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

Detroit teachers walked out of classes in 2001, rallied successfully in Lansing to stop charter schools expansion bill. More actions like this are needed now.

 Community/Union rally Tuesday, Jan. 20, 4 PM, 7700 Second Ave, 3 blocks n. of W. Grand Blvd.

Opposition slate wins other seats on board

Mainstream media attack begins

By Diane Bukowski

Commentary

January 18, 2015

DETROIT – Supporters of Steve Conn and the EON/BAMN slate for the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) leadership issued the following triumphant press release Jan. 17:

“Detroit teachers elected Steve Conn to head the Detroit Federation of Teachers today.  Conn, a long-time civil rights activist, ran on the Equal Opportunity Now/ By Any Means Necessary (EON/BAMN) slate.  Conn and BAMN will now lead Detroit’s teachers in the new civil rights movement that is sweeping the country.

“Detroit teachers voted today to stand up to the attacks on their schools, their jobs and their students’ futures by Snyder and his executive managers,” said Conn in the release.   “I take office Tuesday, and am immediately calling a mass meeting of the union membership and community to begin a fight against these attacks, to defend public education, and to win equal, quality education for our students. We must vote on a plan of action for the DFT to join the citizens of Detroit in a fight to restore democracy and dignity to all of the people of Detroit.”

Conn has taught math in DPS schools since 1985, most recently at Cass Technical High School.

DPS 4th grader cries after being pepper-sprayed May 5, 2007; police broke up rally to save the former Northern High School, sponsored by BAMN. Steve Conn and his wife teacher Heather Miller were arrested and fired after this rally, but won their jobs back. Photo: Diane Bukowski

While working for the now defunct Michigan Citizen, this reporter covered the DPS beat for eight years, noting BAMN’s tireless recruitment of students to fight the horrific destruction of DPS. School closings at DPS paralleled the shutdown of the New Orleans public schools system after Hurricane Katrina, with DPS even getting the jump on New Orleans, announcing the closings of 50 schools in 2004 and continuing on to its ultimate goal of obliteration through the inferior Educational Achievement Authority (EAA) and charter schools.

The attacks on public schools in Detroit, New Orleans, Chicago, Philadelphia and other majority-Black districts have been particularly noxious because public education largely has its roots in the post-Civil War South. Kidnapped Africans, finally free of slavery and its prohibitions against learning to read and write, set up many of the nation’s first public schools.

Former DPS Pres. Keith Johnson argues with teacher who opposed Proposal E in 2004, which would have allowed Detroit’s mayor to appoint a DPS CEO. It was roundly defeated at the polls.

“I’m stunned at this moment,” retired DFT head Keith Johnson told the Detroit News. “I’m gravely concerned about the future of this union. Steve has a single answer to everything and that is strike, walk out, protest. He doesn’t understand that whether you disagree with someone or dislike them, you still have to work with them to move this district forward.”

This reporter worked for the City of Detroit from 1974 to her early retirement in 1999. As an officer of AFSCME Local 457, representing Detroit General Hospital and the Detroit Health Department, she witnessed similar devastation of public jobs and services in the city sector. Under the leadership of Local 457 President Hazel Edwards, we joined with the members of Dodge Main UAW Local 3 to stop privatization and plant closings, and conducted a people’s referendum to save the hospital. We warned then, beginning in 1977, that if Detroit General Hospital was privatized and Dodge Main closed, there would be a domino effect across the city.

WERE WE RIGHT OR NOT?

Former AFSCME Local 207 President John Riehl and Secretary-Treasurer Mike Mulholland, allied with Conn, also frequently called for mass strikes and other militant actions. Their local, along with Local 457, faced frequent confrontations with the top union leadership of Michigan AFSCME Council 25 and with the AFSCME International, who took positions similar to that of Keith Johnson’s, meeting in smoke-filled back rooms with their allies, OUR BOSSES, in the Democratic Party, to “work together.”

Workers at Wastewater Treatment Plant in Detroit wildcatted Sept. 30, 2012 to SAVE DETROIT.

Local 207 made a heroic last-ditch attempt to save the City of Detroit when its membership at the Wastewater Treatment Plant wildcatted in September, 2012. The Local had built for this strike for months, holding informational pickets at water plants and at the Coleman A. Young Center, hoping to spark a city-wide uprising against the anti-union, anti-people actions of city and state leaders, with their corporate contractor friends and campaign contributors.

The City of Detroit was already planning to cut 80 percent of the jobs at the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, through contractor EMA. Despite this looming disaster, AFSCME Council 25 leadership including Ed McNeil, Catherine Phillips, and President Al Garrett sabotaged the WWTP strike. They went to the picket lines at the WWTP to hand out U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox’s order to return to work, and visited other water plants to tell them not to strike.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan grabs Detroit on map of six-county DWSD area, as he announces almost total takeover by Great Lakes Water Authority.

Fast forward to 2014-15:  under the bankruptcy plan, virtually the entire Water Department is being stolen from the people of Detroit—all of the six outlying county areas, and all of the water plants and most major water lines in Detroit, will be transferred to the Great Lakes Water Authority.  DWSD employees have all been required to re-apply for their jobs.

Most of the city’s other assets are on the chopping block as well. As Municipal Market Advisors reported, this stripping of revenue-producing city assets will likely lead to a SECOND Chapter 9 bankruptcy in short order.

If AFSCME Council 25 leadership had not betrayed the WWTP strikers, if it had not withdrawn its appeal of bankruptcy eligibility to the Sixth Circuit Court, IF IT HAD LISTENED TO ITS MEMBERS’ DESPERATE CALL FOR ACTION AND FOLLOWED SUIT, we would not be facing the virtual destruction of Detroit today.

As a long-time union leader, and a long-time reporter on city of Detroit affairs, I wholeheartedly support Steve Conn’s victory and call on his membership and the people of Detroit to help him TURN BACK THE RACIST, ANTI-UNION, ANTI-PEOPLE. PROTO-FASCIST TIDE. He and his supporters have a monumental job on their hands and deserve absolute solidarity from the people of Detroit.

Contact Steve Conn & EON-BAMN (Equal Opportunity Now – By Any Means Necessary) at 313.645.9340

Ron Scott (with bullhorn) of Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, Inc. and others protest police beating of Andrew Jackson, Jr. outside Grosse Pointe Park police HQ Jan. 14, 2015.

Protest Jan. 14 at GPP headquarters: “No Justice, No Peace, Stop Racist Police;” end federal, state tax funding of multi-jurisdictional police forces

Highland Park cop involved in Andrew Jackson, Jr. beating has long record of assaults

Grosse Pointe Park put A.C.T.I.O.N task force together about 10 years ago

By Diane Bukowski

January 15, 2015

Andrew Jackson Jr. MDOC photo

DETROIT – Detroit Police Chief James Craig has washed his hands of involvement in the brutal beating of Black Detroiter Andrew Jackson, Jr., 51, by white Highland Park, Harper Woods, and Grosse Pointe Park cops Jan. 12, saying no Detroit officer was involved.  The police claim Jackson carjacked a woman and her two grandchildren at gunpoint.

But the question arises: why have Craig and previous chiefs allowed suburban cops free rein in Detroit for years?

The earliest news accounts of Jackson’s beating, caught on cellphone videotape by Detroiter Emma Craig, implied the carjacking took place in Grosse Pointe Park. However, the carjacking he is alleged to have committed took place far from that 99 percent east side white suburb, in west-side Detroit near Fenkell and Evergreen.

“You don’t become a criminal to catch a criminal,” said Ron Scott of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, Inc. during a protest outside the Grosse Pointe Park police headquarters Jan. 14.

Ron Scott interviewed inside GPP police station.

“Those cops violated their own standards of safety when they beat Mr. Jackson before searching him. That beating had no place in a civil society; people are innocent until they are proven guilty. It’s sickening the Grosse Pointe Park Police Chief said it was justified, and that Chief Craig cares so little about Detroiters that he said he isn’t concerned about Detroit cops not being residents, and allows suburban cops into Detroit.”

Jackson’s attorney, Ben Gonek, told the Detroit Free Press that Jackson has a “serious eye injury,” and that the police were guilty of excessive force. The videotape shows Jackson being punched and kicked on the ground by two cops, as he calls out imploringly, “Jesus.”  An officer kneels on his back and says, “What did you say? Jesus? Are you calling Jesus? Don’t you dare! Don’t you f—king dare!”

The officers then bump fists to congratulate each other, and the Harper Woods officer says “that’s a justified ass whoopin.” (See full video with commentary below.)

Scott expressed doubt about Grosse Pointe Park Police Chief David Hiller’s statement that the cops found a gun in Jackson;s waistband. The full version of the  nine-minute videotape, cut short by most news outlets, contradicts that. It shows a white female and a white male cop stand Jackson up to search him, beginning from his feet on up. The white male declares as he is halfway up Jackson’s leg, “Oh, HERE’s the gun.” There is a slight note of sarcasm in his voice.

Highland Park Sgt. Ronald Dupuis, who participated in Jackson beating.

Jackson is being held by Grosse Pointe Park police on parole violation matters. His record includes four very long sentences imposed for one incident in 2003 involving armed robbery and fleeing police in Oakland County,  two cases of receiving stolen property in 1995 and 1997, and two other “inactive” 1999 sentences of fleeing police and receiving stolen property. The Michigan Department of Corrections website says he absconded from parole April 3, 2014.

The Wayne County Prosecutor’s office has not yet approved a warrant for his arrest on the carjacking incident. The victim of that incident said in two interviews that she supports police actions in beating Jackson, although she does not say whether she identified him in a line-up as the man who carjacked her.

Since the protest, the Detroit Free Press has named Highland Park Sgt. Ronald Dupuis as one of the cops. Their article says he has a long history of assaults in various suburban departments, including tasering a female partner, beating a disabled man, refusing to allow a woman in a jail cell access to a bathroom, forcing her to urinate in the cell, and stalking another woman, repeatedly pulling her over. He was fired from the Hamtramck Police Department for the taser incident, and resigned rather than being fired from the Southgate Police Department for the incidents involving the women.

Eric Taylor, assaulted and called racist names by GPP police after HE was carjacked.

Dupuis was also sued for beating a man in 2002, with a settlement, and false arrest in 2004. In 2012, he accidentally shot himself in the foot in a police station. (Click on Ronald DuPuis record DV Project for full accounting from a domestic violence project.)

The protest was attended by Dawud Walid, Executive Director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI), and over a dozen others.

They  included Eric Taylor, who told VOD he was the victim of a carjacking in Grosse Pointe Park on June 12 last year. “I had my wife call the police for help,” Taylor said.

“My friend and I were at a gas station getting a sandwich when my car was taken as I walked back to it. When the GPP police got there, they cut me off when I was explaining, and told me I matched the description of a carjacking suspect. Then they threated to “blow my f—king head off,” told me I was nothing but an animal, called me a n—-r, and told me if I sued they would come and kill my family.”

Photo of Eric Taylor after beating by GPP police in April, 2014.

He showed VOD a cellphone photo taken by his daughter of his head a few days after the beating. He said he still suffers from headaches and other effects of the beating.

Grosse Pointe Park police were involved earlier in a racist incident where they forced a developmentally disabled Black Detroiter, who used to go into the Pointes to collect bottles, to sing and perform for them, then circulated several cellphone videos of the actions.

Grosse Pointe Park founded A.C.T.I.O.N. (Arresting Car Thieves in Our Neighborhoods) about ten years ago, using an initial $350,000 grant from the state of Michigan and funds from state car insurance companies. It originally included only the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department, and police departments from Grosse Pointe Park, Grosse Pointe City, and Harper Woods. Since that time, other departments including Warren and Detroit have been added according to news reports.

Hiller included names of the Chiefs from all those departments on his press release on the incident, although Craig said he had not seen it.

Billboard posted by Detroit One task force.

Detroit has its own task force, however. The Detroit One Partnership announced the formation of a carjacking task force in April 2014, including the Detroit Police Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshal’s Service, Homeland Security Investigations, Michigan State Police, Michigan Department of Corrections, Wayne County Sheriff’s Department, Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office and U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Killed by police (top to bottom): Aiyana Jones, 7, Detroit; Michael Brown, 18, Ferguson, MO; Eric Garner, NYC; Tamir Rice, 12, Cleveland; Aura Rosser, Ann Arbor, MI, 2014; Lamar Grable, Detroit, 1996;  Brandon Moore, 16, Detroit: Artrell Dickerson, 18, Detroit

Emma Craig, who videotaped Jackson’s beating, said she also saw officers at the scene with I.C.E. (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) jackets.

In addition to the Detroit One and ACTION Task Forces, the State of Michigan has run an anti-carjacking task force called H.E.A.T. (Help Eliminate Auto Thefts) for the past 23 years.

Numerous protesters of the Michael Brown killing in Ferguson, MO. Aug. 9 have condemned federal provision of military equipment including tanks, assault weapons, flash-bang grenades, flak vests, and other equipment to city police to carry out raids like the one that resulted in the death of seven-year-old Detroiter Aiyana Jones on May 16, 2010, and assaults on anti-police brutality marches.

“We resent that our public tax dollars are being used to fund such programs,” Scott said. Others noted the money would be far better spent on programs to provide jobs, end homelessness, build decent schools, and repair the infrastructures of the nations’ cities.

Alonzo Long, Jr. enters court Jan. 6, 2015.

Prosecution adds two felony murder charges

 Judge bases decision on some evidence not presented in open court

Threat Management expert opinion

 Campaign for end to tax foreclosures continues

 By Diane Bukowski

 January 12, 2015

 DETROIT – Shocking many courtroom observers, 36^th District Court Judge Ruth Carter bound over 22-year-old Alonzo Long, Jr. for trial Jan. 6, not only on two counts of first-degree murder in the Nov. 28, 2014 deaths of Howard L. Franklin, 72, and his daughter Catherine Franklin, 37, but also on two new counts of felony murder, added that day by the prosecution.

The “felony” involved was larceny, according to Asst. Wayne County Pros. Daniel Williams. He claimed Long and his relatives were stealing blinds and chandeliers from the property they had lost to tax foreclosure, which the elder Franklin had purchased effective Nov. 10. The property belonged to the grandparents of the occupant, and the Franklins had not gone to 36^th District Court to evict him.  His relatives were helping him move out when events escalated to their tragic conclusion.

Agnes Hitchcock center with yellow scarf, and a few of her many supporters, at Blackinaw Island picnic May 31, 2014,

Howard L. Franklin had a long history of home ownership at various Detroit addresses, along with a number of property foreclosures, listed with the Wayne County Register of Deeds. (Click on History of Howard L Franklin properties to see list.)

“I am extremely disappointed that the young man was bound over on the initial charges,” community organizer Agnes Hitchcock said. “Adding the other charges was a bit much. I plan to attend as many future trial hearings as possible. There are a lot of dynamics here, including all the foreclosures happening in Detroit, the issue of home invasion by the Franklins before they had gone through the lawful eviction process, gun possession by all parties, and the senior vs. youth divide.”

Long’s family called out, “We love you, Junior” as he was led away in handcuffs by court guards. His attorney Charles Longstreet II told VOD, “This was just one side; you are about to see the other side [at trial].” Long was to be arraigned on the information Jan. 13 at Wayne County Third Judicial Circuit Court.

“This is a sad case all around,” Judge Carter said. “The Medical Examiner’s report shows that Howard Franklin was shot seven times, including through the eye, and Catherine Franklin had a through and through gunshot wound in her left arm, and one in her cheek, probably showing that she put her hand up to defend herself. It is not a requirement to figure out who shot first.”

36th District Court Judge Ruth Carter

The report was only stipulated to at the beginning of the preliminary exam, which took place over three days. No details other than cause and manner of death were presented. Judge Carter, with the consent of both defense and prosecution, viewed a two-and-one-half hour videotape of a statement Long gave to the police after the killings, in camera. It was not shown in open court.

The prosecution presented no forensics or ballistics reports on the killings. Employees of the younger Franklin testified that both Franklins were armed, and that the younger Franklin fell out of the front door with her gun in her hand, mortally wounded, a circumstance which could have explained why her arm may have been raised. A second employee testified that he saw Howard Franklin with a gun in hand and saw “somebody get loud with Howard and put their hands on him.” A young woman on the premises helping with the move was also shot but survived.

Carter said one employee testified that Long, who was sitting outside in a car when the confrontation began inside, got out with his gun unholstered.  VOD heard that employee say that he saw Long with a gun held downwards as the two brushed by each other in the doorway as the employee ran out after guns were produced inside.  In the written report presented by police earlier, Long said his gun was holstered when he responded to a relative’s call to “Go get Junior.”

Wayne Co. Asst. Prosecutor Daniel Williams

“I do find it interesting that both victims were shot with all kill shots,” Carter said. “The father was shot in the eye, jaw and neck. His gun was found inside his jacket. He told the occupants, ‘C’mon, let’s do this tomorrow.’ I find there is a question of fact and bind the defendant over on the charges.”

Prosecutor Williams said during his argument prior to Judge Carter’s decision that the issue of self-defense cannot be argued at a preliminary exam, but only at a jury trial.  that  He said the issue of who fired first was crucial, and noted that Long said in his statement that he first saw the elder Franklin with his gun and fired at him first, but did not see the younger Franklin with a gun in the beginning.

“Did he [Long] have time to check about and deliberate?” Williams asked, trying to establish grounds for premeditation.  “He had a concealed pistol license, and when you get CPL training, they tell you not to pull out your gun unless you’re going to kill. He goes in, hailed by his uncle inside to assist his uncle in finishing the argument in some way. Ms. Franklin was shot once in the head and once in the arm. Howard Franklin was shot seven times . . . . that left time to contemplate what he was doing. He didn’t say, ‘This is too heated, let’s leave.’ He walked in and shot two people nine times.”

Williams noted later that someone inside said “he’s got a gun,” prior to Long’s entry.

Defense attorney Charles Longstreet II.

During his argument, defense attorney Longstreet asked the judge to reduce all the charges to involuntary manslaughter. He said there was no evidence of premeditation, or evil intent, necessary for first-degree murder charges, and no “reckless, unwarranted conduct” necessary for second-degree murder charges. He also argued against the felony murder charges, saying that Long did not participate in the alleged taking of property in the house or in the initial confrontation, during which he was outside in the car.

He said an employee had testified that he heard two separate guns firing, indicating that a gunfight had transpired. He mentioned the question of the eviction process without going into detail, and did not challenge the new owner’s right to be on occupied property without going to 36^th District Court.

VOD consulted with Dale Brown, an instructor at Detroit’s Threat Management Center, about the various arguments, after being unable to locate any applicable laws. The Center teaches self-defense from a non-violent standpoint, using instructors trained to deal with guns, and well-versed in related legal issues.

“His [Long’s] pulling out his gun does not mean that he had an intent to kill,” Brown said. “Police officers pull out their guns all day and don’t shoot everyone they pull a gun on. Legally, the new owners should not have been in the home at all until the owner/occupant left the premises; that made them home invaders. The police should have advised them that the prior occupant has a right to stay until he is legally evicted or decides to leave.” [VOD had informed Brown that testimony showed that police came to the scene early that day with the Franklins, and negotiated a deal to give the occupants more time to leave.]

Instructor Dale Brown of Detroit Threat Management Center.

“If the new owners left and returned,” Brown said, “they should have knocked and asked permission to enter. The new owners should never have brought guns to that situation; they committed a felony when they did.”

He said it was not legal for the Franklins to pull their guns because someone “put their hands” on them, and that when they did show their guns, the others should have left and called 911, and Long also should have done so when he was called to the house.

“Violence is not the answer,” Brown said. “Here you had two guns vs. one and they still lost. A gun is only a tool; it is your mind that makes the decisions.”

Members of Moratorium NOW! and People Before Banks in Detroit, 2013.

Anti-foreclosure activists including those from the Moratorium NOW! Coalition, have called for an immediate halt to the current chaotic tax foreclosure process which leads to such situations.  Neither the Wayne County Treasurer  nor the Register of Deeds appears to be advising auctioned homebuyers of their legal obligations, or even telling them if the properties are occupied.

As VOD reported earlier, police officers in a separate incident Dec. 9 handled it properly, with no violence or bloodshed resulting. When the new owner, Jamal Gilmer, confronted the foreclosed owner, Sareena Patterson, with his deed from the tax auction, she pulled out her own deed. Police on the scene then advised Gilmer to leave and take the matter up in 36^th District Court. When he refused to do so, police arrested him.

Related:

Detroit Threat Management Center website: http://www.threatmanagementcenter.com/home.html

Previous VOD stories on this case:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/01/01/stop-tax-evictions-drop-charges-vs-alonzo-long-jr-come-to-hearing-fri-jan-2-1-pm/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/01/05/statement-long-jr-acted-in-self-defense-in-piedmont-killingstook-wounded-girl-to-hospital/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/12/19/two-dead-one-wounded-one-youth-facing-life-in-prison-for-defense-against-armed-eviction-attempt/

Je Suis Charlie poster in Paris; the so-called “free speech” movement has grown into a movement against Muslims and internet freedom as well.

As a Muslim I’m fed up with the hypocrisy of the free speech fundamentalists [1]

 The response to the inexcusable murder of Charlie Hebdo’s staff has proved that many liberals are guilty of double standards when it comes to giving offence. 

Mehdi Hasan

By Mehdi Hasan [2]

Published 13 January, 2015  

Dear liberal pundit,

You and I didn’t like George W Bush. Remember his puerile declaration after 9/11 that “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists”? Yet now, in the wake of another horrific terrorist attack, you appear to have updated Dubbya’s slogan: either you are with free speech . . . or you are against it. Either vous êtes Charlie Hebdo . . . or you’re a freedom-hating fanatic.

I’m writing to you to make a simple request: please stop. You think you’re defying the terrorists when, in reality, you’re playing into their bloodstained hands by dividing and demonising. Us and them. The enlightened and liberal west v the backward, barbaric Muslims. The massacre in Paris on 7 January was, you keep telling us, an attack on free speech. The conservative former French president Nicolas Sarkozy agrees, calling it “a war declared on civilisation [3]”. So, too, does the liberal-left pin-up Jon Snow, who crassly tweeted [4] about a “clash of civilisations” and referred to “Europe’s belief in freedom of expression”.

Foreign heads of state lead march in Paris. Many of their countries participated in the “shock and awe” destructions of Iraq and Libya, two of the most progressive regimes in the Middle East and Africa.

In the midst of all the post-Paris grief, hypocrisy and hyperbole abounds. Yes, the attack was an act of unquantifiable evil; an inexcusable and merciless murder of innocents. But was it really a “bid to assassinate [5]” free speech (ITV’s Mark Austin), to “desecrate” our ideas of “free thought” (Stephen Fry [6])? It was a crime – not an act of war – perpetrated by disaffected young men; radicalised not by drawings of the Prophet in Europe in 2006 or 2011, as it turns out, but by images of US torture in Iraq in 2004.

Please get a grip. None of us believes in an untrammelled right to free speech. We all agree there are always going to be lines that, for the purposes of law and order, cannot be crossed; or for the purposes of taste and decency, should not be crossed. We differ only on where those lines should be drawn.

Cherif and Said Kouachi, killed by police. CNN reported that a former teacher said, “They were a bit weak really, and they ended up with these Muslim fundamentalists. They didn’t have the intellect to resist.” Most Muslims in Paris did not participate in the Charlie rallies.

Has your publication, for example, run cartoons mocking the Holocaust? No? How about caricatures of the 9/11 victims falling from the twin towers? I didn’t think so (and I am glad it hasn’t). Consider also the “thought experiment” offered by the Oxford philosopher Brian Klug [7]. Imagine, he writes, if a man had joined the “unity rally” in Paris on 11 January “wearing a badge that said ‘Je suis Chérif’” – the first name of one of the Charlie Hebdo gunmen. Suppose, Klug adds, he carried a placard with a cartoon mocking the murdered journalists. “How would the crowd have reacted? . . . Would they have seen this lone individual as a hero, standing up for liberty and freedom of speech? Or would they have been profoundly offended?” Do you disagree with Klug’s conclusion that the man “would have been lucky to get away with his life”?

Let’s be clear: I agree there is no justification whatsoever for gunning down journalists or cartoonists. I disagree with your seeming view that the right to offend comes with no corresponding responsibility; and I do not believe that a right to offend automatically translates into a duty to offend.

Charlie Hebdo’s cartoon of Minister Taubira

French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira condemned racist killings by U.S. police

When you say “Je suis Charlie”, is that an endorsement of Charlie Hebdo’s depiction of the French justice minister, Christiane Taubira [8], who is black, drawn as a monkey? Of crude caricatures of bulbous-nosed Arabs that must make Edward Said turn in his grave?

Lampooning racism by reproducing brazenly racist imagery is a pretty dubious satirical tactic. Also, as the former Charlie Hebdo journalist Olivier Cyran argued in 2013 [9], an “Islamophobic neurosis gradually took over” the magazine after 9/11, which then effectively endorsed attacks on “members of a minority religion with no influence in the corridors of power”.

Muslim police officer Ahmed Merabet, one of Charlie raid victims.

It’s for these reasons that I can’t “be”, don’t want to “be”, Charlie – if anything, we should want to be Ahmed, the Muslim policeman who was killed while protecting the magazine’s right to exist. As the novelist Teju Cole has observed, “It is possible to defend the right to obscene . . . speech without promoting or sponsoring the content of that speech.”

And why have you been so silent on the glaring double standards? Did you not know that Charlie Hebdo sacked the veteran French cartoonist Maurice Sinet [10] in 2008 for making an allegedly anti-Semitic remark? Were you not aware that Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published caricatures of the Prophet in 2005, reportedly rejected cartoons mocking Christ because they would “provoke an outcry” and proudly declared it would “in no circumstances . . . publish Holocaust cartoons”?

Muslims, I guess, are expected to have thicker skins than their Christian and Jewish brethren. Context matters, too. You ask us to laugh at a cartoon of the Prophet while ignoring the vilification of Islam across the continent (have you visited Germany lately?) and the widespread discrimination against Muslims in education, employment and public life – especially in France. You ask Muslims to denounce a handful of extremists as an existential threat to free speech while turning a blind eye to the much bigger threat to it posed by our elected leaders.

U.S. Pres. Barack Obama with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

Does it not bother you to see Barack Obama – who demanded that Yemen keep the anti-drone journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye [11] behind bars, after he was convicted on “terrorism-related charges” in a kangaroo court – jump on the free speech ban wagon? Weren’t you sickened to see Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of a country that was responsible for the killing of seven journalists in Gaza in 2014, attend the “unity rally” in Paris? Bibi was joined by Angela Merkel, chancellor of a country where Holocaust denial is punishable by up to five years in prison, and David Cameron, who wants to ban non-violent “extremists” committed to the “overthrow of democracy” from appearing on television.

Then there are your readers. Will you have a word with them, please? According to a 2011 YouGov poll, 82 per cent of voters backed the prosecution of protesters who set fire to poppies.

Apparently, it isn’t just Muslims who get offended.

Yours faithfully,

Mehdi

Mehdi Hasan is a New Statesman contributing writer and the political director of the Huffington Post UK

Steven Malik Shelton

By Steven Malik Shelton

January 8, 2014

Last February, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan announced an initiative to outfit Detroit Department of Transportation buses with video surveillance cameras. Ostensibly, the measure is being implemented as a method to make passengers and bus drivers safer from a slew of well publicized assaults on passengers and drivers in Detroit as well as in many cities throughout the nation.

There is concern, however, by many civil libertarian and privacy rights advocates who perceive the proliferation of surveillance cameras and other intrusive devises as a clear violation of our constitutional rights and a precursor to a police state far more advanced and sophisticated than the one depicted in the classic novel, 1984, by British author George Orwell.

Will these D-DOT riders, entering bus at Rosa Parks Terminal, be spied on with video and audiotapes? What would Rosa Parks say?

The increased and accelerated installation of closed circuit television cameras (CCTC) in public and (even) private locations is troubling enough, but when considered within the framework of the deportment of a wide assortment of other types of surveillance systems, it becomes shocking and frightening in its dire implications.

The prevalence of highly advanced and effective privacy invading surveillance technology-which is either maintained and monitored by government agencies or although engineered and installed by private companies could potentially be accessed by government and law enforcement entities- is startling. This is a relatively new development which is staggering in its potential for manipulation and the most egregious abuse which cut away at the core of not only what it means to be a citizen of a so-called free republic, but what it means to be a human being.

Within the last 15 years, what has been described as a giant surveillance grid has been established in the form of new, incredibly advanced listening devices equipped with software that can store, identify, and analyze millions of voices. This voice recognition technology is also installed in conjunction with CCTV on city buses in San Francisco Ca; Baltimore MD; Hartford Conn;  Eugene Ore; Traverse City, Mi.; and there are plans to install them in many more cities throughout the nation.

Many experts believe that such surveillance devises are a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution which affirms the right of the people to be secured, not only in their houses, papers and effects, but in their persons against unreasonable searches and seizures.

“Privacy relates to the right or the ability of individuals to determine how much and what information about themselves is to be revealed to others,” writes Judge Andrew P. Napolitano.

“Additionally, privacy relates to the idea of autonomy, the freedom of individuals to perform or not perform certain acts or to subject themselves to certain experiences.

Surveillance drone

Nowhere in the Constitution is the government granted the power to monitor or regulate our daily conduct. Remember the Constitution grants power to the federal government and retains for the states and people that power which is not specifically granted. The Constitution keeps the government off our backs.

So far that hasn’t stopped infringements, including the government’s proposed use of drones –some the size of golf balls –to watch and listen to us. But the fact remains: by simply being human, you have a right to privacy existing far before the founding of the United States.”1

There are plans to use unmanned aerial drones (devices made infamous in foreign war zones) domestically in the United States. These drones are being introduced to the American people as benign devices that will be utilized for innocent activities like the delivery of postal packages and consumer goods, but there are only a few incremental steps from delivering products to outright surveillance to eventually fitting them with weapons and thus empowering the government with tyrannical policing and crowd control tools.

“Unmanned aerial drones have been used with great success by the US military overseas,” writes Michael Snyder. “And now the US government is promoting their use to local law enforcement authorities all over America. In the years ahead, our skies will likely be filled with these things. Many of them are incredibly quiet and can gather information about you from above. In fact, one could be directly over your home right now.”2

Facial recognition in a crowd.

There has also been tremendous development in facial recognition technology, which makes the push for increased CCTV monitoring much more insidious and threatening.

This calls into question the argument that supporters of surveillance technology often put forward; that once a person leaves the privacy of their home and enters the public arena, that person should have no expectation of privacy. Yet to be viewed by the naked human eye, and to by actively monitored and recorded by advanced state-of-the-art surveillance cameras and listening devises are of two different worlds.

“Today’s surveillance camera is not merely the equivalent of a pair of eyes,” explains a study conducted by the New York Civil Liberties Union. “It has super-human vision. It has the capacity to zoom in and read the pages of the book you have opened while waiting for a train in the subway. What’s more, this camera can tilt, pan, and rotate-making it increasingly easy to track you as you move through your day. Facial recognition software, while still imperfect, will someday be able to capture your image from the faces in a crowd, and then compose the image of your face against the facial images stored in a law-enforcement database.”3

CISCO surveillance of hospital rooms.

With the proliferation of surveillance cameras trained on the general public, there is also a trend whereby surveillance devices are becoming more common in places once considered sanctuaries from such intrusions. Some hospitals are now rigging closed circuit television cameras, not only in the lobbies, parking lots and hall ways, but in patient rooms and even in wash rooms reportedly to ensure that hospital staff are washing their hands. And there are incidents of the installation of hidden cameras in patient rooms and even within staff locker rooms in some US hospitals.4

Closed circuit television cameras, as well as high activity location observation cameras, are also becoming more common in our public schools, and there is a nation-wide move to place these devices directly into class rooms where American children can be monitored, tagged and stigmatized for “disruptive” behavior tendencies and non-conformist or anti-authority thinking patterns.

Surveillance camera in school hallway.

Today, in many if not most school districts across the nation, the wrong words uttered by a child in ear-shot of a teacher or staff member can result in the child being placed in a jail cell or a psychiatric ward.

Some social scientists as well as concerned parents and citizens perceive this as an initiative to intimidate children into submission to an authoritarian government, to erode critical thinking tendencies and to mold our children into adults that are not creative, courageous, and freedom loving individuals but frightened and cookie-cutter versions of a dumbed-down, medicated, obedient population reminiscent of the protagonists in author Alex Huxley’s classic work, ‘Brave New World.’

“The moment young people walk into school, they increasingly find themselves under constant surveillance,” writes attorney and civil liberties advocate, John W. Whitehead. “They are photographed, fingerprinted, scanned, x-rayed, sniffed, and snooped on. Between metal detectors at entrances, drug sniffing dogs in the hall ways, and surveillance cameras in the classrooms and elsewhere, many of America’s schools look more like prisons than learning facilities.”5

Are people to be watched like lab mice?

The question is often asked: does increased surveillance keep people safer? A more valid concern should be, even if it may, is it worth the trade off in terms of giving up privacy for a safety that infringed on the very essence of what it means to be autonomous and dignified human beings?  In other words, if safety means being almost constantly watched and probed as though we are lab mice or exotic fish in an aquarium; most Americans would reasonably opt-out.

In national studies on the effect of CCTV on public safety, it appears that its influence is marginal at best. For example, a Chicago city spokesperson is quoted as saying that surveillance cameras helped solve 4,500 crimes over four years, but this is a paltry number when one considers that over a million crimes were estimated to have occurred in Chicago during that time period which registers as only a 0.05% effect on crime.

Other studies indicate that there is very little (if any) significant impact or relationship between surveillance cameras and the reduction of crime, particularly violent crime. Moreover, in those studies where statistics show a reduction in violent incidents after the installation of CCTV, they do not take into account that the reduction in crime is a reflection of, not necessarily the CCTV, but the fact violent crimes across the nation have been in steady decline since 1990 when there was 729 reported incidents per 100,000 of population; to under 386 incidents per 100,000 incidents of violent crime in the year 2012. 6

These individuals, caught on a surveillance camera, were said to have been involved in a crime. However, no crime is seen.

Other concerns related to CCTV are reports of abuse in which police and/or security personnel are targeting specific genders and racial groups that has nothing to do with security or safety.

Moreover, surveillance images have been downloaded by unscrupulous operators acting under color of authority and used to scrutinize certain sensitive and private parts of a women’s anatomy. Surveillance tapes have also been appropriated by dishonest personnel of people of people going into places such as gay bars, porn shops and strip clubs and used to black mail unsuspecting patron s.

There is also numerous studies that show that Blacks and other so-called minorities are much more likely to be watched and followed by CCTV as well as the plethora of other viewing and spying equipment and systems increasingly utilized by government and corporate organizations and agencies.

X-ray image of truck carrying passengers.

Even if agents that are actively viewing surveillance equipment are honest people without particular racial/ethnic bias or sexual proclivities, CCTV data is almost universally being stored en masse on huge computer banks and stored in central locations that are either directly controlled or able to be accessed by the government without the requirement of search warrants or judicial review. Thus mass amounts of uncensored visual and audio information can be stored (often without any time limits) and watched or listened to by any person who has access, legal or otherwise.

In addition the government is funding, not only electronic license plate readers, but also roving vans equipped with mobile x-ray screening capability, which can be dispatched through America’s streets and thoroughfares to scan parked vehicles, pedestrians going about their business, and to see what’s inside vehicles and under clothes, as well as view what’s going on behind walls and closed doors.7

Steven Malik Shelton is a journalist and human rights advocate. He can be reached at malikshelton19@aol.com

 References:

1 Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, “The Freedom Answer Book,” Thomas Nelson Publishers, (2012) p. p. 124, 125 

2 “19 Signs That America is Being Transformed into A Giant Surveillance Grid,” by Michael Snyder 9Sept. 24^th 2012, accessible online at http://endofthe Americandream.com

 3 “Who’s Watching? Video Surveillance in New York City and the Need for Public Oversight,” A Special Report by the New York Civil Liberties Union (Fall 2006)  

4 “Privacy vs safety: surveillance in hospitals,” by Xavier Symons (22 Feb. 2014) Accessible online at: http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/10857

5 John W. Whitehead, “A Government of Wolves: The Emerging Police State,” SelectBooks,Inc. (2013) p. 185 

6 “The Statistical Portal: Statistics and Studies from more than 18,000 Sources. Accessible online at: www.statista.com/statistics/191219/reported-violent-crime-rate-in-the-usa-since-1990/ 

7 John W. Whitehead, “A Government of Wolves: The Emerging Police State,” SelectBooks, Inc. (2013) p. p. 124, 125

______________________________________________________________

U.S. Pres. Barack Obama celebrates auto industry “rescue” at temporarily closed Ford plant in Wayne, MI. Jan 7, 2015.

FEDERAL GOVT. LOST $9.26B ON AUTO RESCUE  

http://www.allwebsolutions.net/business/autos/federal-government-lost-9-26b-on-auto-rescue/

David Shepardson,

The Detroit News

December 30, 2014

Washington — The U.S. government lost $9.26 billion on the auto industry rescue, according to the final accounting released late Monday.

In its report, the U.S. Treasury Department said it recovered $70.43 billion of the $79.69 billion it gave to General Motors Corp., Chrysler LLC and auto lending arms Ally Financial Inc. and Chrysler Financial. The government was repaid through a combination of stock sales, partial loan repayments, dividends and interest payments.

The books are closed on the program because the Treasury, on Dec. 19, sold its final 11.4 percent stake in Ally, the Detroit-based auto lender and bank-holding company formerly known as GMAC. The bailouts began in December 2008 under President George W. Bush with $25 billion in aid to GM, Chrysler and their lending arms. President Barack Obama added about $55 billion to the total.

Protesters at Cobo Hall Sept. 7, 2014 at event where GM CEO Mary Barra spoke.

“We’ve now repaid taxpayers every dime and more of what my administration committed, and the American auto industry is on track for its strongest year since 2005,” Obama said at a press conference that day.

Under government accounting rules, the U.S. Treasury actually lost $16.56 billion on paper on the auto bailout. As tallied under those rules, taxpayers lost more because interest and dividends paid by borrowers — in this case, the automakers and finance companies — aren’t applied toward the principal owed.

A homeowner, for example, who borrows $100,000 doesn’t get credited with interest payments in paying off the mortgage. That largely explains the difference between the government’s larger accounting loss and the $9.26 billion net loss. In the case of GM and Ally, the government swapped most of what it was owed for stock in the companies. More than $7 billion recovered was in the form of dividends and interest payments.

The government recouped $19.6 billion on the $17.2 billion Ally bailout — $2.4 billion more than it invested. But it recovered just $39 billion of the $49.5 billion given to GM; and $10.67 billion of the $11.96 billion that went to Chrysler.

George W. Bush administration began the bailout.

Still, the government’s losses were far less than the Obama administration originally feared. In early 2009, it projected a loss of $44 billion — an estimate it reduced to $30 billion in December 2009.

In 2010, the Treasury proposed creating a new tax on large banks to pay for losses from the $700 billion bailout program, but Congress hasn’t agreed to approve it. It would raise $90 billion over 10 years. Then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress in May 2010 the Obama administration didn’t think “it was necessary or appropriate” to apply the tax to the automakers.

The Treasury Department declined to comment on the report Monday.

In December 2013, the Treasury sold its final shares in GM. The Treasury ended its ownership stake in Chrysler Group LLC in July 2011, incurring a $1.3 billion loss on a $12.5 billion bailout. Chrysler — part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV — returned to trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 13.

Cartoon refers to numerous deaths caused by faulty switches in GM vehicle rear-end crashes.

The Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive Research and others have argued that government losses paled in comparison to the impact that would have followed a collapse of GM and Chrysler. That could have sent much of the U.S. auto supplier sector reeling as well. A December 2013 study said failure of GM could have sacrificed 1.2 million U.S. jobs, cut personal income by $79.5 billion and eliminated $17 billion in income taxes and Social Security taxes in 2009. It could have also boosted government spending by $6.5 billion.

Others have estimated fewer job losses connected with a failure of GM and Chrysler. The biggest unknown remains if — and how long — it would have taken surviving automakers like Ford Motor Co. and other foreign firms to make up the lost production from GM and Chrysler. Ford did not take a government bailout.

Also unknown is if U.S. auto suppliers could have survived the massive disruption of a collapse of GM or Chrysler. Former auto czar Steve Rattner said that the disappearance of GM could have pushed the state of Michigan into bankruptcy. Another big cost would have been the likely assumption of GM and Chrysler’s underfunded pension plans by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., the government-owned pension insurer.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told reporters before Christmas that the overall $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program — which was used to rescue banks and a major insurance company, AIG, in addition to GM and Chrysler — will make money overall.

Lew said that in total, the government invested $426.4 billion in the bank, auto and insurance bailout package, and recovered $441.7 billion. But under government accounting rules, Treasury has had $35 billion in losses.

“At the peak, more than 700 institutions were in the TARP bank program. Today just 35 remain,” Lew said.

The industry rescue became a key part of Obama’s re-election and remains a staple of the president’s speeches.

“This program was a crucial part of the Obama administration’s effort to … protect the economy from slipping into a second Great Depression,” Lew told reporters. “This program worked.”

Driver disabled for life in defective GM car crash speaks Sept. 7, 2014.

Detroit retirees and supporters at bankruptcy protest Aug. 19, 2013.

Detroit Active and Retired Employees Association (DAREA) press conference Thurs.  Jan. 8. 2014 @ 10 A.M. Nandi’s Knowledge Café, 12511 Woodward, Highland Park; ALL ARE WELCOME!

Detroit—Detroit active and retired workers, residents, and many others, have appealed U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes’ confirmation of the bankruptcy plan of adjustment to the U.S. District Court. The appeal (Case No.  2:14−cv−14920−BAF−RSW) was accepted Dec. 30, 2014, with U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman and Magistrate Judge R. Steven Whalen presiding. (Click on Doc 8981 DAREA Notice of Receipt of Bankruptcy Appeal (1) (1).)

DAREA members include (l to r) Belinda Myers Florence, Yvonne Williams Jones, Cecily McClellan, and Bill Davis. They are shown after Mike Duggan press conference on giveaway of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department.

“Judge Steven Rhodes’ decision to impair our pensions and health benefits, and disregard the State of Michigan Constitution has forced us to appeal the confirmation of the Plan of Adjustment,” said Bill Davis, President of the Detroit Active and Retired Employees Association (DAREA). “We realize that these are uncharted waters, but we believe this decision must be challenged to prevent further attacks on us and to protect the generations to come.”

He added that the bankruptcy is an attack on a predominantly African-American workforce, and the nation’s largest Black-majority city.

DAREA was formed by rank-and-file Detroit retirees, active employees, and concerned citizens. In addition to cutbacks of city jobs, pension benefits, wages, and health care, it strips Detroit of virtually every asset, including the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, the third largest in the country.

Protesters demand that PA 436 and the bankruptcy be rescinded.

Even former Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr said at a press conference after the confirmation that the bankruptcy originated with Michigan Governor Snyder, not Detroiters, beginning in 2010.

It resulted from dictatorial, unlawful, premeditated actions by state government, under Public Act 436. The constitutionality of that act under the 14^th Amendment, which guarantees “equal protection under the law,” is currently being challenged in the court of U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh.

The figure of a 4.5 percent reduction to retirees’ pensions cited by the media is false. Retirees will be cut far more than that because their annuities are being slashed 15 percent plus 6.75 interest. DAREA estimates that pensions will be reduced from 17 percent (no annuity claw-back) to 32 percent (with claw-back), annually.   This increases to over an estimated 50 percent when you consider the elimination of  health care and prescription cost coverage..

Earlier protest at CAYMC: I EARNED MY PENSION!

The income stabilization plan for retirees over 60 whose income is less than 105 percent of the poverty level is welfare and does not address the thousands of workers and retirees under 60, who are suffering the severest cuts, having lost their health care benefits as well as jobs, wages, and huge portions of their pension checks.  Pension benefits were “earned” and should be restored as taken from all active and retired employees.

DAREA spokespersons and numerous retirees and city workers will be available to answer questions at the conference.

ALL SUPPORTERS ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND!!

DETROIT ACTIVE AND RETIRED EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION (DAREA)

P.O. Box 3724  Highland Park, MI  48203

313-649-7018

Detroit2700plus@gmail.com

SIGN PETITION, DONATE FOR LAWSUIT EXPENSE, COME TO WEEKLY MEETINGS MONDAYS 11 AM.

DAREA is very active and rapidly growing, with working committees on legal affairs, fund-raising, communications, and others. Members have begun a petition to the U.S. Justice Department which reads as follows:

PETITION:

The Detroit Active and Retired Employees Association implore the U.S. Justice Dept, as soon as possible, to halt any and all pending alterations to retirement plans and to halt further transfers of wealth from the City of Detroit until an Open Civil Investigation has been conducted. Our civil liberties were violated by the State because the Michigan Constitution is contractually obligated to protect pensions. We request an independent, neutral voice of authority to sustain civil liberties versus restraining domination, and to ensure that the actions of the bankruptcy were legal, boundaries were not overstepped, and that rules and laws were followed to the letter and not by whimsical interpretations.

Sign the petition to Joyce R. Branda, Civil Division, U.S. Justice Department, Assistant Attorney, by clicking on:
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/selective-enforcement?source=s.icn.em.mt&r_by=9645222.

