Canadian nurses help lead massive march against Detroit water shutoffs in the city’s downtown in 2012.
Lawsuit condemns racial disparities in water shutoffs and asks court for permanent solution in Detroit
Flint pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who exposed high lead levels in Flint children, supports lawsuit and declares water critical to preventative healthcare
July 9, 2020
DETROIT, Mich. — Today, a coalition of civil rights organizations filed a class action lawsuit in federal court to make water affordable and permanently end water shutoffs for Detroit residents. The city’s water rates are among the highest in the nation. Combined with a high poverty rate, especially among Black Detroiters, many families are unable to pay their water bills, leaving them at risk of losing service due to non-payment. Some families live for years without water service, while others are trapped in a cycle of water insecurity with repeated disconnections and reconnections.
A longstanding water shutoff policy exposes thousands of Black Detroit residents to disease and racial discrimination that renders affected households defenseless against infection, especially during a pandemic. For years, Detroit residents, health experts, and advocates have been calling on city officials, state legislators, and governors to develop a plan or pass legislation for water affordability. These plans have failed to materialize, and legislative leadership has prevented passage of the bills.
ACLU Atty. Mark Fancher in a 2011 photo by VOD.
In addition, the Governor’s executive order signed yesterday to expand the moratorium on water shutoffs will eventually end, and there is no plan to ensure Detroiters will have access to water once it does, despite all the evidence that water is an essential source of preventative health care at all times.
And while the order provides relief for overages and past due bills for some customers, it doesn’t address the high-water rates that cause residents to fall behind on their water bills. In fact, the order makes clear that it does not relieve customers of the obligation to pay their water bills or prevent municipalities from charging customers for water during the pandemic.
Also, Detroit Mayor Michael Duggan has stated that water service shutoffs will resume as a collection method against families who cannot afford to pay when the immediate threat of the pandemic is over.
“For 15 years our civil rights coalition has been fighting at every level of government to permanently put an end to water shutoffs, a policy that harms the health and wellbeing of impoverished Black Detroiters,” said Mark Fancher, ACLU of Michigan Racial Justice Project attorney. “While the Governor’s temporary moratorium on water shutoffs during the pandemic is a step forward, the moratorium will expire and Detroiters will once again be left without solutions and with huge bills they cannot possibly afford, forcing residents back into the cycle of water shutoffs. It is time to throw shutoffs on the dust heap of deeply disturbing practices that contribute to the structural racism our nation is finally attempting to dismantle.”
Protesters at Duggan’s State of the City address on Feb. 11, 2015.
The lawsuit describes the bleak conditions Detroiters have experienced because of the water shutoff policy. A few of the plaintiffs bringing the lawsuit include:
Jacqueline Taylor, a Black Detroit resident, who owns
her home. Ms. Taylor’s monthly average income from Social Security benefits is $860. In 2016, Ms. Taylor was hospitalized and in a rehabilitation center for a hip replacement. At that time, no one was living in her home or using her water. After returning home from her surgery, Ms. Taylor received a bill from DWSD for water usage totaling about 75,000 gallons during that period. The bill was between $1,500 and $2,000. Believing she was overbilled, Ms. Taylor contacted DWSD, but the department refused to adjust it and eventually disconnected her water in mid-2018. By that time, DWSD claimed that she owed nearly $6,000 in arrearages. Ms. Taylor lived without water service from mid-2018 until March 2020, when DWSD reconnected it during the pandemic. Her current monthly bill is $25, but she still owes back payments. Ms. Taylor will be at immediate risk of losing water service when Detroit resumes water shutoffs.
Neighbor brings water to a family victimized by water shut-off in Detroit in 2002. Then Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick had just reinstituted mass city water shut-offs as suburbs campaigned to regionalize the DWSD, which they did during the city’s bankruptcy in 2014. Michigan Citizen photo by Diane Bukowski
Lisa Brooks, a Black Detroit resident, has rented her home for 10 years. She lives in the home with her two children, ages 14 and 16. Ms. Brooks’s monthly income is approximately $1,200 from Social Security disability. She has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, arthritis, and other breathing issues. She must use a portable oxygen tank to assist her breathing. Ms. Brooks’s 16-year-old son has asthma and uses a nebulizer, which requires the use of water. Under the terms of her lease, Ms. Brooks is required to pay her water bill, which is in her name.
DWSD first disconnected Ms. Brooks’s water service in 2018. She and her children lived without water for about a year. In 2019, Ms. Brooks was able to have her water reconnected as she had entered into a payment plan with DWSD, which required her to pay her current monthly bill (typically around $100 a month) plus $98 per month. This was approximately 17% of Ms. Brooks’s total monthly income. When Ms. Brooks was unable to keep up with the payment plan, DWSD disconnected her water service again in the winter of 2019. Ms. Brooks and her children lived without water until March 2020. Ms. Brooks currently owes DWSD around $2,000 in arrearages and will be at immediate risk of having her water shut off when Detroit resumes water shutoffs.
Michele Cowan is a Black resident of Detroit and owns her home with her 23-year-old daughter. Ms. Cowan lives with two of her adult daughters and her two grandchildren, ages two and six. Her family’s income is approximately $1,300 per month. DWSD disconnected Ms. Cowan’s water service in August 2019 for approximately $700 in arrearages, which she still owes. Ms. Cowan and her family lived without water from August 2019 until March 2020. During this time, We the People of Detroit provided Ms. Cowan and her family with bottled water for drinking, bathing, cleaning, and sanitation. She would receive eight to 10 cases of water every two weeks from the organization. DWSD reconnected Ms. Cowan’s water service in March 2020, after the announcement of the Water Restart Plan, and will be at immediate risk of having her water shut off when Detroit resumes water shutoffs.
Detroit’s water shutoff policy violates the civil rights of thousands of the city’s residents by forcing them to live without a service essential to their health. Water shutoffs disproportionately affect Black Detroiters in violation of the Fair Housing Act and the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, the lawsuit alleges, and pose a severe threat to public health by making hand washing and other cleaning practices an impossibility. The lawsuit seeks to permanently end the water shutoff policy and asks for a court order immediately preventing shutoffs from resuming.
Atty. Alice Jennings announces filing of lawsuit vs. water shut-offs during Detroit bankruptcy proceedings in 2012.
“People cannot live without water, families can’t function without it, and communities cannot be safe if they don’t have water before, during and when the pandemic ends,” said Alice B. Jennings, founding partner of Edwards & Jennings, PC. “Every leader in Michigan has a moral responsibility to make sure families have access to water. Solutions have been implemented in other cities across the country, and Detroit families deserve a solution too. We urge state and city officials to come together immediately to create a water affordability plan. It is the fair and humane thing to do.”
The same population hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic is disproportionately affected by the city’s water shutoff policy. From January 2017 to July 2018, 95% of water shutoffs occurred in Census tracts with a majority-Black population, and only 5% occurred in tracts that had a population that was less than 50% Black. Detroit Census tracts with a less than 50% Black population had, on average, 64% fewer shutoffs per 1,000 people than tracts with a majority-Black population. These disparities are statistically significant and persist even when controlling for differences in income and the number of unoccupied homes in Detroit. These disparities also persist when comparing majority-Black tracts to majority-white tracts. Water shutoff data reviewed for the period between January 2019 and January 2020 had the same level of disparities.
“People should not be punished for being poor and Black,” said Coty Montag, Senior Counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. “If state and city officials are serious about ending structural racism, as they claim to be, they can start by putting an end to Detroit’s water shutoff policy today and instituting an effective water affordability plan. This case reaffirms LDF’s commitment to combating discrimination in municipal water practices.”
The civil rights coalition is calling for Detroit to adopt a water affordability plan, similar to plans adopted long before the current pandemic by the cities of Baltimore and Philadelphia that were put in place to protect the health and wellbeing of its citizens.
“Water is a medical and public health necessity,” said Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, Hurley Medical Center pediatrician. “Depriving people of water is anti-prevention, anti-science and anti-common sense. If the Flint water crisis taught us anything, it’s the need to focus on prevention and not wait until we can prove harm.”
Other attorneys on the case include Lorray Brown of the Michigan Poverty Law Program, Monique Lin-Luse and Jason Bailey of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., Dan Korobkin and Bonsitu Kitaba- Gaviglio of the ACLU of Michigan, and Detroit attorneys Melissa El Johnson and Kurt Thornbladh.
ANALYSIS OF DPD KILLING OF HAKIM LITTLETON BY COALITION FOR POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY SHOWS LITTLETON SHOT MULTIPLE TIMES, ONCE IN THE HEAD, AFTER HE WAS DISARMED, RESTRAINED: NO LONGER A THREAT
July 24, 2020
#DETROITWILLBREATHE has now posted the Coalition for Police Accountability’s analysis of police bodycam and dashcam videos showing Hakim Littleton, 20, being shot to death by Detroit police on July 10, 2020 on their Facebook page (see video above). It replaces an earlier frame-by-frame analysis posted July 13, 2020 on YouTube published here for investigative purposes. That video analysis, allegedly by a former police Gang Squad member, was highly racist and offensive. It strongly resembled the rush to judgment of Littleton by Detroit Police Chief James Craig, Mayor Mike Duggan and many others who attempted to have their comments published here in response to this story. (Comments on Voice of Detroit are subject to prior approval by the editor.)
Hakim Littleton/Facebook
The narrator celebrated the killing of Littleton, making derogatory, racist comments about the neighborhood and the people who live there (“shit neighborhoods” and “shit guys”), implying that they are all criminals who need to be “taken down.” He repeatedly referred to the “Black Lives Matter” movement and issues like “community policing” in derogatory terms.
Still needed is the release of the names of all the officers involved in Hakim Littleton’s killing, and a COMPLETE RELEASE of each individual police dashcam and bodycam video of the shooting as demanded by “Detroit Will Breathe.” The original video is clearly cobbled together from those individual videos which leaves questions about whether it has been doctored.
Judge Dalton A. Roberson
Judge Ulysses W. Boykin
False claims have been made that Littleton was on probation for a charge of armed robbery. Third Judicial Circuit Court records shows that he actually pled guilty to “unarmed robbery,” and “felony firearm.” He was charged Aug. 13, 2017 and sentenced Jan. 6, 2018 to three years of probation including boot camp on both charges by Third Judicial Circuit Court Judge Dalton A. Roberson.
Below is an excerpt from commentary on Detroit Will Breathe’s Facebook page on DPD arrests of eight people and attacks on others among the hundreds of people who turned out to protest Hakim Littleton’s killing.
PRESS RELEASE SUNDAY, JULY 12
Friday afternoon, Detroit Will Breathe and other organizations joined community members at San Juan and McNichols, the site of the shooting [of Hakim Littleton], to demand an investigation into Littleton’s death, the release of the names of the officers who fired their weapons, and the release of videos recording Littleton’s murder. Police refused to communicate with the crowd and removed Littleton’s body without conducting a thorough investigation. As the crowd chanted, riot police began to line up in the middle of the residential block on San Juan just north of McNichols.
Police banging batons on shields advanced on the line of protestors, hitting some protestors with batons and ramming others with shields. Several protestors were hospitalized due to their encounters with police. Detroit Will Breathe has documented injuries to members of the crowd including: a head laceration, a fractured pelvis, other lacerations that required medical attention, concussions, bruised ribs, head injuries from shields, burns from tear gas canisters thrown at close range, and a pregnant woman bludgeoned in the abdomen with a baton. Several protestors reported having the wind knocked out of them and not being able to breathe for several minutes. Protestors trying to protect other protestors who had been pushed to the ground from getting trampled were targeted for beatings. Photo evidence shows officers holding Nakia Wallace in a chokehold, several officers pinning down and putting knees on multiple necks and backs of protestors, and Tristan Taylor with an officer’s knee on his neck.
Protestors who were arrested were kept in close quarters with other prisoners, despite social distancing laws due to the global pandemic. “It looked like a slave ship,” Lloyd Simpson of Detroit Will Breathe said “Bodies piled on each other, no space. It was terrible. And there were empty cells, too.” Arrestees indicated similar conditions of caged prisoners in both the women’s and men’s sections.
When the movement calls for defunding the police, it means that the conditions that led to Littleton’s death should never have been possible. We see time and time again the interactions between police and Black and Brown people ending in violence and death. The brutal force protestors were met with by DPD instead of care and explanation is a clear example of the treatment dispensed in our communities every single day by police. Their response to us is in fact what made us come to the streets in the first place.
Police violence against protesters should never have been a response. The continued detaining of Meeko Williams is a further attempt to harm and harass Black people and suppress the movement. We will not stand for this continued harassment of protestors. We demand Williams’ immediate release and all charges against protestors dropped immediately. Additionally, we call for the naming and firing of all officers involved in the brutal assault of protestors.
WOULD DETROIT POLICE HAVE KILLED HAKIM LITTLETON IF HE WAS WHITE?
VOD has added photos and videos to the article below, from The PuLSE Institute.
Tina Patterson, President,Director ,of Research The PuLSE Institute
Editor’s Note: Tina M. Patterson, a Detroit native and attorney is the president and director of research at The PuLSE Institute, Detroit’s independent anti-poverty think tank. She was previously a federal government attorney with the Social Security Administration. During her stint at the Social Security Administration, she wrote legally binding decisions for administrative law judges throughout the United States and Puerto Rico. This column, part of The Douglass Project, the Institute’s research vessel addressing issues of race, equity, democracy and poverty, is an ongoing series that explores the role of race and policing in Detroit. For submission inquiries contact Bankole Thompson, the editor-in-chief of The PuLSE Institute at info@thepulseinstitute.org.
“There is a depth of hatred in the bone marrow of this country that supports the killing of the Black body.” -Arica L. Coleman, Ph.D.,Historian, Author, Lecturer
Another well-established principle of constitutional law and criminal justice is the universal fundamental right that a suspect is innocent until proven guilty. In fact, the entire American criminal procedure begins with this sacred presumption. If every suspect was guilty upon first encounter with police, there would be no need for prosecutors, judges, juries, or anyone else employed by our publicly-funded court systems.
The notion that innocence must be protected at all costs is a centuries old axiom. In 1769, preeminent English jurist William Blackstone noted that “the law holds that it is better that 10 guilty persons escape, than that 1 innocent suffer.” Likewise, this fundamental principle has been recognized by the 1895 U.S. Supreme Court case of Coffin et al. v United States, which stated, “it is better to let the crime of a guilty person go unpunished than to condemn the innocent.”
These same constitutional provisions extend to newly freed Black people in the aftermath of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery with the passage of the 14th amendment, which guarantees no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Yet the shooting death of the 19-year old young Black man, Hakim Littleton, in Detroit on July 10, 2020, and the justification for his death at the hands of the Detroit Police Department, seem to nullify these well-established constitutional liberties, that harken to the days of slavery and Jim Crow policy: “No crime in the state of Michigan is punishable by death… unless you’re Black.” “Innocent until proven guilty… unless you’re Black.” “Due process of law… unless you’re Black.”
Cover of the 2015 e-book edition of Robert Williams book, in which he discusses the right to armed self-defense.
This is particularly troubling considering the interaction between white suspects and police response to their violent behavior, which is often noticeably less apprehensive than that of black suspects. Most egregiously, mass murderer and white supremacist, Dylann Roof, was taken into custody without incident by authorities after he murdered 9 Black members of a historically black church, “Mother” Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Charleston, South Carolina, including its senior pastor Reverend Clementa C. Pinckney, who was also a sitting state senator at the time of his murder. Infamously, the police purchased Burger King for Roof, who was allegedly hungry after committing such heinous crimes, an act that validated his humanity despite his cold-blooded and intentional execution of Black life.
Data proves that blacks are disproportionately more likely to be killed by law enforcement than whites. Additionally, reports have shown that whites who commit violent action against police officers can still be taken in peacefully, which further calls into question the so-called justification for the police shooting that occurred in Detroit on Friday.
Take for instance, the case of Benjamin Murdy in Harford County, Maryland, in January 2020. The Harford County Sheriff, Jeffrey Gahler, stated that during an hour-and-a-half long standoff, Murdy fired almost 200 rounds from a rifle and handgun, while “police never fired a single shot.” The suspect then arranged for his own surrender, and was taken into custody… alive, and guaranteed his day in court. Guaranteed his right to due process and equal protection under the law. How can this extremely and knowingly violent white man fire 200 rounds at police, with multiple weapons, and still be taken into custody alive, without the police firing even one single shot?
In contrast, Hakim Littleton was killed on the spot, while police were praised for their actions in taking his life. He was robbed of his right to due process, robbed of his day in court, robbed of any other days on Earth, and it was immediately and resoundingly deemed justified.
With the climate of protest against police violence permeating the globe since the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on May 25, Detroit Police Chief James Craig took quick and decisive action to release police video of the encounter with Mr. Littleton. Whether done for transparency or reprieve from culpability, the video showed that Mr. Littleton had a gun and fired at least one shot, close range, at an officer first, before officers returned fire, killing him.
Mr. Littleton’s actions were inexcusable, and police most certainly had probable cause to detain him. In fact, he could have been taken into custody after video showed him restrained on the ground. He could have faced a myriad of charges, including serious felonies such as assault with intent to murder, assault against an officer, aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon, and felony firearm, just to name a few.
But in this country, Blackness is a nonexistent crime which renders you immediately guilty of any actions, whether legal or illegal. There is no presumption of innocence that carries through until conviction. Guaranteed constitutional rights are null and void, and imminent and violent death by police becomes a proper and acceptable punishment, regardless of the actions that lead to the encounter.
If Littleton was white, the burning question is would he be dead? Given the contrasting case of Murdy and the fact that blacks are more often killed by police than whites, there is a strong possibility that if Hakim Littleton was white, he would still be alive. In fact, there are other cases of white violent suspects who were peacefully taken away unharmed in their dealings with police officers.
Police Chief James Craig with Special Ops cops during “Operation Mistletoe,” one of a series of 18 raids he has led through Detroit neighborhoods looking for individuals allegedly with outstanding warrants.
This is the analysis mainstream media will ignore in Detroit. They reported on the Friday shooting without any context into the documented racial disparities of law enforcement shootings between white suspects and Black suspects. Instead, the media immediately reported information released by police and validated the shooting with headline titles such as “Detroit police chief: Video shows killing of man by officers was justified shooting.”
However, every police encounter with Black people in America deserves intense scrutiny beyond the headlines due to the relentless, historical pursuit of state-sanctioned and state-sponsored violence against Blacks in this country.
In a National Geographic article summarizing the history of lynching in America, Arica Coleman, Ph.D., pointed out the dehumanization of Blacks is the link that justifies death in such violent manners. “It doesn’t make a difference what you do… your very presence signifies a threat because of the meanings associated with Blackness- dangerous, impurity, inhumanity, criminal.”
There is a sinister, underlying belief that Black people are always in the wrong, no matter how innocent or culpable their actions, and their behavior necessitates swift and immediate punitive action, while the police can be excused from liability with murder. Gun or no gun, this is why police can justify the killing of Littleton in Detroit, while Murdy, who posed an arguably more significant threat, can be taken into custody unharmed. This is why Ahmaud Arbery’s killers can walk freely for two months without controversy. It’s why Breonna Taylor’s killers have not been charged, with some still on the force. This is why grand juries declined to indict the killers of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland. And, it’s why defenders of George Floyd’s murderers try to use his past criminal record as a justification for his inhumane death.
This belief in inherent Black criminality is what spawned the lynch mob mentality that allowed angry crowds of white citizens to storm county jails detaining Black suspects, drag those suspects from their jail cells, and institute vigilante justice through violent lynchings, often preceded by beating, mutilation, and other heinous torture tactics inflicted upon the victim while still alive.
Memorial to three Black men, in town working for a circus, lynched in Duluth, MN Jan. 15, 1920
The National Geographic article documents a lynching that occurred in Duluth, Minnesota in 1920, 100 years before the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, in which police were “ordered not to use their guns” to deter a white mob of up to 10,000, who came to enforce vigilante justice on six Black men.
There are no “perfect” victims. All of these individuals shared the same attributes of being Black, the common denominator that subjected them to extrajudicial killing by police and vigilante citizens alike.
As Dr. Coleman stated, “There is a depth of hatred in the bone marrow of this country that supports the killing of the black body.”
The rush to condemn Mr. Littleton as a menace to society backed by a dehumanizing narrative being weaponized by the media, betrays the inherent natural respect for humanity and fundamental rights that are accorded to white men, who may have a similar or worse background than him.
Until we tackle this highly uncomfortable but very existent dichotomy in this country, the killing of Hakim Littleton cannot be accepted as justified.
As Wayne County Prosecutor election primary nears Aug. 4, family and supporters of wrongfully convicted Darrell Ewing rally July 2, 2020
Ewing and co-defendant Derrico Searcy won new trial Oct. 24, 2017 due to jury contamination, lack of “overwhelming evidence of guilt” (judge ruling)
U.S. District Court Judge Denise Page Hood earlier threw out convictions, ordered new trial
Wayne Co. Prosecutor Kym Worthy appealed, Sixth Circuit ordered evidentiary hearing which resulted in order for new trial
Worthy STILL appealing through state courts, keeping Ewing, Searcy locked up as COVID-19 endangers lives of the incarcerated across U.S.
By Diane Bukowski
July 9, 2020
DETROIT — Supporters of Darrell Ewing, including a large contingent of family members who came from as far away as Atlanta, rallied outside the Frank Murphy Hall in downtown Detroit for six hours July 2. They said that he was wrongfully convicted in 2010, but has been kept in prison, his life endangered by the COVID-19 pandemic, ever since. Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Michael Hathaway ordered a new trial for Ewing and his co-defendant Derrico Searcy Oct. 24, 2019, but Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy appealed that ruling as she has stonewalled all Ewing’s appeals since the beginning.
Cieddah Ewing, Darrell Ewing’s sister, and her daughter Anilya Dodson drove all the way from Atlanta for the July 2, 2020 protest.
Ewing’s mother LaSonya Dodson told VOD that her son’s supporters want to see Worthy removed due to her refusal to grant justice in Ewing’s case, as well as the cases of many others.
“We have been going through this process in the court system for 10 years now,” Dodson said. “U.S. District Court Judge Denise Page Hood ordered a new trial earlier, but that ended up at the Appeals Court in Cincinnati, where we won again. Judge Hathaway ordered a new trial, but prosecutors chose to appeal knowing that he is innocent. The young man who did this has confessed; we have got written affidavits.
“We also had a juror that came forward and said there wouldn’t have been a guilty verdict if she hadn’t been forced to change her vote. We do appreciate her for coming forth. The coronavirus pandemic has delayed more court hearings. You can’t social distance in prison—if somebody wins a new trial, it seems like they should be released.”
Worthy is opposed by progressive defense attorney Victoria Burton-Harris, part of a national coalition of newly elected prosecutors and candidates confronting the U.S. epidemic of mass incarceration head-on.
Burton-Harris says those living in Wayne County and especially Detroit have been targeted disproportionately since Prosecutor Worthy took office in 2004, victimized by wrongful convictions and Worthy’s insistence that all court appeals be opposed, many times on technical grounds.
Defense Atty. Victoria Burton Harris, candidate for Wayne County Prosecutor in Aug. 4 primary.
Ewing and and his co-defendant Derrico Searcy were convicted of murdering J.B. Watson Dec. 29, 2009, in an allegedly gang-related shooting at Harper and Van Dyke. They have been in prison serving life sentences since 2010 despite the subsequent confession of Tyree Washington to the murder. Washington came forward repeatedly to declare under oath that he, not Ewing and Searcy, carried out the killing.
Many Michigan Department of Corrections prisoners are in similar circumstances. The Michigan Supreme Court sent the conviction of Thelonious Searcy, whose case VOD has covered extensively, back to the state Court of Appeals March 18, 2o20, ordering that they grant his leave to appeal and issue a substantive ruling. The Appeals Court has yet to do so, and meanwhile Searcy has tested positive for COVID-19.
Searcy was convicted of the 2004 murder of Jamal Segars, who was shot to death while stuck in traffic during a Labor Day weekend “Black Party” on Gratiot at Conner outside City Airport. Filing pro se, he won an evidentiary hearing that was held from January through June of 2018.
Thelonious Searcy, still in prison due to frame-up by police, prosecutors.
Davontae Sanford embraced by mother Taminko Sanford-Tilmon on his release from prison.
During that hearing, he and attorney Michael Dezsi exposed the truth, that Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Timothy Kenny, in league with Asst. Prosecutor Patrick Muscat, lied to the trial jury about the type of bullets found in Segars’ body.
The .40 caliber bullets that were actually found comported with the gun hit man Vincent Smothers said he used, in a detailed confession given during two days of testimony in open court.
Smothers was more broadly known as the hit man who confessed to killing four people on Runyon Street in 2007, a crime for which Davontae Sanford, then 14, was falsely convicted and spent nine years in prison. A Michigan State Police investigation, using the Detroit Police Department’s own reports, uncovered the clear collusion of Prosecutor Worthy and her subordinates with the DPD in Sanford’s frame-up. Patrick Muscat was the AP in that case as well as Searcy’s. Worthy contends to this day that Sanford was not innocent, earning her the title of “Innocence Denier” in a national article.
Bekeiba Holland: 150 Mich. Juvenile Lifers still not re-sentenced 8 yrs. after SCOTUS ruling, time to remove Kym Worthy
Bekieba Holland attended the protest, representing Prisoners Doing the Right Thing, whose office is at 15535 Mack on Detroit’s east side. The group, founded by the late Timothy Kincaid, a juvenile lifer released in 2016 who was well-known throughout the MDOC, has a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/PDTRT100.
Holland was convicted and sentenced as a juvenile lifer in 1991, and served more than two decades in prison before he was re-sentenced.
The late Timothy Kincaid, who founded Prisoners Doing the Right Thing after his release as a juvenile lifer Nov. 2016, after spending 36 years in prison.
“We’re down here to show the community what Kym Worthy is doing and what she has been doing throughout the years,” Holland told VOD. “We need to remove her. She’s not doing a service, she’s doing a disservice. Our taxpayer dollars are going to pay her salary. We have over 150 juvenile lifers in Michigan who haven’t gone back for re-sentencing yet. What is the hold-up? I had to wait three years before I could get resentenced. She tried to re-instate life on me, but since it wouldn’t stand, she came with a cop, 30 to 60, so I took the deal and I’m out. The high court said it’s unconstitutional to give a juvenile a mandatory life sentence, but she doesn’t want to abide by their ruling.”
Worthy virulently opposed Michigan state legislation that would have banned juvenile life without parole prior to the SCOTUS rulings. She testified before the Michigan legislature against statutory changes supported by the Second Chance Coalition of families and even victims of juvenile lifers that would have outlawed JLWOP in Michigan.
Wayne County has the highest number of children sent to die in prison in Michigan; Michigan has the second highest number in the nation.
Worthy allied herself with former Atty. General Bill Schuette in insisting that Miller was not retroactive, but SCOTUS ruled in Montgomery that it was. After that ruling, she filed motions to keep 41 percent of the County’s 144 juvenile lifers in prison until they die; 60 individuals plus three on “conditional” terms, and seek terms of years for 81 others. She added that many of those with recommendations for terms of years would have recommendations higher than the minimum 25 years allowed under state statutes.
Charles Lewis in 1977 at age 17 with mother Rosie Lewis.
Since 2016, Wayne County juvenile lifers recommended for LWOP have fought a bitter uphill battle for their freedom.
VOD thoroughly covered the case of juvenile lifer Charles Lewis, publishing over 40 stories on nearly four years of re-sentencing hearings conducted by Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Qiana Lillard. During those years, as Lewis’ health and that of his mother continued to deteriorate, he fought unsuccessfully to have his conviction overturned due to the complete loss of his court file, under state precedential rulings.
Lewis was convicted in 1976 by racist Recorders Court Judge Joseph Maher of the murder of a white off-duty Detroit police officer, based on the coerced testimony of three younger juveniles.
His frame-up and conviction occurred during a period in Detroit of virulent attacks on Black youth and their families by whites angered because Blacks were moving into their neighborhoods, and white cops angered because Black cops were entering the police force. He always maintained his innocence, but was eventually re-sentenced to 40-60 years after spending 42 years in prison, and released in 2018.
His immediate release after his re-sentencing, and the release of others in similar situations, were due only to a federal court ruling by U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith that restored “good time” credits to re-sentenced juvenile lifers. That ruling was won by Atty. Deborah LaBelle and the Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the face of inaction by the State Appellate Defenders Office (SADO), which Third Judicial Circuit Court Judge Timothy Kenny, then presiding judge of the criminal division, had appointed to represent indigent juvenile lifers.
William Garrison, shown in 2009 photo taken during prison visit.
Worthy continues to demonstrate complete callousness regarding juvenile lifers and others in the MDOC as the COVID-19 virus runs rampant through prison systems in Michigan and nationally.
On April 18, 2020, juvenile lifer William Garrison, who earlier was resentenced to a term of years and should have been released forthwith, died of COVID-19 in the Macomb Correctional Facility as he waited for Worthy’s office to register its formal approval of his release. A judge had ordered his release in January.
Garrison went to prison at the age of 16 in 1976, convicted of a murder during a robbery that went awry. He subsequently taught himself to read and write, studied the law, and became an advocate for other incarcerated persons.
Dozens of Ewing’s family members attended the protest July 2, which lasted from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in blazing heat. They included many of his young nieces and nephews, who chanted “Free Darrell,” “No Justice, No Peace, and “Corrupted Cops Affect Us All.”
Ewing’s fiancee Brentia Hudson (shown in video above), told VOD, “Darrell’s whole family is here, his mother, his father, sisters and brothers and their kids,” said Hutson. “Darrell is innocent. The real person who committed the murder has come forward.”
Above, Prince Jones, also a member of Prisoners Doing the Right Thing, said, “I came down here in support of the protest, getting rid of Kym Worthy. Prisoners deserve better treatment and Kym Worthy is not the one who’s going to give it to us.”
Worthy’s office was due to submit their appellate brief with reasons why they still oppose a new trial for Ewing and Searcy July 2, after obtaining an extended deadline, but it has still not been filed, adding months to the delay in holding a new trial.
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Bill would condition federal funding on whether states release eligible prisoners endangered by COVID-19 in U.S. prisons, jails
Introduced by Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, and Barbara Lee
The top five clusters of the virus across the U.S. are all in prisons and jails
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) represents 13th District including Detroit.
COVID-19 continues to ravish jails, prisons, and immigration detention centers due to overcrowded, unsanitary conditions and a lack of adequate healthcare. In fact, the top five clusters of the virus across the U.S. are all in prisons and jails, and cases keep rising.
Recently, Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, and Barbara Lee have introduced the Dismantle Mass Incarceration for Public Health Act, which would condition federal funding on whether states release eligible incarcerated people, including those who are:
Awaiting trial and have not been convicted of a crime (likely just can’t afford bail)
In ICE detention
Pregnant or primary caregivers
Terminally ill, medically vulnerable to COVID-19 (including ages 55+), or have a disability
Nearing the end of their sentences
Serving misdemeanor sentences or possession/sale of a controlled substance
Incarcerated due to technical violation of parole/probation or a bench warrant for arrest (often due to a missed court appearance)
Status offenders (young people charged with an offense that would not be a crime if committed by an adult.
This new legislation is in line with Michigan Liberation’s work to end mass incarceration and the unjust practice of cash bail, as well as the work we’ve done throughout the pandemic to bail people out of jail and then provide them ongoing support (in collaboration with other groups).
Let’s demonstrate mass support for this bill.
Become a grassroots co-signer of the
Dismantle Mass Incarceration for Public Health Act today.
Tlaib, Pressley, and Lee Introduce Bill Advancing the Dismantling of Mass Incarceration During COVID-19 Pandemic
June 18, 2020
Press Release
U.S. Reo, Ayanna Pressley
WASHINGTON—Today, Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib (MI-13), Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), and Barbara Lee (CA-09) introduced the landmark Dismantle Mass Incarceration for Public Health Act, which would require the release of eligible individuals who are currently in custody in a jail or prison during the COVID-19 crisis and for one year after. It is the boldest piece of legislation introduced to date addressing the long-standing problem of mass incarceration that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The introduction of the Dismantle Mass Incarceration for Public Health Act comes amid dire warnings from public health experts and law enforcement officials working in state and local corrections facilities that overcrowded, unsanitary conditions, aging facilities and lack of ample medical care in prisons and jails are endangering the lives of incarcerated individuals, prison staff and their families and communities. Indeed, the number of infected incarcerated individuals doubled from May to June for a total of 68,000 known cases and a 73 percent increase in coronavirus-related deaths even as such rates plateau nationwide. The pandemic has also caused delays in trials and hearings, resulting in incarcerated individuals remaining in custody for longer periods of time—and unnecessarily vulnerable to the life-threatening virus.
“This pandemic should not be a death sentence for anyone,” said Congresswoman Tlaib. “We already know that Black and Brown folks are disproportionately affected by this virus outside prison walls. We also know that they’ve been disproportionately incarcerated for decades. These factors make for a unique urgency to get this bill passed, so we ensure incarcerated individuals and their loved ones have a fighting chance to see each other again.”
U.S. Representative Barbara Lee
“Every human being, regardless of their involvement with the legal system, has the right to dignity and safety,” said Congresswoman Pressley. “But as we’ve feared since the onset of this public health crisis, our prisons and jails are proving to be major incubators of COVID-19, endangering the lives of millions of incarcerated individuals and corrections staff. We continue to be in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic that is claiming the lives of our most vulnerable. Public health is public safety, and in this moment, we must prioritize decarceration to save lives and protect communities before it is too late. Our bill will call on states across the country to do exactly that by tying eligibility for federal funding to the urgent release of medically vulnerable individuals. Involvement in the legal system should not be a death sentence due to COVID-19, and this bill can save lives.”
“Overcrowding, inadequate health care and unsanitary conditions make jail and prison populations especially vulnerable to this virus – and those conditions make it virtually impossible for jails and prisons to follow CDC guidelines,” said Congresswoman Lee. “Our system of mass incarceration disproportionately targets African Americans and other people of color, further compounding the disparity we are seeing in how the pandemic is affecting Americans. This virus should not be, and doesn’t have to be, a death sentence for incarcerated individuals, for corrections staff or for their families.”
The Dismantle Mass Incarceration for Public Health Act is co-sponsored by ten of Congresswomen Tlaib, Pressley, and Lee’s colleagues: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Ilhan Omar (MN-5), Nydia M. Velazquez (NY-7), Bennie G. Thompson (MS-2), Carolyn B. Maloney (NY-12), Bobby L. Rush (IL-1), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC-At Large), Jan Schakowsky (IL-9), Alma S. Adams, Ph.D. (NC-12), and Earl Blumenauer (OR-3). It’s also received the endorsement of such advocacy groups as The Movement for Black Lives, Civil Rights Corps, Lawyers for Civil Rights, Detroit Justice Center, Drug Policy Alliance, Public Citizen, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Michigan Liberation, organizations who have long been at the frontlines of fighting for an end to mass incarceration at the federal and local level.
Thea Sebastian
“Black people sit at the intersection of a pandemic and the public health crisis of incarceration,” said Movement for Black Lives Policy Table Leadership member Mark-Anthony Clayton-Johnson. “Both are taking our lives at alarming rates. Our communities know that jails and prisons make people sick, make mental health emergencies worse, and produce medical vulnerabilities. An honest public health response to this crisis requires us to challenge this society’s attachment to incarceration.
“Even before COVID-19 upended American life, mass incarceration was devastating communities nationwide,” said Thea Sebastian, Policy Counsel for Civil Rights Corps. “But with this pandemic, jails and prisons have become even more life-threatening for the 2.3 million people incarcerated – and a key source of virus transmission that leaves all people less safe. The Dismantle Mass Incarceration for Public Health Act is a crucial first step toward achieving the immediate decarceration that our communities so desperately need.”
The Dismantle Mass Incarceration for Public Health Act would apply to all states receiving federal funds from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Grant Program. Adults and juveniles in jail or prison for the following reasons would be deemed eligible for immediate release under the legislation:
Have not been convicted of a crime and are awaiting trial
Bench warrant for arrest or technical violation of parole or probation
Those with misdemeanors or are status offenders
Possession or sale of a controlled substance
Those being detained on ICE detainers
Those who are pregnant or are primary caregivers
Those who are terminally ill, are medically vulnerable to COVID-19, or have a disability
Banner at #DetroitWillBreathe Tribunal June 20, 2020
Video above courtesy of #DetroitWillBreathe showing events (1) June 2 Gratiot/Conner (2) downtown Detroit (3) photos from various marches
Public Tribunal, held June 20 by #DetroitWillBreathe, tried DPD Chief James Craig, Mayor Mike Duggan
Protesters say battalions of Detroit police in riot gear with armored vehicles confronted peaceful demos with brute force May 28 — June 19, 2020
Allege DPD used rubber bullets leading to grave injuries, tear gas, pepper spray, brutal beatings, noise torture, sexual abuse
Detroit City Council to discuss, vote on resolution to drop all charges against protesters Mon. June 28 and Tues. June 29
During tribunal, DPD announcedsuspension of one officer, 11 formal incident investigations for excessive force
Duggan, Craig previously denied all allegations, blamed outside agitators
By Diane Bukowski
June 26, 2020
Detroit Police Chief James Craig (l) with Mayor Mike Duggan (r) at earlier press conference,
Hundreds massed in downtown Detroit’s Hart Plaza June 20 to try Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and Police Chief James Craig for orchestrating the brutal abuse of #BlackLivesMatter protesters over the previous 23 days. The protests, held in downtown Detroit and throughout its neighborhoods, were part of a global uprising after Minneapolis police murdered #GeorgeFloyd May 25 this year.
The tribunal was called by #DetroitWillBreathe, a coalition led by long-time activists and new arrivals, many of them youthful. #DWB has emerged as the driving force in the local movement against the police state.
“What they did to us was on a perfect example of what we were protesting against,” Dwayne, a daily marcher, said. “They showed up in military gear to stop our voices, but our voices are powerful—power is in the movement. We are family, brothers and sisters.”
Part of the hundreds who attended the #DWB Tribunal June 20, 2020.
Speakers said the DPD attacked their peaceful protests beginning with the first day, on May 28 in downtown Detroit.
Duggan and Craig massed battalions of hundreds of police in riot gear aided by armored vehicles, which deployed tear gas as they approached marchers, then waded into them and carried out arrests without provocation.
Many said they were brutally beaten, pepper sprayed, tortured with loud siren noise and verbal and sexual abuse, and painfully handcuffed with zip ties that cut off their circulation. They were held en masse with no outside contact in the basement of Little Caesar’s Arena on the hot night of June 2, after challenging a curfew imposed by Duggan in Detroit’s east-side Gratiot/Conner neighborhood.
Charges were brought against hundreds of them, with #DWB organizer Tristan Taylor sustaining felony charges of “inciting to riot.” The Detroit City Council is to discuss and vote on a resolution to drop all charges against the protesters Mon. June 29, and Tues. June 30.
Protesters included Ellie, a young mother and well-known hip-hop artist, who said, “It was a war going on in my own city.”
Ellie referred to the reaction of Detroit City Council members, who condemned the protesters for marching at their residences June 15 against the body’s proposed renewal of a contract with Data Works Plus, which provides facial recognition technology used in DPD’s “Green Light'” program. Farmington Hills resident Robert Williams, represented by the Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, sued the DPD June 24 for false arrest illegally using a “Green Light” video capture.
Many protesters testified that the DPD brutally beat them repeatedly, not to arrest them for violating a temporary curfew imposed by Mayor Duggan, but to punish them and scare them off. But they added that the attacks only further strengthened their will to fight.
#DWB co-chair Nakia Wallace countered Duggan and Craig’s depiction of protesters as “outside agitators” not residing in Detroit, and mainly white. (In fact, 60 percent of Detroit’s police force lives outside the city.)
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Duggan and Craig claimed the protesters were not welcome in Detroit’s neighborhoods, but Metro Times reporter Steve Neavling said earlier in a story that residents in the 12th and Clairmount neighborhood on Detroit’s west side, where the 1967 rebellion against police brutality began, enthusiastically welcomed them on the third day of marches (below).Photos: Steve Neavling
Below, Jae Bass vividly described his awakening during the protests.
“They sent an army of hundreds of officers dressed in riot gear, shields and tanks against non-violent protesters,” Bass said.
Dwayne, a resident of southwest Detroit. backed up Bass’ description of the events June 2 when protesters marched on Detroit’s eastside in the Gratiot/Conner neighborhood. He said that he was just beginning to come to terms with what had happened to him and others, after marching every day for the last weeks without a break.
Dwayne speaks at DWB tribunal June 20, 2020.
He said the DPD brutally beat him and other protesters without provocation. (See #DWB video at top of article.)
(Quote below is liberally taken from Detroit Free Press live stream video at bottom of story; VOD’s camera had run out of power.)
“They basically cut us off and trapped us in,” Dwayne recalled. “But we weren’t going anywhere, the curfew was simply to target us. They lined up in front of us, looking for a fight. They had batons, riot gear, armored trucks, they didn’t give us a choice. Hundreds of police officers ran in with batons swinging—not trying to grab nobody—just hitting. I was slammed on the ground, lost a shoe. One took my mask off and sprayed me again and again, then sprayed water on me for a photo op. We got on the police bus and they turned on the heat with all the windows up, like being in a fire. People in there had tear gas and pepper spray in their eyes. They literally could not breathe at all.
“We were on the bus for about 45 minutes. I demanded that they cut my zip ties off, because I couldn’t feel my fingers, they were discolored, there was blood all over my seat from my hands. They really tried everything in their power to break us, but people on the buses kept up high spirits, kept chanting, we could not stop. When we got to Little Caesars, we saw our brothers laid out there and chanted loudly, ‘No justice, no peace!’ How is that any kind of a justice system at all? They didn’t think we were going to come back harder the next days, but they showed us what we were down there for, and we did. We went from 127 arrested to thousands of us. For all those that said it couldn’t happen in Detroit, it did.”
Kate, another marcher arrested during the Gratiot/Conner protest June 2, recounted Detroit police officers repeatedly calling her a B—h while beating her to the ground, slamming her head on a curb, before zip-tying her hands behind her and loading her onto the DPD bus.
Stephen, a resident of Detroit’s Woodbridge neigborhood, also observed abuse of women during those arrests. He said he saw a woman protester come off the police bus at Little Caesar’s Arena “with one shoe, and no pants.” recounted the DPD’s use of a siren-like device which they aimed directly at the protesters, reminiscent of tortures used by the CIA during interrogations.
“They started blasting us with this long-range device,” Stephen said. “You worry you’re going to lose your hearing and you’re just experiencing nothing but pain. It’s a fear tactic and it works. I was terrified. They were standing around ten feet away, banging on their shields looking at us intimidating us. We were gradually surrounded. I kept my arms at my side—hopefully to get out of there without being beaten, but an officer grabbed me on my shoulders, and kneed me in the balls. Several more officers began beating me including in my lower back. lower back. We were loaded into a van and taken to Little Caesars. I was among the first at Little Caesar’s, and one of the things that I saw was a young woman being taken off the bus with one shoe and no pants.”
Stephen said he regrets not saying something at the time, but that he and others are hoping to bring her plight forward now.
The DPD used rubber bullets that severely injured at least one protester, fracturing her skull from behind, #DWB leader Tristan Taylor said. He also countered Duggan and Craig’s claims that protesters were not from Detroit, noting that they said one protester had Tennessee license plates. Taylor said she was Black and living in Detroit at the time, but that many newly-arrived young people have found the need to continue using records that save them from paying Detroit’s exorbitant car insurance rates.
Below is the Free Press’ livestream video of part one of the June 20 tribunal.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
DETROIT CITY COUNCIL TO VOTE ON RESOLUTION TO DROP ALL CHARGES AGAINST PROTESTERS: SESSIONS JUNE 28 AND JUNE 29; watch online, send online letters of support to Council members (info below)
Over 400 nonviolent protesters were arrested by DPD for exercising their constitutional rights to protest. Many more were subjected to police brutality, torture and excessive use of force.
Most protesters were given tickets for “loitering” in violation of Mayor Duggan’s unjust 8PM curfew between May 29th and June 2nd. Mayor Duggan is not our daddy and does not have the right to give us a curfew.
Without the curfew DPD would have had no grounds to arrest protesters. There have been almost no incidents of property damage by protesters, in contrast to protests in other cities.
The City of Detroit has the power to drop all the charges NOW. City Council must pass this resolution as the first step to making that happen.
March on Livonia Police Department Tues. June 30, 2020
RELATED STORIES:
“Marches, Assemblies and a Public Tribunal: How Detroit Activists are building power,” from Left Voice, a national newspaper at https://www.leftvoice.org/.
VOICE OF DETROIT has published countless stories recounting the actions of Detroit’s police state under Chief Craig, which counter the mainstream media’s current love affair with him. Its recent story on DPD’s suffocation death of Anthony Clark-Reed in 2015 lists many cases of apparent DPD murders and other brutality that have occurred since Craig took office in 2013. Below are VOD’s other recent related stories.
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A Black man who says he was unjustly arrested because facial recognition technology mistakenly identified him as a suspected shoplifter is calling for a public apology from Detroit police. And for the department to abandon its use of the controversial technology.
The complaint by Robert Williams is a rare challenge from someone who not only experienced an erroneous face recognition hit, but was able to discover that it was responsible for his subsequent legal troubles.
The Wednesday complaint filed on Williams’ behalf alleges that his Michigan driver license photo — kept in a statewide image repository — was incorrectly flagged as a likely match to a shoplifting suspect. Investigators had scanned grainy surveillance camera footage of an alleged 2018 theft inside a Shinola watch store in midtown Detroit, police records show.
Robert Williams Greenlight photo (l) and MI Drivers License photo (r)
That led to what Williams describes as a humiliating January arrest in front of his wife and young daughters on their front lawn in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills.
“I can’t really even put it into words,” Williams said in a video announcement (above( describing the daytime arrest that left his daughters weeping. “It was one of the most shocking things that I ever had happen to me.”
The 42-year-old automotive worker, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, is demanding a public apology, final dismissal of his case and for Detroit police to scrap its use of facial recognition technology. Several studies have shown current face-recognition systems more likely to err when identifying people with darker skin.
The ACLU complaint said Detroit police “unthinkingly relied on flawed and racist facial recognition technology without taking reasonable measures to verify the information being provided.” It called the resulting investigation “shoddy and incomplete,” the officers involved “rude and threatening,” and said the department has dragged its feet responding to public-information requests for relevant records.
Detroit police and Wayne County prosecutors didn’t immediately return emailed requests for comment Wednesday.
DataWorks Plus, a South Carolina company that provides facial recognition technology to Detroit and the Michigan State Police, also couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Police records show the case began in October 2018 when five expensive watches went missing from the flagship store of Detroit-based luxury watchmaker Shinola. A loss-prevention worker later reviewed the video footage showing the suspect to be a Black man wearing a St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap.
Shinola Watch Store Woodward and Canfield, Detroit; the company is white-owned but was welcomed into Detroit by the City Council in the midst of ongoing gentrication; now they target a Black man.
“Video and stills were sent to Crime Intel for facial recognition,” says a brief police report. “Facial Recognition came back with a hit” — for Williams.
At the top of the facial recognition report, produced by Michigan State Police, was a warning in bold, capitalized letters that the computer’s finding should be treated as an investigative lead, not as probable cause for arrest.
But Detroit detectives then showed a 6-photo lineup that included Williams to the loss-prevention worker, who positively identified Williams, according to the report. It took months for police to issue an arrest warrant and several more before they called Williams at work and asked him to come to the police department. It’s not clear why.
Williams said he thought it was a prank call. But they showed up soon after at his house, took him away in handcuffs and detained him overnight. It was during his interrogation the next day that it became clear to him that he was improperly identified by facial recognition software.
“The investigating officer looked confused, told Mr. Williams that the computer said it was him but then acknowledged that ‘the computer must have gotten it wrong,’” the ACLU complaint says.
Prosecutors later dismissed the case, but without prejudice — meaning they could potentially pursue it again.
The case is likely to fuel a movement in Detroit and around the U.S. protesting police brutality, racial injustice and the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis. Detroit activists have presented reforms to the city’s mayor and police chief that include defunding the police department and ending its use of facial recognition.
Providers of police facial recognition systems often point to research showing they can be accurate when used properly under ideal conditions. A review of the industry’s leading facial recognition algorithms by the National Institute of Standards and Technology found they were more than 99% accurate when matching high-quality head shots to a database of other frontal poses.
But trying to identify a face from a video feed — especially using the ceiling-mounted cameras commonly found in stores — can cause accuracy rates to plunge. Studies have also shown that face recognition systems don’t perform equally across race, gender and age — working best on white men and with potentially harmful consequences for others.
Concerns about bias and growing scrutiny of policing practices following Floyd’s death led tech giants IBM, Amazonand Microsoft to announce earlier this month they would stop selling face recognition software to police, at least until Congress can establish guidelines for its use. Several cities, led by San Francisco last year, have banned use of facial recognition by municipal agencies.
“DETROIT WILL BREATHE” plans Public Tribunal June 20 5-8 PM, Hart Plaza to try Police Chief Craig, Mayor Mike Duggan for police brutality
Up to 4,000 protesters out daily in Detroit, thousands more across state, metro areas including suburbs since horrendous murder of George Floyd
Millions across the globe begin new era demanding profound changes to system, power to people in housing, health care, jobs, water, human rights
Tristan Taylor: Movement must recognize achievements to date, recognize that power is in the streets and remain there: We can win so much!
Seattle: Labor Council expels police union
BY DIANE BUKOWSKI
JUNE 15, 2020
Youth at June 13 protest, Detroit. VOD photo
DETROIT — As a global uprising galvanized by the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd May 31 continues, hundreds of protesters of all races, genders and ages turned out again Sat. June 13 in front of the Detroit Police Department’s “Public Safety Headquarters” for the 16th day of marches in Detroit.
They were joined by dozens of youth who marched from downtown’s Campus Martius chanting loudly, “Black Lives Matter.” (See video at top).
“We must unite and come together—too many of our people have died, brothers and sisters, old people, there is a horrible disease that killed mostly Black people,” one marcher cried out. “This is about more than just George Floyd, this is about millions that have been killed by the police, and it’s about the system that has disenfranchised Blacks across the country.”
Strikingly, the action included numerous young whites with signs recognizing their responsibility and that of other whites to fight to end racism and police brutality, and acknowledging that they have benefited from “white privilege” for centuries.
Young women were among many white youth vowing to stop racism.
Thousands more turned out again across the metro area including the suburbs and in cities small and large across Michigan, Black and white alike, families with babies in strollers along with youth and elders, an astounding phenomenon not seen since the civil rights and anti-war movements.
“Detroit Will Breathe” leader Tristan Taylor announced the organization will hold a Public Tribunal Sat. Jan. 20 to try the city’s Mayor Mike Duggan and Police Chief James Craig for brutality against the protesters and to further present their demands.
It will be held at Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit, Woodward and Jefferson, from 5 PM to 8 PM.
TRIBUNAL WILL BE HELD SAT. JUNE 20, 2020 FROM 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM AT HART PLAZA IN DOWNTOWN DETROIT, WOODWARD/JEFFERSON.
“We have so much power, we have achieved so much and we can achieve so much more, we are not marching in vain,” Taylor told hundreds outside the DPD headquarters. “The public tribunal on the racist [Detroit] police brutality experienced by protesters is to make sure the truth is told and that we have justice.” He said protesters who have been arrested and charged, who are among those invited to attend and speak, cannot count on the courts to accomplish that.
Duggan temporarily put Detroit under a curfew while the DPD arrested hundreds, including members of the media, using tear gas and rubber bullets, claiming protests were run by outside instigators. Protests in Detroit began peacefully, but were immediately met by walls of police in riot gear and in military tanks funded by the U.S. Pentagon.
Taylor noted Detroit City Council’s intent to vote June 16 on a contract with DataWorks, which runs the city’s “Green Light” program, or “hypersurveillance of Black and Brown bodies” as Taylor termed it. The Council appeared to have removed the item as of June 15 according to emails from the City Clerk’s office.
Detroit author/activist Tawana Petty.
The Detroit News reported that caravans of up to 33 “Detroit Will Breathe” cars descended on the homes of Council members Andre Spivey, James Tate and Janee Ayers June 15, honking their horns in opposition. The Council members generally reacted in anger, with Spivey saying, “I pray that protesters try not to make Detroit like other cities; that’s not our narrative.”
Despite public notice of removal of the item from the agenda, it went ahead and held discussion through “Zoom” on June 16, with public comments from residents including Tawana Petty and Eric Blount.
Petty said major corporations and over a dozen cities in other states are considering bans on facial recognition software. The News quoted her saying, “For some reason, the blackest city in America is doubling down.” It likewise quoted Blount, who called the software “a tool of institutional racism to the highest degree.”
“Detroit will Breathe” has joined forces with veteran revolutionary organizers in Detroit, from the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Evictions, Foreclosures and Utility Shut-offs, to the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, to pursue demands encompassing a broad scope of people’s needs.
Young women who spoke at the rally called on protesters to avoid divisions and keep the broader picture in mind of the whole historic movement that has arisen in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, and “keep our eyes on the prize,” as Taylor said, quoting a slogan harking back to the massive civil rights movement of the 1960’s.
At the rally, Dave Sole of Moratorium NOW! detailed many of those demands, including the fight against 3,000 evictions planned in Detroit after the current moratorium expires June 30, and the ongoing battle to provide ALL those serviced by the Detroit Water Department and the regional Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) with water, which they have declared a human rights. The GLWA was birthed during Detroit’s phony bankruptcy proceedings, after Detroit refused for decades to give up its control of water.
After the rally, protesters marched to downtown Detroit, with a smaller group proceeding to southwest Detroit. “Detroit Will Breathe” has been sponsoring rallies throughout the city’s neighborhoods for the last weeks and organizers said it will continue to do so. They also plan to continue marching daily. Their plans can be found at http://www.detroitwillbreathe.info, at https://www.facebook.com/detroitwillbreathe/ and on Instagram, at @detroitwillbreathe. The group also has a Go Fund Me page at https://www.gofundme.com/f/detroit-will-breathe.
MOVEMENT APPROACHES WAR
So far, the movement has achieved significant victories across the country, victories that were not dreamed of “even two weeks ago,” as Taylor said. The victories show unprecedented fear of the escalating protests on the part of public leaders who have rushed to consider and implement some of BLM’s demands.
Meanwhile, battles in the streets are escalating nationally and globally, while police retaliate with new killings. At least two lynchings in California and officially unsolved murders of other BLM activists have occurred, as they did after the historic Ferguson uprising for #Mike Brown in 2014.
In New York City, Mayor Bill DeBlasio has dismantled the NYPD’s plainclothes “anti-crime” units comprising over 600 officers in the wake of long-standing complaints from the Black and Brown communities. The New York State Legislature and Governor Andrew Cuomo earllier struck down a state statute barring disclosure of police disciplinary records and say they will open them to the public.
DeBlasio just announced that NYPD officers now face a mandatory demand to turn in all their body-cam videos no longer than 30 days afterwards.
City Councils around the nation are initiating ordinances that would ban the use of chokeholds and no-knock warrants and outlaw the use of tear gas and pepper spray on protesters, and other instruments of the police state.
In Detroit and Michigan, officials are slow to move on demands for a registry of police officers with prior complaints and convictions and oppose demands to de-fund the police, and other proposals aimed at reigning in the police. This is despite New York’s actions and even U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent executive order which would establish a database “that tracks police officers with excessive use of force complaints in their records” but is otherwise unsatisfactory to many activists.
Michigan State Rep. Tyrone Carter (D-Detroit, Ecorse, River Rouge)
State Rep. Tyrone Carter (D-Inkster), a retired Wayne County Sheriff, says he is putting together a bill to open police disciplinary records statewide, but so far it has not been finalized amid opposition by various forces.
Carter told the Detroit News, “The first thing police say when something bad happens is, ‘We need more training. But I’ve gone through a police academy. I’ve taught at a police academy. I’ve been to FBI training — and nowhere is training part of what we witnessed in Minneapolis. You don’t need more training in situations like that — you need more accountability.”
But Carter as well as Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and AG Dana Nessel are opposed to demands to de-fund the police, with Nessel saying she has “friends” in police departments.
On June 16, Nessel released a program of police reform proposals she is submitting to the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards (MCOLES), which requires that law enforcement officers in the State be licensed. See full list at http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/MI-AG-Police_Reform_693872_7.pdf
NO RACIST POLICE period. Mayors including Detroit’s Coleman Young have summarily fired racist cops such as Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn who beat Malice Green to death in 1992.
The proposal would authorize MCOLES to revoke an officer’s state license for conduct that “adversely affects the officer’s fitness or that is detrimental to the reputation, integrity and discipline of the department;” proposes departments must maintain misconduct records indefinitely and calls for “a centralized registry of misconduct that is accessible by the public and to law enforcement agencies across the state to make it more difficult for a bad officer to move to another jurisdiction.”
Nessel proposes to amend state law governing the forfeiture of employee benefits so that officers lose pensions and other retirement benefits on conviction of felonies including severe injury and death.
Neesel wants to mandate that law enforcement agencies report use of force data, by race, sex, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, and age. Among other regulations, Nessel would “create an independent investigative and prosecutorial process for deaths that involve the actions of law enforcement officers.”
But the National #Black Lives Matter movement has endorsed the more fundamental demand to defund the police, which strikes at the heart of the racist infrastructure, in https://blacklivesmatter.com/defundthepolice/. It also has a national petition at that site.
De-funding and de-militarizing the police is the top demand of “#Detroit Will Breathe.” It borders closely on another demand to ABOLISH THE POLICE, and replace them with community-run structures. Advocates say that demand recognizes the very nature of the police, which has U.S. origins in the 18th century as slave-catchers, and under the capitalist system are structured to protect the property interests of the rich.
Both de-funding and abolition advocates want to channel the billions in funding currently going to police and military across the U.S. into providing for the needs of the people, including housing, health care, free access to water and other utilities if needed, and education through the college level, accompanied by cancellation of trillions in student debt owed to the U.S. government.
In Seattle, protesters have taken over a four block-plus area outside a police precinct that was boarded up during the #GeorgeFloyd protests and made it into a police-free zone called variously the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone or CHAZ, and the Capitol Hill Organized Protest, CHOP. Politico says, “From there, the fluid protests, spearheaded by BLM but involving a wide spectrum of activists and ordinary citizens, coalesced with surprising rapidity into something like a provisional government.”
Evana Enabulele
The Seattle Mayor and its Police Department have recognized the zone, and are now negotiating with the leaders of CHOP over the need for public passage through various streets, but controversy continues.
Meanwhile, says the Seattle Times, “The Martin Luther King County Labor Council, a powerful umbrella group that’s backed the Seattle Police Officers Guild in past contract talks, voted Wednesday night [June 17] to expel the union.
“We need to defund the police so we’re not being shot and killed,” said Evana Enabulele, an organizer with Decriminalize Seattle, which is pushing the city to address public safety by investing in basic needs and social services rather than a police system with racist roots. “When you defund the police, you’re able to actually invest in programs for Black folks and give folks the things they need.”
SEATTLE, WA – JUNE 10: A barricade is seen at an entrance to the so-called “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” on June 10, 2020 in Seattle, Washington. The zone includes the blocks surrounding the Seattle Police Departments East Precinct, which was the site of violent clashes with Black Lives Matter protesters, who have continued to demonstrate in the wake of George Floyds death. (Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images)
#RayshardBrooks: In the wake of these victories, and even after police officers nationally including Derek Chauvin and his three fellow killer cops have been fired and face serious criminal charges including second-degree murder, rank-and-file police are rising up to re-assert their murderous authority in the face of the massive protests.
Rayshard Brooks
The people of Atlanta, Georgia flooded back into the streets in the wake of the killing of young father #RayshardBrooks, 27, by Atlanta cops Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan on June 12. Outraged, they eventually burned down the Wendy’s restaurant in whose parking lot the killing happened.
An autopsy found that Brooks suffered two gunshot wounds to his back and he died of organ injuries and blood loss, according to the Fulton County Medical Examiner who ruled Brooks’ death a homicide.
On June 17, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, Jr. announced charges of felony murder against Rolfe, and multiple counts of aggravated assault for wildly shooting in the direction of witnesses in a nearby car.
Howard said Brooks did not pose an immediate threat when Rolfe shot him, that hew was “cooperative” and “jovial” with officers after he was found “peacefully” sleeping in his car and subjected to a sobriety test.
Wendy’s Restaurant, site of the June 12, 2020 murder of #RayshardBrooks, burns afterwards.
“For 41 minutes and 17 seconds, he followed their instructions, he answered the questions,” Howard said. “Mr. Brooks was never informed that he was under arrest for driving under the influence. . . .[then] grabbed by the rear.”
Rolfe was fired immediately after the killing and Brosnan put on administrative leave by Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms after police chief Erica Shields resigned. Protests have continued to escalate, crowned by a massive march in downtown Atlanta Sunday, June 14 sponsored by the NAACP.
The unedited bodycam video, below, shows that Brooks engaged in a lengthy, low-key discussion with the officers lasting nearly 45 minutes, beginning first when Brosnan stopped him in the Wendy’s. At the conclusion of the discussion, Rolfe had him perform a walking test over a long period of time, and then demanded that he take a breathalyzer test. It was later revealed Brooks had a low level of alcohol in his blood. Brooks had told officers he had only one and a half drinks.
The last two minutes of the video show Rolfe abruptly handcuffing Brooks, without even telling him the results of the test. Off guard, Brooks resisted the arrest, which appeared to be without cause since he had offered to walk back to his sister’s nearby apartment and leave the car in the parking lot. (Michigan’s Supreme Court has ruled that it is legal to resist an unlawful arrest–see)
Rolfe then stunned him with a Taser, a potentially fatal instrument that deals extreme pain to the recipient. Likely perceiving himself under severe and unwarranted attack, Brooks grabbed the taser away from Rolfe and ran with it. As he ran, he saw Rolfe take out his gun, and then fired the taser he had at Rolfe in self-defense. Rolfe shot him in the back twice, and he fell to the ground. The bodycam video does not show officers attempting to render any medical aid to him, or even calling EMS, as he laying bleeding out on the ground according to the ME. He continued to speak, telling the officers to call the EMS, indicating that he likely might have survived with immediate medical aid.
Below are videos published by the New York Times showing the final portions of the police bodycam videos along with videos from witnesses and the Wendy’s surveillance video.
Woman at Wendy’s.
Since the charges have been brought against Rolfe, Atlanta police officers are beginning to call in sick. They also featured an unrecognizable photo on their Facebook page of a woman in black (photo at left) they claimed initiated the burning of the Wendy’s, so they could pursue charges. Cops on the Facebook page posted numerous derogatory comments about her, then posted a photo showing a woman in yellow and green claiming it was it was the same woman. The Atlanta Police Department official website carries a photo of Atlanta police in riot gear in a large military tank (below).
US DOJ acts against those accused of arson in Minneapolis Police Precinct, but will it take action against murders by police?
The U.S. Department of Justice announced yesterday that they had “captured” Dylan “Shakespeare” Robinson of Brainerd, Minnesota in Colorado after bringing arson charges against him. They alleged he was shown in various media coverage among the individuals who firebombed the Minneapolis Police Station.
(l to r) Braden Wolfe, Dylan Robinson, and Bryce Williams, charged by Feds with Minneapolis PD station burning.
They earlier arrested Braden Wolfe and Bryce Williams (see photo at left). The USDOJ is devoting substantial time and effort on such charges against protesters.
At the same time they contend they are investigating the police murders which caused the deaths of #GeorgeFloyd of Minneapolis, #RayshardBrooks of Atlanta, and (seen below) #ManuelEllis of Tacoma, Washington.
Even under President Barack Obama, the USDOJ actually participated in the 2009 assassination of #ImamLuqmanAbdullah, leader of a mosque in a poor Black neighborhood in Detroit, shooting him 21 times in an ambush as he defended himself from an attack by a police dog which was attacking and biting him. The USDOJ eventually investigated itself and unsurprisingly, cleared all involved in the Imam’s death, including their own agents, and Detroit and Dearborn, MI police.
Michael Brown, killed by Ferguson cop Darren Wilson Aug. 9, 2014.
Imam Luqman Abdullah, killed by Joint Detroit-FBI task force Oct. 28, 2009
#ImamLuqman, #MichaelBrown
Even under Democratic President Barack Obama, the USDOJ did not bring civil rights charges against dozens of cops implicated in the police murders of #MichaelBrown in Ferguson, MO in 2014, which gave rise to the #BLM movement, and hundreds of other police murders which ensued across the nation.
#ManuelEllis
Manuel Ellis, choked, tased and beaten to death by Tacoma, WA police.
#BLM protests are invigorating support for those recently killed by police as well. They include Manuel Ellis March 3 after being tased, punched and choked by Tacoma, Washington police officers.
Releases of two new passersby videos of his death, including one with audio where witnesses are pleading with police, “Ohmigod, just arrest him, stop hitting him, ohmigod that was so scary,” in the video below, which is dated June 5. The Ellis case is now under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice as well, after dissatisfaction with city and state investigations was expressed by his family.
Meanwhile, Austin, Texas police were captured on video kneeling on a teen’s neck during a #GeorgeFloyd protest there. Numerous other instances of police brutality against #GeorgeFloyd protesters have been reported across the country in the months since his death on May 31.
Over the past weeks two young Black men, Robert Fuller and Malcolm Harsch from California, and two so far unidentified Houston men have been found hanged to death in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests.
Fuller had just participated in a #BLM protest in front of Palmdale City Hall, where he was found lynched June 10. Malcolm Harsch of Victorville, CA was found hanged outside the Victorville City library June 16. Two men, one Latino and the second Black, were found hanged in Houston, Texas, home of #GEORGEFLOYD, and site of his funeral this week.
Investigators in the Fuller and Marsch deaths at first termed them suicides, but were met with cries of outrage by their families, who said they had no reason to kill themselves, and protesters have massed to march against the lynchings in both cities.
Protesters mass outside tree where Robert Fuller was found hanged in Palmdale, CA.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that a Black teen was found hanged outside an elementary school in Houston, while two days earlier, Houston police found a Hispanic man hanged outside a store in the community of Shady Acres. Authorities have not identified the men and were still awaiting autopsy results from the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences.
“We’re talking about multiple people hanging from trees across America in the middle of a race war that’s going on,” said resident Anthony Scott,” the AJC reported. Another man who would not give his name said, “With everything that’s been transpiring, with all of the hangings that have been taking place within the last two weeks, why wouldn’t you automatically assume foul play? No one is hanging themselves from a tree.
Oluwatoyin Salau, #BLM activist slain with another
The AJC also reported that “The family of 19-year-old Oluwatoyin Salau, a woman who recently protested after the death of George Floyd, confirmed that the activist was found dead after being missing for more than a week.
“Salau was one of two victims discovered Saturday night off Monday Road in southeast Tallahassee, [Florida] the Tallahassee Police Department revealed June 15. . . .The other victim, Victoria “Vicki” Sims, had also been reported missing. Sims was a retired state worker and was well-known in her community for volunteering for local Democratic races.”
In 2018, Danye Jones, the 16-year-old son of prominent Ferguson #BLM protester Melissa McKinnies was found hanged in their backyard. McKinnies has said he had every reason to live, and decried a ruling by the Medical Examiner that he was a suicide,
She posted on her Facebook page, “My baby was lynched,” with photos of him as she found him hanging. Her actions were reminiscent of 14-year-old Emmett Till’s mother displaying his mangled body during his funeral decades ago, after he was lynched for allegedly whistling at a white woman.
Danye Jones
After the Ferguson rebellion of 2014, numerous activists were targeted and killed, including DeAndre Joshua in November 2014 and Darren Seals in September 2016, who both were found shot to death inside torched vehicles. Seals was with Michael Brown the day he was murdered by Ferguson cop Darren Wilson, and spoke out constantly about his friend’s death. Another protester, Shawn Gray, who testified during grand jury proceedings, was also found dead later.
Authorities claimed three other Ferguson protesters committed suicide, MarShawn McCarrel of Columbus, Ohio, in February 2016, Edward Crawford Jr., 27, in May 2017, and Bassem Masri, a 31-year-old Palestinian American.
Edward Crawford, Jr. (r) is seen in this Pulitzer Prize-winning photo from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch during battles with police that took place during the Ferguson rebellions.
On June 17, police claimed Terron Boone, the brother of Robert Fuller, was shot and killed during an interaction with Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies in Rosamund, California, according to a statement from a lawyer for the Fuller family.
Terron J. Boone, killed by LA County sheriffs June 17.
According to officials, it began as a search for “a kidnap domestic assault suspect” by the department’s Major Crimes Bureau. Boone was in the front passenger seat with a woman driver and a 7-year-old girl in the back seat. “Detectives followed the vehicle and attempted a traffic stop,” the sheriff’s office said “The suspect opened the front passenger door of the vehicle and engaged the Deputies by firing multiple rounds at them with a handgun.”
They said Boone was struck several times in the “upper torso,” and pronounced dead at the scene, while the driver was also shot once in the chest. She was reportedly treated at a hospital and released. A 7-year-old girl was in the car but was not injured.
There is no law enforcement video available of the shooting, because neither the detectives involved in the chase nor their vehicles were equipped with cameras. They claimed investigators are trying to recover video from other systems in the area.
However, one witness, who watched from the balcony of a nearby apartment building said that she believes she heard “four or five gunshots” and then saw Boone’s body slumped over, dead, in the passenger seat of the vehicle, contradicting the sheriffs’ version.
Video of the scene (below) show all of the vehicle’s windows, driver and passenger side in the front, and both in the rear of the SUV, completely blasted out.
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Tristan Taylor leads one of daily protests held over the last two weeks in downtown Detroit and elsewhere against George Floyd’s murder. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya). He and other group leaders met with Mayor Mike Duggan June 11 to raise demands including “De-Fund the Police” but said afterwards no agreement was reached. He said any future meetings would have to be held in public.
Having not yet won real power over the police, this is no time for a lull or a truce — it’s time to sharpen our political instruments and deepen the mass movement’s social penetration.
“The objective is to seize and exercise people’s power in our communities, and to defend the people’s rights and interests.”
Former NBA star Stephen Jackson grew up with George Floyd in Houston, TX. and maintained a close friendship with him throughout their lives. See BAR column “Stephen Jackson is Right–Justice 4 George Floyd Requires Power to the People” linked below.
The awesome power of massed, militant people in motion has been manifest since the Memorial Day murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Much of the world now knows Floyd’s name; majorities of Americans say they support “Black Lives Matter”; New York City’s mayor pledged to slash his cops’ budget in deference to the Black Lives Matter demand to defund the police; the Minneapolis city council has promised to move towards disbanding their police force, in the spirit of outright abolition; and the grassroots demand for community control of police – previously rejected out of hand by most city councils – is now part of the “mainstream” political conversation.
So massive and swift has been the swing in popular sentiment against the police – the coercive organs of the State – that “A&E has decided not to run new episodes of ‘Live PD’ this Friday and Saturday, while Paramount Network has delayed the Season 33 launch of ‘Cops,’” according to Variety magazine.
“Movement” politics is how the people flex their power, while electoral politics under a corporate duopoly system is the domain of the moneyed classes. This is a lesson learned in the Sixties — a period when some years saw as many as 5,000 separate demonstrations. The makeup of the U.S. House and Senate did not change dramatically during that tumultuous decade. Political contributions kept most incumbents in office, year after year, as is the case today. But, for a time, the lawmakers behaved differently — voting for civil rights and social justice measures they had not previously supported — when confronted with masses of determined people in motion, who sometimes burned cities,
“Electoral politics under a corporate duopoly system is the domain of the moneyed classes.”
Graphic: Black Agenda Report
Movement politics was finally quashed in the latter part of the Sixties by a combination of lethal force and political seduction. A national policy of mass Black incarceration, supported by both corporate parties, criminalized Black people as a group, while federal and local police waged a murderous, dirty war to crush Black radicals. On the seduction front, the Democratic Party opened its doors to a hungry cohort of Black politicians and aspiring businessmen who preached that the movement must shift gears “from the streets to the suites” – the beginnings of today’s Black Misleadership Class.
By 1979, after a decade of Black electoral victories in cities abandoned by whites, everyone was singing McFadden & Whitehead’s “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” – but the mass movement had long been snuffed out. The Black-white economic gap – which had briefly shrunken as a result of social justice victories in the Sixties — was beginning to widen, and mass Black incarceration ravaged the Black social fabric. But the Black political class and a small elite of entrepreneurs, professionals and entertainers were doing better than ever – and they were all-in with the Democratic Party, which soon succeeded in subverting virtually every civic organization in Black America. The spoils of a long-dead mass movement of the streets had ultimately accrued to a tiny sliver of Black folks in suites.
“A hungry cohort of Black politicians and aspiring businessmen preached that the movement must shift gears ‘from the streets to the suites.’”
Police in riot gear watch protesters in Ferguson, Mo. on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2014. On Saturday, Aug. 9, 2014, a white police officer fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, in the St. Louis suburb. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson) Military gear came straight from the Pentagon under 1033 program.
For four decades, Black America was stalled in a political dead zone in which the only sustained politics was that which took place in the Democratic Party half of the corporate duopoly. As servants of forces hostile to Black people, Black politicians consistently acted against the interests of their constituents, collaborating in the destruction of public housing and the gentrification of Black neighborhoods. In the ultimate act of betrayal, the Black Misleadership Class lovingly embraced the Mass Black Incarceration Regime. In 2014, just two months before Michael Brown was gunned down by a cop in Ferguson, Missouri, 80 percent of the Congressional Black Caucus voted against a bill that would have halted the Pentagon’s infamous 1033 program that funnels billions of dollars in military weapons and gear to local police departments. The emergence of what came to be called the “Black Lives Matter movement” had no substantive effect on Black members of Congress. In 2018, 75 percent of them supported a bill that makes police a “protected class” and assault on police a “hate crime.”
“The emergence of what came to be called the ‘Black Lives Matter movement’ had no substantive effect on Black members of Congress.”
These are the same scoundrels that this week “took a knee” in the Capitol’s Emancipation Hall along with their boss, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – the same Democratic leader that refused to hold hearings on the Katrina catastrophe in 2005 for fear that the Democrats would lose white votes in 2006 for being too closely associated with Black people. But, just as the U.S. Congress in the Sixties responded to mass movements in the street, so Pelosi’s Democrats offered legislation that “forces federal police to use body and dashboard cameras, ban chokeholds, eliminates unannounced police raids known as ‘no-knock warrants,’ makes it easier to hold police liable for civil rights violations and calls for federal funds to be withheld from local police forces who do not make similar reforms.”
Demonstrators march in New York, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014, during the Justice for All rally and march. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
These are palliatives that have only been offered because of the presence of masses of people in the streets. Don’t thank the Democrats – the credit goes to the activists that have been disrupting the racist social order that both parties, including the vast majority of Black lawmakers, have maintained for the four generations since we last had a mass political movement. Given the recent phenomenal rise in popularity of “Black LivesMatter,” which is now supported by a majority of Americans and overwhelming numbers of Blacks, the police reforms are likely to pass the House — and possibly even the Republican-controlled Senate, in some form. But these measures do not empower the oppressed – they are only a response to the power that Blacks and our numerous non-Black allies have shown in the streets: the power to disrupt and shame the ruling order in the United States, and the threat of much more to come.
“’Black Lives Matter’ is now supported by a majority of Americans”
Having not yet won real power over the police – the coercive organs of government that claim a monopoly on the use of force — this is no time for a lull or a truce. Rather, it is time to sharpen our political instruments and deepen the mass movement’s social penetration. The objective is to seize and exercise people’s power in our communities, and to defend the people’s rights and interests – the opposite of the role played by the police, who defend property rights and white supremacy, whatever the cops’ color or ethnicity.
Protesters demanded community replacement of police forces in Black and poor neighborhoods during protest vs. Detroit police task force murder of Terrance Kellom, 19 in 2015.
Community control of police and outright abolition of police are wholly compatible demands, Both are predicated on the right of the people to shape, control or abolish the coercive organs of the state, at least in their own communities. Defunding of the police is about allocation of resources, not power, which is why New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has been repeatedly punked by his own cops, can claim to favor some level of defunding. However, a significant section of “Black Lives Matter” – those under the influence of Alicia Garza and her corporate philanthropic backers — is clearly resistant to community control of the police and only gives lip service to abolition as a goal for the far-off future. We can expect that the contradictions between that faction of “Black Lives Matter” and other activists will deepen – maybe rather quickly – since the conflict is rooted in who’s paying the bills.
“Defunding the police is about allocation of resources, not power.”
The lifeblood of social movements against white supremacism, capitalism and imperialism is solidarity among all the victims of these isms. Alicia Garza actively discourages Black solidarity with anybody outside the borders of the United States – doubtless as a condition of her funding. That’s why her Black Census project, which last year conducted the biggest survey of U.S. Blacks in history, chose not to ask a single question on foreign policy. Black Americans have historically been the most pro-peace, anti-militarism constituency in the nation and, besides Arab Americans, the most empathetic to the plight of Palestinians. The Black Census is most useful as a domestic issues guide for Democratic politicians – which is how it is cleverly packaged. Garza has chosen to be an asset to the Party – a disturbing situation, given her status in the “movement.”
Charles and Inez Barron, NYC City Council
The Democratic Party is the movement’s greatest institutional political foe, since it infests and dominates virtually all Black civic organizations. (The Republican Party is not a factor in Black America’s internal workings.) The Democrats are the Party of capital, of the bankers, the people displacers, the warmongers – and a Black Caucus that is allied overwhelming with the police. However, Black America is a one-party polity, due to a system that reserves half of the duopoly for the White Man’s Party, the GOP. Therefore, some genuine Black progressives, and even revolutionaries, have run for office, and won, as Democrats, for lack of any other viable platform. Essentially, this very small cohort of righteous officeholders are anti-Democrats who fight the corporate Party machine at every juncture. Among them are Charles and Inez Barron, the nominally Democratic husband-wife team representing a Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood in the city council and state legislature; and St. Louis alderman Jesse Todd, also a nominal Democrat.
“This very small cohort of righteous officeholders are anti-Democrats who fight the corporate Party machine at every juncture.”
Todd and the Barrons are members of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations (as am I), which holds its annual Electoral School, via Zoom, June 13 and 14 . The Coalition, made up of 15 organizations plus many individual activists, has promulgated a 19-point National Black Agenda for Self-Determination that puts forward principled, self-determinationist positions on the broadest range of issue-areas, including community control of police. Black Is Back’s approach to electoral politics is simple: the Coalition will endorse no candidate for office who is not in accord with the National Black Agenda for Self-Determination.
The term “Black Power,” as we learned in the Sixties, can be misused in myriad ways. Black Democratic Party loyalists claim that Blacks were empowered by voting for Joe Biden in huge numbers in the primaries, thus saving his presidential candidacy. “Hands that once picked cotton, now pick presidents,” the Black Democrats exult, as if power flows from abject servitude to the corporate dictatorship. In reality, Black voters gave the presidential nomination to a politician who claims he “wrote” the crime bill that resulted in the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of Black people; whose opposition to single payer health care guarantees that Black people will continue to die disproportionately from damn near all causes; and who opposes defunding the police, a minimal demand of the current mass movement.
The oligarchs that rule the country and control both of its corporate parties and all of its major media want the people to believe that politics is limited to the electoral process, and that street activism, labor militancy and community organizing are outside the realm of “real” politics. The events of the past ten days have proven the opposite: that massive street actions and unrelenting people-pressure can yield far better results than decades of pulling levers for corporate duopoly candidates.
Lawsuit condemns racial disparities in water shutoffs and asks court for permanent solution in Detroit 
Take for instance, the case of Benjamin Murdy in Harford County, Maryland, in January 2020. The Harford County Sheriff, Jeffrey Gahler, stated that during an hour-and-a-half long standoff, Murdy 
Photos: Steve Neavling
So far, the movement has achieved significant victories across the country, victories that were not dreamed of “even two weeks ago,” as Taylor said. The victories show unprecedented fear of the escalating protests on the part of public leaders who have rushed to consider and implement some of BLM’s demands.
De-funding and de-militarizing the police is the top demand of “#Detroit Will Breathe.” It borders closely on another demand to ABOLISH THE POLICE, and replace them with community-run structures. Advocates say that demand recognizes the very nature of the police, which has U.S. origins in the 18th century as slave-catchers, and under the capitalist system are structured to protect the property interests of the rich.
The term “Black Power,” as we learned in the Sixties, can be misused in myriad ways. Black Democratic Party loyalists claim that Blacks were empowered by voting for Joe Biden in huge numbers in the primaries, thus saving his presidential candidacy. “Hands that once picked cotton, now pick presidents,” the Black Democrats exult, as if power flows from abject servitude to the corporate dictatorship. In reality, Black voters gave the presidential nomination to a politician who claims he “wrote” the crime bill that resulted in the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of Black people; whose opposition to single payer health care guarantees that Black people will continue to die disproportionately from damn near all causes; and who opposes defunding the police, a minimal demand of the current mass movement.
