly accused.

In a courtroom, a confession — whether true or false — is likely to seal your fate. Judges and juries tend to believe confessions over DNA evidence that points to a person’s innocence, but they also have a surprisingly difficult time discerning between a true confession and a false one.

If confessions were evaluated for reliability before trial — the same way that the reliability of forensic evidence and eyewitness identifications are assessed before they are admitted as evidence — the use of false confessions could be drastically reduced. This could go a long way toward preventing wrongful convictions, and the groundwork has already been laid.

Since 2018, New York has required the recording of interrogations of individuals accused of serious crimes that occur in police stations, correctional centers, prosecutor’s offices and similar holding areas. These recordings, along with other evidence, could be examined during admissibility hearings to thoroughly evaluate a confession’s reliability before it’s admitted into evidence and presented in a courtroom.

NY State Senator Zellnor Myrie

Recording interrogations is crucial for accountability, but it’s not enough to prevent false confessions in the first place. The juries at our trials saw only videotapes of the statements we made after hours of questioning and coercion without lawyers present. They didn’t see the hours of threats and manipulation that preceded those recorded statements. To truly protect the innocent, New York must go a step further by banning the use of deceptive interrogation methods.

A bill by New York State Senator Zellnor Myrie that will come up this session could make this possible. Senator Myrie’s proposed legislation would ban the use of deception in interrogations and ensure that confessions are assessed for reliability before they make it into the courtroom. It’s crucial that New York lawmakers pass these measures to prevent future wrongful convictions and ensure that no one else is ever robbed of their youth or freedom.

These psychologically coercive tactics presume guilt rather than innocence and, as a result, they taint law enforcement’s efforts to find facts. Yet most police agencies in the United States still permit their use, even while many of their European counterparts have abandoned these methods.

These measures, together with a legislative proposal to ensure the right to legal counsel for young people during interrogations that will be considered in Albany would help prevent others from experiencing the injustices we endured.

New York could lead the way for the country by adopting these changes and strengthening our justice system. But until then, there’s no telling how many more innocent people the system will ensnare, forcing them to fight for their freedom and their lives.

Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson and Raymond Santana are members of the Exonerated Five and criminal justice reform advocates. Mr. Salaam serves on the board of the Innocence Project.

December 29, 2020

Capitalism + Covid-19 = Mass Death in US | Black Agenda Report

“The US health system has failed utterly and completely to protect the people” in this country, said veteran activist Sara Flounders, co-editor with Lee Siu Hin of the new, 50-writer anthology “Capitalism on a Ventilator: The Impact of Covid-19 in China and the US.”

The US accounts for a quarter of the world’s infections and a third of deaths, a catastrophe due to “the cost of health care for profit, of no national health care, and no national coordination,” said Flounders, who notes that the US “does not lack infrastructure in police, in the military, and in prisons.”

Now in print and available: ‘Capitalism on a ventilator: The Impact of Covid-19 in China & the U.S.’ (iacenter.org)

Pope Francis blesses a prisoner as he visits the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Philadelphia Sept. 27. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) See POPE-PRISON Sept. 27, 2015. The Pope regularly visits prisoners world-wide: “There but for the grace of God go I.”

POPE ON COVID-19 VACCINE: NEEDY, VULNERABLE MUST COME FIRST

Sign petition to save the lives of Michigan prisoners NOW

HTTPS://WWW.CHANGE.ORG/COVID-19VACCINESFORMICHIGANPRISONERS

Frances D’Emilio

Associated Press

December 25, 2020

POPE FRANCIS DELIVERS CHRISTMAS MESSAGE DEC.25, 2020

Vatican City — Pope Francis made a Christmas Day plea for authorities to make COVID-19 vaccines available to all, insisting that the first in line should be the most vulnerable and needy, regardless of who holds the patents for the shots.

“Vaccines for everybody, especially for the most vulnerable and needy,” who should be first in line, Francis said in off-the-cuff remarks from his prepared text, calling the development of such vaccines “light of hope” for the world.

“We can’t let closed nationalisms impede us from living as the true human family that we are,” the pope said.

He called on the leaders of nations, businesses and international organizations to “promote cooperation and not competition, and to search for a solution for all.”

Amid a surge of coronavirus infections this fall in Italy, Francis broke with tradition for Christmas. Instead of delivering his “Urbi et Orbi” speech — Latin for “to the city and to the world” — outdoors from the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica, he read it from inside a cavernous hall at the Apostolic Palace, flanked by two Christmas trees with blinking lights.

Normally, tens of thousands of people would have crowded into St. Peter’s Square to receive the pope’s Christmas blessing and listen to his speech. But Italian measures to try to rein in holiday infections allow people to leave their homes on Christmas for only urgent reasons like work, health, visits to nearby loved ones or exercise close to home.

Pope Francis washes the feet of 12 prisoners in Rome on Holy Thursday, 2016.

The pandemic’s repercussions on life dominated Francis’ reflections on the past year.

“At this moment in history, marked by the ecological crisis and grave economic and social imbalances only worsened by the coronavirus pandemic, it is all the more important for us to acknowledge one another as brothers and sisters,” Francis said.

Fraternity and compassion applies to people “even though they do not belong to my family, my ethnic group or my religion,” he said.

Francis prayed that the birth of Jesus would inspire people to be “generous, supportive and helpful” to those in need, including those struggling with ”the economic effects of the pandemic and women who have suffered domestic violence during these months of lockdown.”

Venezuela Sanctions: Venezuelan people protest U.S. economic blockade of their country, which is causing massive suffering.

Noting that the “American continent” was particularly hard-hit by COVID-19, he said that the pandemic compounded suffering, “often aggravated by the consequences of corruption and drug trafficking.” In particular he cited the suffering of the Venezuelan people.

On a day when Christians recall Jesus as a baby, Francis drew attention to the “too many children in all the world, especially in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, who still pay the high price of war.”

Among others he said sorely needed comfort at Christmas time were the Iraqi people, and “in particular the Yazidi, hard hit by the last years of war.” And, he said, “I cannot forgot the Rohingya people,” adding that he hoped that Jesus, “born poor among the poor, will bring hope in their suffering.”

Related:

MICHIGAN PRISONERS NEED COVID-19 VACCINES NOW, SAY ADVOCATES; A.M.A., OTHERS DEMAND 1st-TIER PRIORITY | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

IS MICHIGAN USING TRUMP’S COVID-19 ‘HERD IMMUNITY’ STRATEGY TO KILL OFF PRISON POPULATION? | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought