Greeks celebrate projected “NO” vote on austerity.
By MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS and NEBI QENA
July 5, 2015
Greeks voting overwhelmingly against banks’ demands for more austerity
Earlier polls had expected close vote
ATHENS, Greece — Greece faced an uncharted future as its interior ministry predicted Sunday that more than 60 percent of voters in a hastily called referendum had rejected creditors’ demands for more austerity in exchange for rescue loans.
Greek Prime Minister Alex Tsipras votes.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who was gambling the future of his 5-month-old left-wing government on the vote, insisted that a “no” vote would strengthen his hand to negotiate a better deal with creditors, while a “yes” result would mean capitulating to their harsh demands.
The opposition has accused Tsipras of jeopardizing the country’s membership in the 19-nation club that uses the euro and said a “yes” vote was about keeping the common currency.
With more than half of the votes counted Sunday evening, the “no” side had about 61 percent of the vote, compared with 39 percent for “yes.” The interior ministry predicted that margin would hold.
Thousands of government supporters gathered in celebration, waving Greek flags and chanting “No, No, No.”
Greeks wave their nation’s flag to celebrate ‘NO’ vote on austerity.
“We don’t want austerity measures anymore, this has been happening for the last five years and it has driven so many into poverty, we simply can’t take any more austerity,” said Athens resident Yiannis Gkovesis, 26, holding a large Greek flag in the city’s main square.
Governing left-wing Syriza party Eurodeputy Dimitris Papadimoulis said that “Greek people are proving they want to remain in Europe” as equal members “and not as a debt colony.” The referendum was Greece’s first in 41 years.
Jubilant ‘NO’ supporter waves flag of governing left-wing Syriza party.
Minister of State Nikos Papas, speaking on Alpha television, said it would be “wrong to link a ‘no’ result to an exit from the eurozone. If a ‘no’ prevails that will help us get a better agreement.”
Tsipras’ high-stakes brinkmanship with lenders from the eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund resulted in Greece defaulting on its debts this week and shutting down its banks to avoid their collapse. He called the referendum last weekend, giving both sides just a week to campaign.
“Today, democracy is defeating fear … I am very optimistic,” Tsipras said earlier in the day after voting in in Athens.
European officials had openly urged Greeks to vote against the government’s recommendation.
Greeks march with Syriza flag to support ‘NO’ vote on austerity measures.
“I hope people say ‘yes,'” European Parliament President Martin Schulz told German public radio. “If after the referendum, the majority is a ‘no,’ they will have to introduce another currency because the euro will no longer be available for a means of payment.”
Belgian Finance Minister Johan Van Overtveldt was one of the first eurozone ministers to react to the initial results.
Large lines could still be seen outside ATMs all over the country, as worried citizens continue to withdraw their daily limit of €60 ($67), a restriction imposed by the banks. CHRISTIAN HARTMANN/Newscom/Reuters
“This likely ‘no’ complicates matters,” he told Belgium’s VRT network, but insisted the door remained open to resume talks with the Greek government within hours.
The vote was held amid banking restrictions imposed last Monday to halt a bank run, with Greeks queuing up at ATMs across the country to withdraw a maximum 60 euros per day. Banks have been shut all week, and it is uncertain when they will reopen. Large lines once again formed at ATMs on Sunday.
Daniel Tsangaridis, a 35-year-old Athens resident, said he didn’t expect banks to reopen soon, despite a government pledge that they would do so Tuesday.
“It’s not going to happen in the next 48 hours,” he said. “If the situation improves and we can have a deal, then the banks will open.”
Bank debt, ratings downgrades are burdening people of Greece and the world. CANCEL THE DEBT!
The Syriza party came to power in January after a six-year recession. Since then, the standoff between Athens and its international lenders has grown more bitter, and early signs of some economic growth and recovering employment in Greece have disappeared.
The debt-wracked nation also suffered repeated ratings downgrades and lost access to billions of euros after its existing bailout deal expired last week.
Polls published Friday showed the two sides in a dead heat with an overwhelming majority — about 75 percent — wanting Greece to remain in the euro currency.
“Today, we Greeks decide on the fate of our country,” conservative opposition leader Antonis Samaras said. “We vote ‘yes’ to Greece. We vote ‘yes’ to Europe.”
This bride told reporters, “The only time I will say YES today is to my new husband.”
The sense of urgency was palpable as Greeks struggled to decipher a convoluted referendum question after being bombarded with frenzied messages warning of the country’s swiftly approaching financial collapse.
Neither result on Sunday, however, would lead to a clear answer on what Greece should do about its overstretched finances.
Greece is no longer in a bailout program since its previous package expired last Tuesday. It now has to negotiate a new one with its creditors that involves even more money for the government and banks and new economic austerity measures.
Despite the Greek government’s assertion that a “no” vote will not lead to a euro exit, most experts agree it would open up more uncertain financial outcomes.
A number of European politicians, including Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the top eurozone official, have said a “no” vote would jeopardize Greece’s place in the 19-nation eurozone. Investors are also likely to believe a “no” win increases the chance of a so-called “Grexit,” where Greece returns to its own old currency.
Earlier, Greeks held massive protests against austerity, including pension cuts.
People of Detroit have rallied for the human right to water, which will be further endangered by the creation of a regional Great Lakes Water Authority
Referendum petitions seek people’s vote on 40-year SALE of DWSD property, $6 billion in revenues to regional Great Lakes Water Authority
15,000+ signatures must be turned in to City Clerk, according to state law
GLWA would increase water shut-offs, rates, foreclosures resulting from water bills attached to property bills
Water quality crisis looms as Authority eliminates thousands of experienced City of Detroit workers, in addition those already gone
Detroit City Council rejected water rate increase June 30, now set to re-consider it July 7; GLWA will take over that role in future
DETROIT – A fight has begun to stop the takeover of Detroit’s $6 billion Water & Sewerage Department (DWSD) by the regional Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA), through a Detroit electoral referendum. The city’s “Mayor” Mike Duggan signed the takeover contract between the City of Detroit and the Great Lakes Water Authority June 12.
Part of the crowd of people who packed Calvary Presbyterian Church for DAREA prayer breakfast fundraiser June 27, 2015.
The Detroit Active and Retired Employees Association (DAREA) distributed the first petitions for the vote at its packed Prayer Breakfast June 22, held at Calvary Presbyterian Church, featuring Rev. David Bullock as its keynote speaker. DAREA’s membership includes many active and retired DWSD workers. DAREA first endorsed the campaign June 15, and has since been joined by many more organizations as members of “The Coalition to Save Detroit’s Water & Sewerage Department.”
The ballot language on the petitions asks for a NO or a YES vote on whether Detroiters “approve this contract which states it is a ‘BILL OF SALE’ of personal property and all revenues of the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department (DWSD) to a regional, unelected Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA), including a representative of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, for at least 40 years. It includes an option for GLWA to SELL DWSD real property.”
GLWA’s six member board includes representatives from the State of Michigan, Oakland, Macomb and Wayne Counties, as well as Detroit. The counties of St. Clair, Lapeer, Genesee, Washtenaw, and Monroe, which would be part of the GLWA system, have no representation.
DAREA officers (l to r) Cecily McClellan, Yvonne Williams-Jones, and Bill Davis present one of six WARRIOR awards to Monica Lewis-Patrick of We the People of Detroit, during prayer breakfast June 27, 2015. We the People of Detroit is also a member of the referendum campaign.
“Each of us should be a warrior in this fight,” DAREA president Bill Davis said at the breakfast. “We have made tremendous progress. Each day is more promising than the day before. If we can fight, we can win.”
He referred not only to the referendum campaign, but to DAREA’s U.S. District Court appeal of the Detroit bankruptcy plan, which includes the GLWA.
DAREA just filed a supplemental brief in that appeal, citing the Illinois Supreme Court ruling that pension protections in that state’s constitution, virtually identical to Michigan’s, cannot be abridged. The court ruled that pensions are considered more than just contracts, and that the constitution represents “the will of the people.”
“The Our Water Our Vote campaign is directly tied to the fight to stop water shut-offs, rate increases, and foreclosures caused by the attachment of water bills to property tax bills,” noted another DAREA member at the prayer breakfast. “The GLWA contract allows it to continue water shut-offs, while possibly spreading them throughout the region. It has no true water affordability plan. The GLWA will have the sole authority to increase rates to pay off the $5.2 billion DWSD debt. The debt is expected to skyrocket as board members, in particular from the State of Michigan and Oakland County, bring their contractor cronies on board.”
Rev. David Bullock of Rainbow:PUSH speaks at DAREA prayer breakfast. He said, “We have never lost a battle that we fought; we have never won a battle we didn’t fight.”
On June 30, Detroit’s City Council voted 6-2 to reject a water and sewerage rate increase for the City of Detroit June 30, but is now set to reconsider the vote at its next committee of the whole meeting Tues. July 7 at 10 a.m. At least one Wall Street ratings agency must approve the GLWA contract before it is enacted.
Gary Brown, Vice-Chair of the GLWA and also the City of Detroit’s Chief Operating Officer under Duggan, told the Detroit News the Council’s failure to approve the rate increases may make Wall Street uneasy.
“The lease was signed, but it’s contingent upon bond holders consent,” he said. According to the contract, 51 percent of DWSD bondholders must approve the contract before it is enacted. At least one Wall Street ratings agency must guarantee that it will not give the GLWA bond ratings lower than those currently in effect for DWSD.
Tom Barrow, former Detroit mayoral candidate and head of Citizens for Detroit’s Future (CFDF), said of the Our Water Our Vote referendum campaign, “This is HUGE.”
Tom Barrow, head of Citizens for Detroit’s Future
CFDF has joined the “Coalition to Save Detroit’s Water & Sewerage Department #OurWaterOurVote.” The Detroit City Clerk declared May 28 that Barrow’s organization gathered sufficient valid petition signatures to put an “Election Reform” ordinance on the ballot, which would create an independent, elected city Election Commission.
Other initial endorsers of the OurWaterOurVote campaign include We the People of Detroit, Moratorium NOW! the Detroit Water Brigade, StandUP Now, the Russell-Woods Sullivan Neighborhood Association, and Baxter’s Beat Back the Bullies Brigade.
Additionally, The Detroit People’s Water Board Coalition said it disagrees with the decision to transfer oversight of the DWSD to the GLWA for reasons including: “(1) the detrimental effect it will have on Detroit residents who continue to bear the burden of infrastructure costs without full system control; (2) the failure by local authorities to implement the 2005 Water Affordability Plan which provides for low income affordable payment plans and conservation efforts; (3) the circumvention of democratic proceedings in the development of the GLWA; (4) the failure of all parties to protect water as a human right and as a public trust; (5) the continued threat of privatization of Great Lakes water, which should be held in common; and (6) the implicit entitlement by the GLWA to assume DWSD ownership rights after the Detroit-paid water system was expanded at the request of suburban communities to serve their needs.”
The proposed takeover, which has a drop-dead date of Jan. 1, 2016, will also further endanger the quality of water provided to residents of the six counties. Hundreds of experienced DWSD workers, most of them Detroit residents, have already been laid off, including skilled trades workers. More cutbacks are expected under the GLWA’s plan to prioritize debt payments to the banks before good water service to its customers.
Drivers on Detroit freeway wade to safety Aug. 11, 2014, after massive flooding of roads and homes.
In 2014, DWSD workers reported that that workforce cuts enacted by consultant EMA, which now runs the Wastewater Treatment Plant, caused the massive flooding of metro Detroit freeways and homes Aug. 11 to Aug. 12, leading to three deaths and untold property damage, as well as Toledo, Ohio water emergency that began Aug 3. During the weeks-long crisis, 430,000 residents of that city and parts of southeastern Michigan could not use municipal water to drink, bathe, cook, or wash dishes as it was contaminated with toxic algae and other substances.
Mike Mulholland at informational picket outside DWSD Huber plant in 2012. EMA recommended that 81% of the DWSD workforce be cut, and has proceeded to do so.
“They have reduced staffing to a skeleton crew,” AFSCME Local 207 officer Mike Mulholland said at the time. “Although there was a torrential rain Monday, the sewage pumps already were not working properly due to minimal maintenance. It is EMA’s intention to strip the plant down and run it remotely as much as it can. Instead of 24/7 maintenance, they only check equipment every few days. The pumping stations at the plant, the incinerators, and other equipment are close to catastrophic failure.”
DAREA President Bill Davis retired after 34 years from DWSD, as a WWTP shift supervisor. He said at that time that at least three major WWTP sewage pumps were not operating.
“Monies that should have been allocated to improvements in our infrastructure and helped employ people went to the banks in illegal deals instead,” Davis said then. “That $5 billion going to the banks under the bankruptcy plan should instead be going to the people, to rebuild our system.”
At prayer breakfast, children to whom Detroit water is life: (l to r) Christa Dailey, 7, Alyse Dailey, 8, Amiah Sanders, 11; in rear, Ramona Hall and Tayla Dailey, 10.
The Our Water Our Vote referendum is allowed under Public Act 233 of 1955, cited in the first paragraph of the contract between Detroit and the GLWA as the state law which authorizes the contract. PA 233 of 1955, 124.288 Sec. 8(2), says,
“If within the 45-day period [after public newspaper notice] a petition signed by not less than 10% or 15,000, whichever is less, of the registered electors residing within the limits of the municipality is filed with the clerk of the municipality requesting a referendum upon the contract, the contract shall not become effective until approved by the vote of a majority of the qualified electors of the municipality voting on the question at a general or special election.”
The act specifies that the petitions are to be filed with the clerk of the municipality. The Our Water Our Vote campaign is therefore not being conducted under the Detroit City Charter, but under state law.
One opponent of the effort said he believed it would “go nowhere” because of the bankruptcy ruling. However, while U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Steven Rhodes overruled Michigan’s constitutional pension protection clauses with regard to Detroit retirees, he did not overrule all other legislation passed in the State of Michigan.
FLIER FOR THE COALITION TO SAVE DETROIT’S WATER & SEWERAGE DEPT. #OurWaterOurVote
The Coalition needs to collect a total of 15,000 valid petition signatures within 45 days of public (newspaper) notice of the contract, meaning it must collect at least twice that to allow for invalid signatures. Signers must be Detroit residents who are registered voters. CIRCULATORS DO NOT HAVE TO BE DETROIT RESIDENTS.
Makiah and MichaelAngelo’s great-grandmother Marie Jackson speaks to news at candlelight vigil April 26, as Darius Andrews, Sr. father 3-year-old Darius Andrews, Jr., who was injured during chase, hugs Alisha Jackson, mother of the two children who were killed.
The WAKE is Wednesday July 1st @ Cantrell Funeral Services 22121 Kelly Road Eastpointe, Michigan, 48021 from 12-8
The FUNERAL is Thursday July 2nd @ Burns Seventh-Day Adventist Church @ 10129 E. Warren Ave Detroit, Michigan 48214, family hour 10 services at 11
R.I.P. MICHAELANGELO & MAKIAH YOU ARE MISSED
“The police were right on their rear, bumped their tail a little bit, and the car flew up into the air . . . .When the car hit them, both of them just looked at me—it keeps re-playing in my head” — Eyewitness
Police continued chase after 2 children killed into next block, where three others sustained serious injuries
Candlelight vigil held June 25
DPD Chief Craig changes story at least 3 times
GoFundMe account set up to fund funerals of Makiah Jackson, 3, and Michaelangelo Jackson, 6, at http://www.gofundme.com/m-mcare
DETROIT – “I told L’il Mama ‘give me a hug, I love you,’ and she said, ‘I love you too,” a friend of Alisha Jackson’s family told VOD two days after Makiah Jackson (L’il Mama), 3, and her brother Michaelangelo Jackson, 6, were killed June 24, in front of their home on Nottingham during a high-speed Detroit police chase.
“I’m the last one they talked to,” she said, as she sat on the family’s porch. “They looked at me, they were here, I saw their faces. L’il Mama thought I was going to take them to the park, so she came with me to the sidewalk. I told her I promise I’ll take you to the park tomorrow.”
In the next seconds, she said she saw a police car chasing what looked like a red Challenger.
“[The police] were right on their rear, the police car bumped their tail a little bit, and the car flew up in the air,” the friend said. “There was no need for the police to be that close. I yelled ‘WATCH OUT’ but it was too late. When the car hit them, both of them just looked at me. They screamed. It just keeps re-playing in my head.”
(L to r) The children’s great-grandmother Marie Jackson, grandmother Nicole Jackson, and uncles Delvontie and Justin Thompson at memorial set up in front of Jackson home on Nottingham. Children were playing in this front yard when they were killed.
She said she heard tire squeals indicating the car must have hit its brakes, but it was out of control and going too fast to stop. The police “tap” of the bumper, according to a report on a similar chase down 1-75, is what’s called a “precision immobilization technique,” or TIP.
“I ran down there, I yelled out their names, but they were gone. Makiah’s eyes were wide open, they died on impact.”
Lighting candles at vigil for 5 children killed and injured during police chase.
It appeared the car dragged the children part way down the street, the friend said. But the police car did not stop the chase even then. They continued until the car being chased ran across the front lawns of homes in the next block, and crashed into the driveway of one, hitting children and adults there as well. Then police finally put the Jackson children in their car to take them to the hospital.
Three children at the second home, Darius Andrews, Jr., 3, Isaiah Williams, 5, and Zyaire Gardner, 7, were critically injured. Gardner was flown to a hospital in Ann Arbor because his lungs had collapsed, according to media reports quoting his father.
A passenger in the car being pursued was in serious condition, and an adult, LaKendra Hill, 22, in the yard sustained injuries to her leg. A relative told VOD that she had been released from the hospital but went back the next day because her leg was still bothering her.
“(Zyaire) is the real hero,” Darius Andrews Sr. told the Detroit News. “He saved my son’s life. He grabbed him and tried to hold him.”
Children seriously injured at second house: Darius Andrews, Jr. 3, Isaiah Williams, 5, Zyaire Gardner, 7
As he ran down the street to a candlelight vigil being held for both families, Andrews, Sr. shouted out to VOD, “I say, Detroit police, when they see children on the street, stop your goddamn chase.”
Police reported that Lorenzo Harris, 29, who is on parole but has not been reporting, was the driver of the car being chased. They have not identified his passenger, or reported what charges they plan to bring.
Detroit police chief James Craig’s version of events keeps changing. On the night of the pursuit, he said that the three “Special Ops” police in the car had suspended their chase when they “lost sight of the car.” After numerous witnesses reported that was not the case, Craig said a supervisor had ordered them to stop the chase, but that has not been documented.
Family, neighbors console Alisha Jackson, being hugged by woman in blue-checked shirt, at vigil.
Craig said at first that the chase began when police saw an occupant in the car with a gun, then said June 25 that there was no gun, that the chase started when the police “made eye contact” with the two men in the car.
Evangelist Kim Stephenson organized the candlelight vigil, which included members of both families and neighborhood residents, many of them in tears. One young man collapsed to the ground in grief.
Mourner at vigil is comforted after he collapses to ground.
“We want no more chases,” Evangelist Stephenson told the families. “We’re going to fight back. You aren’t going to fight these battles no more by yourself. We are coming together to help both these families heal.”
Candice Paschall asked VOD, “Isn’t it against the law for them to pursue their chase when children are there? They need to enforce that. There’s no telling how many innocent bystanders are getting hurt and dying. It’s about the kids, not the police and the people they’re chasing. This is getting out of hand.”
In fact, DPD policy says,
“Members involved in a pursuit must question whether the seriousness of the violation warrants continuation of the pursuit. A pursuit shall be discontinued when, in the judgment of the primary unit, there is a clear and present danger to the public which outweighs the need for immediate apprehension of the violator.
Officers must keep in mind that a vehicle pursuit has the same potential for serious injury or death as the use of fatal force. . . .Officers must place the protection of human life above all other considerations.”
Neighborhood kids remember police chase victims with candles.
VOD has requested the following information, among other items, from the Detroit Police Department Public Affairs Unit, whose Officer Donkowski said an investigation is ongoing:
The NAMES of the three officers involved in the chase. Are they on “restricted” duties” or “administrative leave,” as variously reported?
Are criminal charges and disciplinary action including discharge being considered?
Why is Police Chief Craig giving so many varying stories of the events?
Mother holds her child’s hand tightly during vigil. Is it safe for Detroit’s little children to be on the streets in front of their own homes?
No response had been received by publication time, so VOD will be filing a Freedom of Information Act request for that and other information.
VOD also sent a request to Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s office July 1, asking whether she will pursue charges against the three police officers who conducted the chase. The Michigan Supreme Court held in Robinson et al v. City of Detroit in 1998 that officers are not liable for chases unless the conduct amounts to gross negligence that is the proximate cause of injury or damage.”
An article in the Sept. 2000 issue of the Law Enforcement Agency Forum newsletter added that the Supreme Court ruled against Robinson because “The police vehicle did not hit the fleeing car or physically cause another vehicle or object to hit the vehicle that police were pursuing or physically force the vehicle off the road or into another vehicle or object. Therefore, there was no exception to governmental immunity.”
On June 24, Michigan State Police spun out a suspect’s vehicle on the westbound Davison ramp off I-75 after a dangerous 15 minute high-speed chase on the freeway.
Car from chase on Nottingham, where it ended on the block after where the Jackson home is located.
On the Channel 7 news report, Lt. Michael Shaw of the Michigan State Police said, “Troopers use the Precision Immobilization Technique or Pit Maneuver. Basically what that is we make contact with the front end of our patrol car with the back end of our car. It makes it easier for them to lose control of their car without putting anyone else in danger.” Ironically, the police chase began not far from the neighborhood where the Jacksons live, on French Road. See Channel 7 report at http://www.wxyz.com/news/video-police-spin-suspect-vehicle-in-dramatic-freeway-chase.
The PIT maneuver sounds precisely similar to that reported in the chase that killed little Makiah and Michaelangelo.
The family of Mikiah and Michaelangelo Jackson has set up a GoFundMe account to help with their funeral expenses, which they said they cannot afford. Click on http://www.gofundme.com/m-mcare to access the site.
Homes of Black Brush Park residents burn in previous years.
Plan for new Brush Park, controlled by Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock Real Estate
Duggan has no right under state law to order Brush Park Plan
State and city bureaucrats destroyed BLACK Brush Park:
Historic homes and enterprises demolished, set on fire
At least 800 residents left homeless, with no relocation funds
By Ron Seigel
June 25, 2015
Detroit “Mayor” Mike Duggan, billionaire developer Dan Gilbert.
A few weeks ago Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan held a well-publicized press conference about an urban renewal project he claims will restore the historic Detroit area of Brush Park. That project is dominated by multi-billionaire Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock Real Estate.
The problem is that it is against the law for the Mayor or any city department to approve such a plan. Any city council member who votes for the plan or for that matter any urban renewal plans in any area whatsoever will be breaking the law.
State Act 344 Section (a)(6) states “A local commission, public agency, [such as a city]] or legislative body of any municipality shall not approve any development unless there has been consultation between…the officials responsible for the development” and the citizens district council (CDC) representing residents and businesses in the area where the development is taking place.
Detroit’s former EM Kevyn Orr with Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder at side announces plan for bankruptcy which has destroyed Detroit, on July 19, 2013. Orr abolished CDC’s on Sept. 22, 2014.
This is impossible, because in his closing days as Detroit’s emergency manager Kevyn Orr, appointed by Governor Rick Snyder, abolished all CDCs.
Neither Orr nor the Snyder Administration had any legal right to do so.
It may be arguable that under the recent legislation rammed through by Snyder’s Republican Party, Orr did have the authority to repeal every law in the City of Detroit whenever he wanted to. However, citizen district councils were established under state law. Orr, as a creature of state government, had no more legal power to interfere with state laws than his boss Governor Snyder has to shut down the state legislature. One might ponder whether the former emergency manager and the governor behind him need a lesson in high school civics.
A more compelling question is whether they have something they are desperately trying to hide.
Orr’s spokesperson, Bill Nowling, justified Orr’s actions by saying “It was felt CDCs represented an unnecessary level of bureaucracy that was hindering future development by revitalization efforts.”
Gwen Mingo (r), formerly chair of Brush Park CDC, talks with Jimmy Cole at Call ‘Em ‘Out dinner Feb. 25, 2012.
Actually citizen district councils had no power to stop or even delay any development whatsoever. The law set them up as an advisory body so those in the area have a chance to voice their concerns about what the government was doing to their area.
They could in no way be considered a bureaucracy.
What probably frightened Orr and Snyder was that CDC’s could occasionally try to use the influence of private citizens with their elected representatives to prevent the real bureaucrats, the ones in government, from doing whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. Perhaps most frightening of all, under state law the private citizens had the right to know what the bureaucrats were doing.
Historically in past urban renewal projects it was the state and city bureaucrats which ruined Brush Park. As Father Norman Thomas, Pastor of the nearby Sacred Heart Church, said, “It’s the most terrible thing I’ve ever seen.”
The government bureaucrats committed illegalities all along the way. The Brush Park CDC’s asked for an investigation by a federal grand jury. It seems clear why the bureaucrats may not want them around. Looking at the record:
STATE OFFICIALS DESTROYED THE AREA’S BUSINESSES
Paradise Theater in Paradise Valley.
Several decades ago Brush Park had a prosperous business district on Hastings Street and a popular entertainment district called Paradise Valley. The owners just happened to be Black.
“It was a high period of Black culture,” Dorothy Robinson, a playwright and the owner of a theatrical group, said regarding the area’s entertainment district. “There would always be excitement and a variety of things going on. ”
She added, “When we had anything, white people came to see it. They were not so prejudiced that they did not enjoy Black entertainment.” State officials just happened to build the Chrysler Expressway (I-75) right in the middle of the Black business area.
455 Alfred as it looks today. Formerly residence of Douglas Fuller.
In an interview 10 years ago William Worden, then Director of the Detroit Historic Advisory Board, stated, “The common view is that this was not done inadvertently.”
Douglas Fuller, a lifelong Brush Park resident, said, “The kids don’t know the pride we had or how it felt. There is no more evidence of where we came from or what we did here.”
The businessmen authorized to “revitalize” Brush Park are not the ones who were displaced, but a new group of outsiders.
The Orr-Snyder Machine may call this free enterprise, but it seems more like free loading.
City Cab registered logo for historic Black-owned Detroit cab company.
While city bureaucrats may talk of restoring city buildings, it was the bureaucrats who were responsible for illegally destroying them. Some were private houses. Some had significance in Black history, like the original stand for the first African-American taxi cab company in Detroit, and buildings in the entertainment district. They also destroyed one building that once belonged to the infamous Purple Gang.
On hearing about this, one man quipped,”They don’t even have respect for fellow gangsters.”
In 2003 state bureaucrats joined in the demolition with funds from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) under the pretext of its Clean Energy Program.
The Brush Park CDC wrote to MDEQ, “It is criminal, outrageous, and an abomination to demolish these properties.”
Former Mich. Gov. Jennifer Granholm lays down the first EM law in State of the State address.
At a time when so many neighborhoods were pleading in vain for the demolition of vacant houses that they considered eyesores or positively dangerous, why were taxpayer dollars being used to demolish houses in the one area where residents wanted them to stay?
When spokespersons for state and city officials were asked about this, they promptly passed responsibility to those on other levels. Liz Boyd, spokesperson for former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, said this was a matter for the MDEQ.
MDEQ spokesperson Patricia Spetzley stated, “The City of Detroit prioritizes what is torn down with state tax dollars. The residents should go to the Mayor. ” Ironically, professed concern from the Granholm administration about cities setting priorities did not prevent Granholm a few years later from advocating that state appointed managers of local governmental bodies be given powers beyond financial issues and control all policies — paving the way for the reign of Kevyn Orr.
Call ’em Out Sambo award was presented to Kwame Kilpatrick.
Just as ironically the spokesperson for Detroit’s mayor, then Kwame Kilpatrick, indicated that it might not be any use for residents to go to his boss. Kilpatrick’s spokesperson Howard Hughey said the Mayor did not care to know where state environmental funds were going, but was leaving these things up to the city’s Planning and Development Department (P&DD).
Hughey declared, “It’s not a mayoral issue, but a P&DD issue. The P&DD submits their plan for making the city cleaner. The Mayor has perfect confidence in those he put in leadership positions. It doesn’t go from the top down, but from the bottom up.”
This left voters who put Kilpatrick in office below the bottom level with no place to go.
When P&DD press secretary Lona Reeves was interviewed, she promised to look up the position of her department, but failed to call back. Actually appropriate officials substantiated the Brush Park CDC statement that the demolition of historically designated houses was criminal.
William Worden today/Facebook
Worden from the Historic District Commission, said before a historic building can be torn down, the commission had to hold a hearing and grant a permit. The city’s own Historic District Ordinance said a private owner who did not follow such procedures would be subject to fines and imprisonment.
The Detroit City Planning Commission under the Detroit City Council said this violated federal law, Section 100 of the National Historic Preservation Act.
The Brush Park CDC sent resolutions charging the city with “perpetrating fraud for failing to carry out objectives listed in its own urban renewal plan to preserve historic buildings.” It called for a criminal investigation over their use of funds.
In its 2003 letter to the MDEQ, the CDC speculated on the reason for this historic vandalism of Detroit’s history. It said that if the historic buildings were preserved, as the law specified, developers could not take the land. With the buildings out of the way, the developers could get the land “at low cost or no cost.” In short, the taxes paid for such illegal demolition was assisting “rich developers” in “destroying a historic district.”
Looking at what the city and state bureaucrats have done to historic buildings, how much faith can we have that the ones under Duggan and Snyder will preserve anything?
BUREACRATS TOOK BRUSH PARK RESIDENTS’ HOMES
Even more compelling, state and city bureaucrats took people’s homes away.
Gwen Mingo lives in her Brush Park home to this day, despite terror tactics that drove most of her neighbors out.
Gwen Mingo, former head of the Brush Park CDC, said, “They tried to kill you from the inside just like they tried to destroy the buildings . They threw the people out, smashing them to the ground like a piece of trash.”
Originally the stated legal purpose of urban renewal was to clear away slums and to “provide a decent home for every American family.” It expanded to allow government to seize the property of the poor and middle class in order to bring in big business and richer folks under a sociological process called “gentrification. ” This moved people into slums and created greater homelessness for many American families.
Homeless.
Jackie Green declared, “We became homeless for a long time. You had to sleep here and there in vacant houses.”
In this case too there have been violations of the law. Urban renewal programs have received federal funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD ). Part of the legal mission of HUD is to “address the challenge of homelessness,” and that would mean not creating homelessness. Another part of the legal purpose is “to move people from renting to home ownership.” HUD-funded urban renewal has moved people out of the homes they own into a place they can rent, if they can find one.
Heroic Detroit Wastewater Treatment Plant workers wildat strike Sept. 30, 2012: THE BATTLE FOR DETROIT BEGINS NOW! John Riehl and Local 207 leaders had built for this strike for months, foreseeing what was to come if the people did not rise up in a general strike. Now, under the dictatorial emergency manager and illegal bankruptcy, Detroiters have lost their city, at least for now, including its most valuable asset, the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department. DWSD was the third largest municipal water and sewerage facility in the country, covering six counties and 137 communities. Local 207 was its largest local union.
LABOR HERO DEVOTED HIS LIFE TO THE PEOPLE’S STRUGGLE, TO THE WORKERS AND RESIDENTS OF THE CITY OF DETROIT
HE WILL BE SORELY MISSED, BUT HIS LEGACY LIVES ON
Release from:
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO
AFSCME Local 207, Public Utility Employees of The City of Detroit, Michigan District Council 25
John Riehl, Local 207 President, at funeral for another militant union leader, Leamon Wilson, Pres. of AFSCME Local 312, D-DOT Mechanics, on April 15, 2015. Leamon was only 55. John also lost his life too early, fighting for the people.
John Riehl, president of AFSCME Local 207 from 2000-2012 has died. Detroit and the labor movement has lost a great and uncommon leader.
John worked at the Detroit Wastewater Treatment Plant for 34 years under difficult and dangerous conditions. During most of that time he served as an elected union steward for AFSCME Local 207 which represented Detroit Water& Sewerage Department workers.
He headed the rank & file militant caucus City Workers for Justice (CWJ). He helped lead countless fights both inside and outside the union for the rights of workers, Detroiters and the oppressed in our society. He helped make Local 207 a symbol of labor’s fight for civil rights.
He served as the elected President of AFSCME Local 207 from 2001 through 2012.
During that time John steadfastly stood against the tide of concessions being demanded of Detroit’s public workers, even if it meant being the only union president to do so. City workers always knew that John could be trusted to defend them when no one else would. John laughed when the press sometimes referred to him as a “union boss.” His members knew him as their elected and accountable leader who administered their union democratically and with integrity. Based on this reputation he was later elected to represent all city employees on the Detroit General Pension Board.
WWTP workers guard back of plant during strike.
Facing an imminent takeover of Detroit by the Emergency Manager, John led a strike of Local 207 in the fall of 2012, openly defying a federal court order and threats of arrest. When no one else would fight, John would.
John was a supporter of the civil rights organization Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). Below is a Face Book posting by a leader of BAMN.
“RIP John Riehl: socialist, champion of working class and oppressed people, former proud “union boss” and president of Detroit sewage workers, head of City Workers for Justice, loved and admired by so many people for your courage, strengths, and very human weaknesses. You taught us that the measure of a person isn’t only what side they’re on, but the actions they take on behalf of their side to win. Never to be mistakenfor a liberal, you were a true militant who stood by and acted on your principles. You made a huge impression on everyone who ever met you and for those fortunate enough to call you friend. Your light went out too soon. I am honored to have called you comrade and one of my personal inspirations and heroes. You will be dearly missed.”
Local 207’s signs were prominent at every city union action.
Funeral Arrangements for John Riehl, former president AFSCME Local 207
Riehl consults with local union members including Local 207 VP Lakita Thomas during protest Aug. 2, 2012. When John spoke at City Council meetings and rallies, he never gave long rhetorical speeches. He spoke like a worker, in short militant sentences. It was obvious that his experience representing individual workers over the years had given him a deep understanding of their concerns.
Desmond & Sons Funeral Home 32515 Woodward Ave. Royal Oak, MI 48073
VIEWING: Tuesday, June 23 10m – 8pm
SERVICES: Wed., June 24 10am
Expressions of Condolences can be mailed to:
C/O Mrs. Pattie Riehl @ above funeral home address.
The excellent video above, published on Youtube by Detroit talk show host Cynthia Johnson, gives the lie to people touting the benefits of Detroit’s bankruptcy, such as Citicorp, which published the commercial at bottom.
In reality, the banks have left Detroit in a total of $3 billion in debt through 2034 since the conclusion of the bankruptcy trial. The bankruptcy Plan of Adjustment specifies that the debt is priority #1; it must be paid first before anything else is spent on city services. Before bankruptcy was declared, Detroit was $1 billion in debt through 2034.
Detroit’s Public Lighting Department has been deliberately decimated over the past two decades through privatization and deliberate sabotage, including mass lay-offs and refusal to purchase needed equipment as simple as street light bulbs. The Public Lighting Authority is part of that privatization and regionalization.
Banner on side of Herman Kiefer Health Complex, vacated after Detroit Health Department was eliminated.
EM Kevyn Orr auctioned off numerous assets of the Public Lighting and Public Works departments in November, 2014. They filled the parking lots surrounding the Herman Kiefer Health Complex, now vacant after the elimination of the Health Dept. This lot used to border the Herman Kiefer Family Health Center, no longer in existence.
City of Detroit PLD workers fixing streetlights on Belle Isle July 29, 2012. Belle Isle itself has been taken over.
Excerpt:
“EM Kevyn Orr told DTE the entire Public Lighting Department (PLD), including its revenue-generating provision of lighting to public buildings, will be phased out over the next five years to DTE, which has already taken over PLD’s electricity grid.
The newly-founded regional Public Lighting Authority plans to dismantle 46,000 of the city’s 88,000 streetlights, in areas targeted for “blight (i.e. Black) removal,” according to Orr’s May 12, 2013 Financial and Operating Plan.
AFSCME, CBTU protest May 27, 2010 demanded no privatization of PLD, among other issues.
PLD was founded in the 1920’s and was originally meant to provide electricity to the entire city, including its residences. The city’s former Auditor General reported several years ago that those service lines could have been revamped to provide revenue-generating, public cable TV service to city residents at lower costs.
PLD has been one of few opportunities for Black and women skilled trades workers such as electricians to get long-term employment.
Profit from the auctions is to be used to “pay down debt,” with some allegedly restored to the departments, according to an Oct. 30 article in the Monitor. Considering there will be no DPW or PLD, it is clear only the banks will profit from these auctions.
Look at the Citicorp commercial below, and decide which of the videos most accurately represents YOUR experience in the streets of Detroit.
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Terrance Kellom’s father Kevin Kellom says, “What kind of lottery do you win for someone killing your son in your presence?” in response to comment by David Griem, attorney for ICE agent who shot his son. He again said his son was assassinated. Kellom’s mother Nelda Kellom is at left.
Worthy sealed all reports in case, including autopsy report
Kellom’s children, including newborn daughter, attend rally with family
Family attorney Mitchell calls death “execution without a trial,” says he saw at least one gunshot wound in 19-year-old’s back
Worthy: “waiting for a couple of important items”
Since 2004, Worthy has not charged one Detroit officer for killing civilian
“If anyone kills a person it is as if he kills all mankind.”
By Diane Bukowski
June 19, 2015
Kevin Kellom holds his son’s newborn daughter Terranae Destiny Kellom as his infant son Terrance Desmond Kellom looks on.
DETROIT – Janay Williams, mother of Terrance Kellom’s newborn daughter Terranae and his son Terrance, brought the infants to a rally for their father June 15, 2015. They joined his parents, other family members, and community members in calling for charges to be brought against Terrance’s killer(s).
Kellom did not live to see Terranae’s birth, which he was anxiously awaiting.
During the rally, the family’s attorney Karri Mitchell called the 19-year-old’s death April 25 an “execution without a trial.” It was carried out by a multi-jurisdictional police task force including Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agent (ICE) Mitchell Quinn, and many Detroit police. The force invaded his father Kevin Kellom’s home without a search warrant and shot the young man multiple times to death in front of his father.
Prosecutor Kym Worthy consults with assistants, including Robert Moran at right.
Those attending the rally, organized by Michigan United, Black Lives Matter-Detroit, the Franklin Park Association, the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, Inc., and others, demanded to know why Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy is taking so long to investigate the case. In a highly unusual move, she has sealed all reports on the case, including the young man’s autopsy report, which is normally public information.
No second autopsy was done in the case as in customary in disputed killings, particularly by police officers.
The Medical Examiner’s office works to support police versions of homicides in some cases.
Arnetta Grable of the Original Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality. Three-time killer cop Eugene Brown shot her son Lamar to death in 1996.
In 1992, then Deputy Wayne County Executive Mike Duggan (now Detroit “Mayor”) fired forensic pathologist Kalil Jiraki after he reported that Malice Green died of a brutal beating at the hands of Detroit officers Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn, instead of from the results of drug ingestion. Jiraki sued and won $2 million. He has written a book on the events, “Medical examiner under fire : the Malice Green police brutality trial.”
In the case of Aiyana Jones, 7, shot to death by Detroit officer Joseph Weekley in 2010, the Medical Examiner first reported that the entrance wound was in her throat and exit wound at the top of her head, which would have supported Weekley’s version of events. However, the ME changed his report to indicate the entrance wound was at the top of her head and the exit wound in her throat after family attorney Geoffrey Fieger had a second autopsy done showing those results.
Arnetta Grable of the Original Coalition Against Police Brutality said she had contacted Macomb County Medical Examiner Mark Spitz, who had agreed to come to the Trinity Chapel funeral home to do the second autopsy, likely in time for the planned funeral.
Rev. Curtis WIlliams of Trinity Chapel Funeral Home
However, according to family members, Pastor Curtis Williams, who owns the funeral home, told Mitchell that he would charge much more for the funeral if a second autopsy was done. Mitchell reportedly paid for the funeral.
The Detroit Free Press and the Voice of Detroit filed Freedom of Information Act requests for the autopsy report, but to date they have not been granted. It is questionable whether Worthy has the authority to seal an autopsy report absent a judge’s order.
“I don’t think we’re getting close to anything, they’re not moving fast enough,” Kellom told reporters outside the United Christian Church where the rally took place, around the corner from his home on Evergreen. “I see my son every day. I hear my son call my name every day, as he died on the floor after they shot him. His son asks for him every day when he comes to my house. Why haven’t we seen the autopsy report?”
Terrance Kellom kisses his son in earlier photo.
The younger Kellom died of multiple gunshot wounds, at least one of which was in the back, according to Mitchell. His father witnessed the shooting and has repeatedly denied police claims that his son came at Quinn, who Detroit police have identified as the shooter, with an axe. He said he was brought downstairs with two officers in front of him and two behind him.
Quinn’s attorney David Griem told the media, “He (Mitchell) sees five defendants for a civil lawsuit, and they’re trying to hit the lottery without buying a ticket.”
Kevin Kellom reacted with outrage and sorrow.
L to r: Kevin Kellom, Janay Williams and her sisters, holding baby Terranae. Janay said on her Facebook page: “We miss you baby, why they have to take you away from us. I need you here with me.”
“What kind of lottery do you win for someone killing your son in your presence?” Kellom asked. “What kind of lottery is it for the assassination of my son?”
He said he, Kevin’s mother Nelda Kellom, and the rest of his family want no money; they only want their son back.
He added there was no need for the task force to invade his home to arrest his son on an outstanding warrant for armed robbery. Kellom said police had his home under surveillance that day, and saw him walk to a neighborhood gas station with Terrance. On the way back, he said, Terrance stopped in the street to tie his shoes.
Nelda Kellom with granddaughter Terranae at rally.
“They could have arrested him then,” Kellom said.
Nelda Kellom said, “My son didn’t deserve to be killed the way he was killed,” but said she would be patient until the investigation concludes.
Ron Scott, of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, Inc., said Prosecutor Worthy told him they would “probably have a statement” on the investigation within a week.
He also demanded an end to the use of multi-agency task forces by the Detroit Police Department, like the Fugitive Apprehension Task Force that killed Terrance Kellom. He said they are funded and armed from the federal level on down.
Terrance Kellom’s stepmother Yvette Johnson during rally.
“A lot of people in the community want answers,” he said. “We want oversight and control of federal officers and Detroit Police before they’re standing over you.”
Worthy’s office issued the following statement to other news outlets:
“In all police involved matters handled by the WCPO Public Integrity Unit we first receive the completed findings of the Michigan State Police and then conduct our own independent investigation. Each investigation is unique in terms of the amount of time it takes. Factors to consider are the complexity of the matter, amount of witnesses that must be interviewed, forensic reports that are needed, and other work that must be completed to make an informed decision regarding whether to charge or not to charge. At this point most of the work has been done, but we are waiting for a couple of important items before the review process is completed.”
Family attorney Karri Mitchell.
During the rally, Mitchell denied he told local media, as quoted, that he had no problem with Worthy sealing the autopsy report.
“I said I understood her decision if she wanted to do a full investigation,” Mitchell said. “She has shown in the past that she is willing to charge police officers, as in the case of Officer Weekley.”
In fact, Joseph Weekley, who shot seven-year-old Aiyana Jones to death during a military-style “Special Response Team” raid on her home May 16, 2010, was charged with “involuntary manslaughter” by a one-man grand jury comprised of Third Judicial Circuit Court Criminal Division Chief Judge Timothy Kenny, 17 months after Aiyana’s death.
At the same time, Worthy charged her father, Charles Jones, and “uncle” Chauncey Owens with murder.
Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway (l) dismissed manslaughter charge against Detroit cop Joseph Weekley, for killing Aiyana Jones, 7, at request of prosecution
After Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway dismissed the manslaughter charges against Weekley during his third trial, his jury hung on the remaining charge of reckless use of a firearm and he walked scott-free.
Aiyana’s father is serving a sentence of 40-60 years in prison for first-degree murder in the Je’Rean Blake case.
Worthy, who took office in 2004 as the county’s first Black woman prosecutor, has never brought charges against any Detroit police officer in the fatal shooting of a civilian. There have been dozens of cases during her tenure in which police killings, of young Black men in particular, appeared highly questionable, but were ruled “justifiable” by her office.
During the rally June 15, Bobbie Johnson, President of the Franklin Park Association, expressed condolences to Kellom’s family and anger at police tactics and called on Worthy to answer to their community.
Bobbi Johnson of Franklin Park Association.
“Our community is making a come-back,” Johnson said. “We don’t need a Fugitive Apprehension Task Force coming in here during the afternoon, while little children are coming out of two day-care centers nearby. Why do they feel that in a city full of Black children and Black life they can do this? We ask Kym Worthy to come before the community, and we want a protocol so that this never happens again.”
A Muslim minister quoted the Kuran, “If anyone kills a person it is as if he kills all mankind.” [The police] desecrated the sanctity of human life itself. This was a crime against my family and everyone here as well.”
Elisa Hernandez, from a Latino immigrant advocacy organization, said, “ICE has a really long history of an extensive use of force. They have the FBI at their disposal, and they feel they are above the law. They have executed many others in front of their families.”
Eric Kelly of Michigan United, Black Lives Matter Detroit.
Eric Kelly of Michigan United and Black Lives Matter said the rally is only a beginning.
“Black Lives Matter recognizes that we are fighting a racist government,” he said. “Everyday, lawmakers, cops and prosecutors get up planning new ways to attack us.”
He said Black Lives Matter-Detroit meets every Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Trinosothes Café in Eastern Market to plan and mobilize against continuing police brutality in the city.
Gary, of the October 22nd Coalition against Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation, said, “The role of the police is not to serve and protect the people, it is to serve and protect the system and continue the conditions of poverty and degradation most of us face. We do not have to live like this. We will win when Black mothers can have their sons walk out the door without fear of what will happen to them.”
He said charges that were brought against the Baltimore cops who killed Freddie Gray came about only because the people, especially the youth, took to the streets in open rebellion and demanded justice.
Gary of the October 22nd Coalition denounces killings by police across the U.S. Over 570 people have died at the hands of law enforcement in the U.S. since the beginning of 2015, according to the website killedbypolice.net.
The raid on the Kellom home was part of a series of neighborhood raids dubbed “Operation Restore Order” by Detroit police chief James Craig. The latest in the series, sub-titled “Operation Double-Down,” just took place June 18 on the city’s west-side.
On June 15, the Metro Times’ Ryan Felton published an article, “Operation Public Relations,” questioning the efficacy of the raids. He said police have refused to release the names and arrest warrants for more than 1188 people arrested since the first raid in 2013, as well as conviction rates. (See http://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/operation-restore-public-relations/Content?oid=2334953&showFullText=true for full article.)
Part of large crowd that attended rally for Terrance Kellom applauds speakers.
Shot to death by white terrorist Dylann Roof: Left: Susie Jackson | Top Row: Cynthia Hurd DePayne Doctor, and Sharonda Coleman-Singleton | Bottom row: Daniel Simmons Sr., Tywanza Sanders, and Rev. Clementa Pinckney.
Pastor, State Senator Clementa Pinckney, was a well-known civil rights leader who was campaigning for all S.C. cops to wear body cameras
Emmanuel African Methodist Church founded in 1816 by kidnapped Africans in South Carolina
Denmark Vesey, executed for attempted 1822 rebellion against slavery, was a church founder
Boston police expert calls crime “terrorism,” not just a hate crime.
JUNE 17, 2015
Dylan Roof in photo from racist website. His father reportedly gave him the gun.
CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) – A white man was arrested on Thursday on suspicions he killed nine people at a historic African-American church in South Carolina after sitting with them for an hour of Bible study in an attack U.S. officials are investigating as a hate crime.
The mass shooting set off an intense 14-hour manhunt that ended when 21-year-old Dylann Roof was arrested in a traffic stop about 220 miles (350 km) north of Charleston, South Carolina, where the shooting occurred, officials said.
Wednesday’s mass shooting at the almost 200-year-old Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, comes after a year of turmoil and protests over race relations, policing and criminal justice in the United States. A series of police killings of unarmed black men has sparked a renewed civil rights movement under the “Black Lives Matter” banner.
Protesters in Charleston after white cop Michael Slager shot Black man Walter Scott, 51, in the back to death in April, 2015.
Four pastors, including Democratic state Senator Clementa Pinckney, 41, were among the six women and three men shot dead at the church nicknamed “Mother Emanuel,” which was burned to the ground in the late 1820s after a slave revolt led by one of its founders [Denmark Vesey].
Other victims included three church pastors: DePayne Middleton Doctor, 49, Sharonda Coleman Singleton, 45 and Reverend Daniel Simmons, 74; Cynthia Hurd, a 54-year-old employee of the Charleston County Public Library, and Susie Jackson, 87; Ethel Lance, 70, Tywanza Sanders, 26, and Myra Thompson 59, an associate pastor at the church, according to the county coroner.
“This is going to put a lot of concern to every black church when guys have to worry about getting shot in the church,” said Tamika Brown, who attended one of several overflow prayer vigils held at Charleston churches.
Police in Charleston responded to multiple bomb threats around the city through the course of the day on Thursday.
Three people survived the attack.
“It is a very, very sad day in South Carolina,” Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican, in a tearful statement.
The South Carolina and U.S. flags fly at half staff at state capitol as the Confederate flag unfurls at full staff after the church killings, at the Confederate Monument nearby, in Columbia, SC. Sean RayfordGetty /Images
That grief rang hollow for some civil-rights activists, who noted that the state capital in Columbia still flies the Confederate flag, the rallying symbol of the pro-slavery South during the Civil War.
“The reality that racism is alive and well and that we have a problem with guns,” said Clayborne Carson, founding director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. “People will throw up their hands and say ‘how terrible’ and the governor of South Carolina will put the Confederate flag of the state at half staff and then will get back to passing more laws that allow people to carry guns.”
“The fact that this took place in a black church obviously raises questions about a dark part of our history,” said U.S. President Barack Obama. “Once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun.”
Mourners of nine victims pray outside AME church after hate crime.
The United States has seen a series of mass shootings in recent years, including the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults. Democratic efforts to reform the nation’s gun laws, protect by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, failed after that incident.
Editor: Comparisons with other mass shootings are not valid; they leave out the fact that police have killed 527 people, mainly Black and Latin, since Jan. 1, 2015.
GIFT OF A GUN
A man who identified himself as Carson Cowles, Roof’s uncle, told Reuters that Roof’s father had recently given him a .45-caliber handgun as a birthday present and that Roof had seemed adrift.
“I don’t have any words for it,” Cowles, 56, said in a telephone interview. “Nobody in my family had seen anything like this coming.”
Roof was armed with a handgun but surrendered peacefully at his arrest, said Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen.
Participants in memorial for victims.
In a Facebook profile apparently belonging to Roof, a portrait showed him wearing a jacket emblazoned with the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and of the former Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, both formerly ruled by white minorities. Many of his Facebook friends were black.
Roof was arrested on two separate occasions at a shopping mall earlier this year for a drug offense and trespassing, according to court documents.
Roof’s mother, Amy, declined to comment when reached by phone.
“We will be doing no interviews, ever,” she said before hanging up.
Father and daughter grieve at memorial in front of church.
Sylvia Johnson, a cousin of Pinckney, told MSNBC that a survivor told her the gunman reloaded five times during the attack despite pleas for him to stop.
“He just said, ‘I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country,” Johnson said.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said her office was investigating whether to charge Roof with a hate crime motivated by racial or other prejudice.
Under federal and some state laws, such crimes typically carry harsher penalties, but South Carolina is one of just five U.S. states not to have a hate-crimes law.
RISING RACIAL TENSIONS
Demonstrations have rocked New York, Baltimore, Ferguson in Missouri and other U.S. cities following police killings of unarmed black men including Eric Garner, Freddie Gray and Michael Brown.
A white police officer was charged with murder after he shot Walter Scott, an unarmed black man, in the back in April in neighboring North Charleston.
Walter Scott, 51, shot to death by N. Charleston cop Michael Slager.
SC cop Michael Slager shot Michael Scott, 51, to death as he ran from being tasered. Slager faces murder charges.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which researches U.S. hate groups, said the attack illustrates the dangers that home-grown extremists pose.
“Since 9/11, our country has been fixated on the threat of Jihadi terrorism. But the horrific tragedy at the Emanuel AME reminds us that the threat of homegrown domestic terrorism is very real,” the group said in a statement, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
There have been 4,120 reported hate crimes across the United States, including 56 murders, since 2003, the center said.
“It is a very, very sad day in South Carolina,” Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican, in a tearful statement.
CHURCH A SYMBOL OF BLACK FREEDOM; DENMARK VESEY, EXECUTED FOR 1822 REBELLION AGAINST SLAVERY, WAS A CHURCH FOUNDER
Denmark Vesey, leader of the Emmanuel AME Church, was executed along with three dozen others for planning a rebellion against slavery in 1822.
When a gunman opened fire on Charleston’s Emanuel A.M.E. Church Wednesday, spraying bullets into a group of worshippers gathered for a mid-week prayer meeting, it was as though history repeated itself.
This historic congregation, the oldest of its kind in the South, had already seen more than its fair share of tumult and hate. It was founded by worshippers fleeing racism and burned to the ground for its connection with a thwarted slave revolt. For years its meetings were conducted in secret to evade laws that banned all-black services. It was jolted by an earthquake in 1886. Civil rights luminaries spoke from its pulpit and lead marches from its steps. For nearly two hundred years it had been the site of struggle, resistance and change.
On Wednesday, the church was a crime scene — the street outside aglow with the flashing red lights of police cars and echoing with the screech of sirens. Nine people had been killed there, reportedly including the church’s pastor, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, though police had not confirmed his death.
I do believe this was a hate crime,” Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen said at a press conference early Thursday morning.
To those watching in Charleston and from afar, it was devastating.
Emmanuel AME Church after murders; founded in 1816 the original church was burned to the ground after Denmary Vesey rebellion.
“It’s not just a church. It’s also a symbol … of black freedom,” said Robert Greene, who studies the 20th century South at the University of South Carolina. “That’s why so many folks are so upset tonight, because it’s a church that represents so much about the rich history and tradition of African Americans in Charleston.”
In Charleston, the church is affectionately known as “Mother Emanuel,” a nod to its age and its eminence in the community. It is a place people take pride in, said Rev. Stephen Singleton, who was pastor there from 2006 to 2010 — all soaring ceilings and fine pinewood floors, with an antique pipe organ that had been shipped from Europe more than a century ago.
Morris Brown founded church in 1816.
“They’re just God-fearing people,” Singleton said of his former congregation. “People who lived in modesty in light of the history of the congregation they called home.”
That history is a long and storied one. The congregation was founded in the era of slavery by Morris Brown, a founding pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1816, frustrated with the racism he encountered in Charleston’s segregated churches, Brown decided to form a Church of his own. About 4,000 parishioners followed him — more than 75 percent of city’s black community, according to a history published by the College of Charleston.
From the beginning, the congregation was a focal point of community organizing and anti-slavery activism — provoking fears and intense distrust among the city’s white population. According to a PBS documentary, white Charlestonians constantly monitored the church, sometimes disrupting services and arresting worshipers.
Painting shows Denmark Vesey planning rebellion.
They had some reason for alarm: Denmark Vesey, the organizer of one of the nation’s most notable failed slave uprisings, was a leader in the church. He fiercely and insistently preached that African Americans were the new Israelites, that their enslavement would be punished with death, and in 1822 he and other leaders began plotting a rebellion.
The revolt was planned for June 16 — 193 years and one day before the shooting Wednesday night. But another member of the church, a slave named George Wilson, told his master about the plot. Nearly three dozen organizers — including Vesey — were put on trial and executed, while another 60 were banished from the city. Believing that “black religion” had caused the uprising, South Carolina instituted a series of draconian measures against African American churches and communities, including a ban on services conducted without a white person present. The Charleston A.M.E. congregation was dispersed and their building set ablaze.
Emmanuel AME as rebuilt after Civil War.
After the end of the Civil War, the A.M.E. congregation — which had been conducting services in secret for decades and worked as part of the Underground Railroad — was formally re-established and adopted the name Emanuel. Parishioners rebuilt their church on Calhoun Street, a half mile away from Fort Sumter, where the Civil War’s first shots were fired and, a block from the square that had been a military marching ground during the Civil War and the site of a celebratory parade of African American residents once the conflict ended.
When that wooden building was destroyed in a 1886 earthquake, the congregation replaced it with the stately gothic revival structure seen today.
The church’s activism resumed along with services, and by the 20th century it had become a focal point of South Carolina’s civil rights movement.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks at Emmanuel AME in 1962.
Booker T. Washington spoke there in 1909 to a large audience of both white and black admirers. In 1962, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speach about voting rights and making the “American dream a reality.” So did Roy Wilkins, as executive secretary of the NAACP. In 1969, as Charleston was in the midst of a massive strike aimed at creating a union for the state’s mostly black hospital workers, Coretta Scott King led a march from Emanuel A.M.E.’s steps while 1000 state troopers and national guardsmen looked on.
“If there was any sort of civil rights protest or activity in Charleston it was almost always centered around that church,” Greene said.
Singleton, the former pastor of Emanuel A.M.E., said the church was still a place for political organizing when he was there. Politicians often dropped in, he recalled. Parishioners organized for community issues.
Pinckney, 41, the current pastor who was in the church when the gunman opened fire, was even more active. For more than a decade he’d served as a member of the South Carolina State Senate. He was an advocate for a bill in the state legislature that would require police officers to wear body cameras, calling it “our No. 1 priority,” according to the Charleston Post and Courier.
For many, the initial response was one of shock.
Four little girls died in the bombing of 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. in 1963. Revolutionary activist Angela Davis lived next door to one.
“If we’re not safe in the church, God, you tell us where we are safe,” mourners at a prayer circle told a reporter for MSNBC.
But Robert Mickey, a University of Michigan political scientist who studies race and politics in the post-War South, noted that activist African American churches have been targeted before.
“They’ve been sites of black protest and community organizing, and they have long been targets as well,” he said, noting the long list of racist attacks on black churches, particularly the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.
The gunman on Wednesday, who police said was about 21 years old, may not have been aware of that history, Mickey added. But the congregation at Emanuel A.M.E., as well as the thousands of people who watched the news of the killings there in horror, certainly did.
“When you’re on the receiving end of the violence it’s pretty hard not to put it in that context,” Mickey said. “You can’t help but notice the continuities, the violence and fear that constantly these revisit these same communities.”
Others agreed.
Emmanuel AME church will survive.
But Singleton said that the attack on his old church “should be dealt with as an individual,” not as part of some broader trend.
“I think the comparison that you can draw from it is, evil is real and it’s prevalent all over the place,” he said, adding, “I want to encourage people of faith to be prayerful. Embrace our faith and embrace each other.”
Singleton, who preaches in Columbia, S.C. now, said he’ll heading back to Charleston in the next few days. He wants to visit his old congregation, he said, to pay his respects to those who were killed and the church that has had another painful chapter added to its history.
“That church has a legacy, and it won‘t be destroyed because of this,” he said, firmly. “Chances are it’ll probably come out stronger.”
GLWA meeting June 12, 2015: (l to r) co-chair Gary Brown of Detroit, chair Robert Daddow of Oakland County, Board member Brian Baker of Macomb County, with maps showing areas covered by GLWA.
Great Lakes Water Authority contract with city a SALE, not a lease
Means higher water/sewerage rates for population of six counties
Detroit water shut-offs, attachment of unpaid water bills to property taxes, to be continued
Contract subject to referendum vote of people of the city of Detroit; DAREA votes to begin petition collection process in coalition with others
DAREA also files new challenge to bankruptcy plan citing Illinois Supreme Court decision striking down pension cuts as unconstitutional
By Diane Bukowski
June 15, 2015
Gary Brown speaks at Detroit City Council meeting April 3, 2012, next to Council Pres. Charles Pugh. The next day, the Council voted 5-4 to approve a Consent Agreement with the state that led eventually to the state takeover of Detroit and bankruptcy declaration. Brown and Pugh also sat on “Roots Cause” committee, signed document agreeing to separate DWSD from Detroit in 2011. Pugh later absconded his post after allegations that he was a child molester surfaced.
DETROIT – “We’ve been waiting for this for 40 years,” a beaming Gary Brown, co-chair of the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA), an entity organized under the Detroit bankruptcy plan, boasted June 12.
Brown is also COO of the City of Detroit under “Mayor” Mike Duggan. During its meeting that day, the six-member GLWA board voted 5-1 to approve a contract with the City of Detroit that is an irrevocable sale, not a lease, of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD).
The GLWA will pay only a total of $1.4 billion for the $6 billion system. It is expected to approve skyrocketing rate increases, and will continue water shut-offs and the attachment of unpaid water bills to property taxes for Detroiters. (See link for entire contract at end of story.)
Six major items still need to be completed before the contract actually takes effect, no later than Jan. 1, 2016. These include agreements with customer communities to have the GLWA assume their contracts, the Detroit General Retirement System to provide information on pension obligations, 51 percent of bondholders to agree to have the GLWA assume $5.2 billion in DWSD debt, bond rating agency confirmation that ratings will be no lower than current DWSD bond ratings, legal opinions that bonds are still non-taxable, and adoption of a bond ordinance.
Doug Scott, of Fitch Ratings.
Crain’s Detroit Business quoted Doug Scott of Fitch Ratings Ltd., who said the current DWSD debt load is a problem.
“The limit on their revenue-generating ability would be a factor. It could be a credit negative, depending on the situation — it’s certainly not a credit positive,” Scott said. “But I can’t say it’s a definite negative in this situation, since we have other factors to look at, like how affordable rates are right now. That could be an offset.”
Scott also cited the alleged four percent cap on rate increases, which has already been removed in the plan, likely at Wall Street’s direction.
During bankruptcy negotiations, the “City” as represented by Jones Day had proposed that DWSD bondholders take a $2.3 billion cut. Bankruptcy protesters had pointed to at least one illegal DWSD interest swap agreement amounting to $537 million. However, provisions creating the Great Lakes Water Authority restored the full debt load.
Another hurdle to enactment of the Authority is the state law authorizing the contract. Public Act 233 of 1955, “Municipal Water and Sewer Supply Systems,” allows the affected municipality a people’s referendum vote on the contract.
Bill Davis, President of DAREA (l) carries banner at Wayne County tax foreclosure protest June 8, 2015.
The Detroit Active and Retired Employees Association (DAREA) voted unanimously at its meeting June 15 to begin that process, drafting petition language and reaching out to other organizations, especially those concerned about the people’s water rights, to join in collecting the 15,000 petition signatures needed according to PA 233. Members said they were outraged at what they called the theft of Detroit’s six-county system, and provisions in the contract, some of which are noted below.
DAREA officer Yvonne Williams Jones.
“We have to continue fighting,” DAREA President Bill Davis said. “If not, they’ll think we have given up.” Yvonne Williams Jones encouraged members to take up the battle any way they can, including in the streets.
Davis also announced that DAREA had just filed a supplemental brief to its appeal of the Detroit Bankruptcy Plan of Adjustment, which authorized the creation of the GLWA.
The brief cites the resounding decision of the Illinois State Supreme Court which struck down all cuts to state employee pensions enacted in 2013 by the State Legislature, saying they violated state constitutional protections that prohibit “diminishing or impairing” such benefits. The language is virtually identical to that in Michigan’s Constitution.
“You do not have the authority to take this vote,” a City of Detroit retiree told the GLWA board at the outset of their meeting June 12. “Under the City Charter, DWSD assets can only be sold or transferred after a vote of the people. This action will destroy Detroit, the largest and poorest Black-majority city in the country. Detroit has the highest unemployment rate in the U.S., but this agreement takes away thousands of jobs from city workers. Fifty-nine percent of Detroit’s children, and 39 percent of its population, live in poverty.”
Water in Lake Erie by Toledo, Ohio after crisis of 2014.
Another retiree, Cindy Darrah, said, “This is illegal. People can’t afford to pay their water bills now. It’s hard to pay when you don’t have a job. You are voting for something that 99.9 percent of the public has never seen, while their public taxes are paying for a new hockey arena and the M-1 rail system.”
Darrah also raised the issue of the Toledo water crisis, noting that residents of Toledo don’t have the right to weigh in on the agreement.
Retirees earlier said it was a “near catastrophic failure” of DWSD sewage pumps after massive lay-offs in the Wastewater Treatment Plant last year that led to pollution of Lake Erie, from which Toledo draws 80 percent of its water supply. They said the failure also caused great flooding of Detroit sewers, streets and homes at the same time. The WWTP is currently under the management of private contractor EMA, which recommended the elimination of 81 percent of the DWSD workforce.
Metro Detroit’s “Raging Grannies,” part of a national organization, sing against takeover, water shut-offs at GLWA meeting June 12, 2015.
Whether the condition of DWSD’s infrastructure will improve under the GLWA is questionable. They have hired global water privatizer Veolia as an advisor.
Veolia has recommended the cancellation of $600 million in Capital Improvement Program funds that were to finance 14 major plant upgrades.
The Raging Grannies presented the GLWA with a song decrying water shut-offs during the meeting.
Earlier, both the Sierra Club and the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization resigned from the Water Residents Assistance Program created by the GLWA, because it did not stop water shut-offs and did not constitute a true water affordability program.
DWSD is the third largest public municipal facility in the U.S, owned and controlled by Detroit since 1836. It has revenues of $6 billion annually, and provides service to almost one million people in Detroit and three million in 127 Michigan communities throughout Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, St. Clair, Lapeer, Genesee, Washtenaw and Monroe counties.
DWSD’s Lake Huron water treatment plant.
According to terms of the contract, the GLWA will pay $50 million annually to the city of Detroit for 40 years, subject to numerous conditions, which amounts to about $1.4 billion. Conditions include payment by the city itself of $14.4 million of the annual amount, and availability of sufficient revenues after the payment of bond debt. Under the plan, the Authority will assume $5.2 billion in DWSD bond debt, and immediately borrow $300 million again.
Rate increases scheduled to take effect July 1, 2015.
The GLWA will control and collect customer rates and payments, incorporating approved increases of 20.1 percent for Detroiters and 12.4 percent for suburbanites set for July 1.
Despite Detroit bankruptcy plan promises that GLWA rate increases would be limited to 4 percent a year, the contract says, “The Authority shall for each Fiscal Year fix and approve rates and charges to its customers in an amount that is expected to produce Revenues sufficient to satisfy the Authority Revenue Requirement.”
The “Revenue Requirement” prioritizes the payment of bond debt. The GLWA has the exclusive authority to issue bonds and plans to do so abundantly, beginning with a $300 million bond to finance the transition from DWSD to GLWA. Under the plan, the Authority will also assume $5.2 billion in DWSD bond debt.
Nurses at July, 2014 national protest against Detroit water shutoffs, in downtown Detroit. A nurse also spoke at the GLWA meeting June 12, 2015.
GLWA’s Macomb County board member Brian Baker, the sole “No” vote on the contract, said that he expects rate increases to run at least 10 percent a year.
He also blasted what he claimed was Detroit’s “lack of responsibility” for collecting bad debts from its customers. The DWSD began water-shuts again last month.
Unlike Brown, also a former City Councilman and Detroit police officer, city officials have fought a regional takeover of the system for decades. DWSD’s six-county infrastructure was built with bonds paid for by Detroiters.
“This is nothing but a takeover, a power grab for the largest asset the city holds,” former Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson said at a council meeting in Nov. 2012. “It would be malfeasance for any elected official to advocate breaking it up, divvying it up. There is no drinking water in the country better than ours. DWSD is a magnificent asset, paid for by the citizens, owned by the citizens, and run by the citizens. This is a disgrace before God!”
Former Detroit Councilwoman JoAnn Watson led the triumphant battle against Michigan’s first emergency manager act, Public Act 4. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and the legislature, acting on the advice of Jones Day, later replaced it with the referendum-proof PA 436.
Watson was responding to a revelation that Brown and former Council President Charles Pugh had signed a secret “Roots Cause” committee agreement to separate DWSD from the city, in front of U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox.
Pugh is now in disgrace after being exposed as an alleged child molester. He abdicated his post after voting to allow the state takeover of Detroit under a Consent Agreement, and has been working as a waiter in New York City according to local media reports.
Unlike his predecessors, particularly Mayor Coleman A. Young, who opposed a regional takeover of DWSD, Detroit’s new “Mayor” Mike Duggan, allegedly elected on write-in ballots after a court ruled he had not been a resident of Detroit long enough, issued the following statement.
“This is an historic step forward in resolving decades of conflict between Detroit and our suburban neighbors. Detroit will have the resources we need to rebuild our city’s crumbling water and sewer pipes. County leaders will have a true voice in running the part of the system that serves the suburbs. Each community will be responsible for its own water and sewer bills. And, we have created a new $4.5 million assistance fund to help low income families afford their water bills.”
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder with buddy Detroit “Mayor” Mike Duggan.
GLWA board members credited Duggan with breaking an impasse in negotiations when he agreed to have lease payments to the city remain within the GLWA system.
At last report, about 500 of more than 1,400 current DWSD workers will remain with the city, while about 900 more will become authority employees. DWSD workers have all been asked to re-apply for their jobs.
Although the authority claimed it is honoring all labor contracts in effects, an attachment to the plan left out AFSCME Local 207, which used to represent 1200 DWSD workers. It was the most militant water department local, supporting a wildcat strike by Wastewater Treatment Plant workers in Sept. 2012. Local 207 members warned that the future of the entire City of Detroit was at stake, but representatives of AFSCME Council 25 sabotaged the strike. Other unions have now carved up most of the local’s membership, leaving it with only a little over 100 workers.
Heroic workers at WWTP strike Sept. 30, 2012: “The battle for Detroit starts NOW!”
TO CONTACT DAREA REGARDING THE REFERENDUM CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE DWSD TAKEOVER , call 313-649-7018, or reach Communications Committee Chair Diane Bukowski at 313-825-6126; email detroit2700plus@gmail.com or diane_bukowski@hotmail.com ASAP.
All organizations and individuals are invited to endorse the campaign and collect signatures for the referendum petitions, speakers available.
Next DAREA membership meeting Wed. July 1, 2015 @ 5:30 pm. Sts. Matthew and Joseph Episcopal Church, Woodward at Holbrook; complete financial report at every meeting.