FUNDRAISING:

DAREA says in its Call to Action, “We need your financial support, because the appeal process is very costly. We must be able to go the distance and it will take hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not to fight this judgment will allow this ultra conservative movement to set both workers and civil rights back and we cannot sit back and let that be a part of our legacy! . . . If we can get a minimum of 2,000 retirees to donate $200 we would raise $400,000 to put this plan into action.”

To donate to DAREA’s LEGAL DEFENSE FUND, click on  http://www.gofundme.com/pensiondefensefund. Or checks can be made payable to the Detroit Active and Retired Employees Association (DAREA), at P.O. Box 3724, Highland Park, Michigan 48203.

WEEKLY MEETINGS

Mondays, 11 AM, at Nandi’s Knowledge Café, 12511 Woodward, Highland Park, 48203. To receive notices of meetings, updates on the appeal and events information please provide your email address and phone numbers via email at Detroit2700plus@gmail.com or call DAREA at 313-649-7018.

Read DAREA’s position statement at DAREA call.

Retirees discus appeal at Nandi’s Knowledge Café.

Homes in Virginia Park Historic District neighborhood. Photo: Wikipedia

By Joyce Moore

Dec. 18, 2014 (VOD editor–sorry, picked up story late from email.)

Joyce Moore

DETROIT — Somehow, we are putting people in office that make over $100,000.00 (One Hundred Thousand Dollars) a year to represent our best interest! We as a country give away millions to other countries. The City of Detroit: My City, Your City, Our City is clearly under attack. Demolition of beautiful structures with crown moldings, fire places that connect the living room with the dining room, beveled door casings, beveled window casings and beautiful dome ceilings is a short list of irreplaceable beauty and a list of the beauty that is lacking in new construction.

Interior of one Detroit historic home.

My neighborhood is composed of old historic two (2) family structures of which I have converted my two (2) family into a single home. In 2013-2014 I was a recipient of the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Funds – Home Repair Program. I was able under the CDBG – Home Repair Program to get a new roof, windows and a porch of which this GRANT/LOAN will be forgivable within 3 to 5 years.

The purpose of the CDBG funds is to help LOW TO MODERATE income citizens through Federal Regulation (LAWS) and HUD Guidelines. These TAX DOLLARS are very much needed to be used to help build our blocks, build our neighborhoods, build our communities and build our city in terms of removing blight as houses are being demolished as we speak.

See video below with Joyce Moore and Cynthia Johnson discussing CDBG.

Mayor Mike Duggan of the City of Detroit wants to make the CDBG – Home Repair Program for LOW TO MODERATE income citizens a LOAN/MORTGAGE Program that is not forgivable. On December 17, 2014 at 04:06 P.M., I submitted a Complaint to the United States District Court – Eastern District of Michigan against Mayor, Mike Duggan of the City of Detroit and U.S. Housing Urban Development in regard to the CDBG – Home Repair Program funds being a LOAN/MORTGAGE Program. Because I don’t have the $400.00 to officially file the Complaint, I requested an individual fee waiver.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan congratulate each other on bankruptcy approval.

I wanted to add to this Complaint “THE PEOPLE IN THE CITY OF DETROIT and THE VIRGINIA PARK COMMUNITY COALITION – DISTRICT 5”, because this is about those who need the CDBG Funds – Home Repair Program to help with the repairs to their home as a GRANT not as a LOAN/MORTGAGE. Tomorrow, Thursday, December 18, 2014, I will call Judge Terrence Berg of the Eastern District at 1-810-341-9760 and ask him to please grant the fee waiver and expedite our Complaint. Our court case number is 4:14-CV-14775. Let’s hope that Judge Berg is a fair judge.

LET ME SAY THAT MAYOR MIKE DUGGAN HAS DISREGARDED CONGRESS AND ALL OF IT’S LAWS AS THEY PERTAIN TO “LOW TO MODERATE” INCOME CITIZENS………WHAT ELECTED OFFICIAL IS GOING TO STEP UP TO THE PLATE?

Contact Joyce Moore at 1948moorej@comcast.net.

Marchers demand moratorium on foreclosures, evictions and other attacks on the people at march in downtown Detroit Aug. 28, 2012.

 “I thought they were going to shoot everyone”

 Franklins died; Long, Jr. facing life in prison

 Confrontations spreading since October, 2o14 Treasurer’s tax auction

 Organizers call for immediate moratorium on tax foreclosures

Conclusion of Alonzo Long, Jr. preliminary exam Tues. Jan. 6, 2015

By Diane Bukowski

 January 3, 2015 

Alonzo Long, Jr. told police in a statement that he did not fire first, and was defending family members as they moved from tax-foreclosed home.

DETROIT – Relatives, friends and community organizers supporting Alonzo Long, Jr., 22, including a half-dozen white high school students, along with relatives and friends of Howard Franklin, 72, and Catherine Franklin, 37, killed by Long Nov. 28, packed the court for the second part of his preliminary exam Jan. 2 in front of 36^th District Judge Ruth Carter.

Long faces two counts of first-degree (premeditated) murder in the deaths, which he told police resulted from his defense of family members moving possessions from 15114 Piedmont in Rosedale Park. He said they were confronted by the Franklins, both armed. The elder Franklin bought the home at the Wayne County Treasurer’s October tax auction; it was deeded to him Nov 10.

“My nephew would never have had the intention to kill anybody, and my sympathy goes out to their family,” a woman who said she was Long’s aunt told VOD. No other family members from either side commented to the media.

Long’s attorney, Charles Longstreet II, told the Detroit Free Press that the case “is a question of self-defense.”

Charles Longstreet II of Longstreet Law Firm, said case is one of self-defense./ Facebook photo

Similar incidents, none so far known to be fatal, have been reported across Detroit since the October tax auction. There appears to be confusion over new state laws which allow landlords to remove “squatters” themselves. The laws specify, however, that a court order must be obtained to evict foreclosed owners or their relatives and renters, who are NOT considered squatters, and provide stiff penalties for violations by new owners. They also are extremely harsh on actual “squatters,” putting penalties for “squatting” in the same category as those for “terrorism.”

The Piedmont home was owned by Willie and Margaret Fletcher, and occupied by their grandson, according to a county records and a board member of the Rosedale Park community association.

“The lady started shooting, and I thought they were going to shoot everyone,” Long said in a written statement read by Michigan State Detective Trooper Tracy Walton during the hearing. “My girl Tamika was shot.”

He said after the shootings, he took Tamika to the hospital and returned to his home, where he later voluntarily surrendered to police.

In the statement, Long denied shooting first, and denied stating, “Y’all got guns, I got one too.”

Home at 15114 Piedmont where shootings occurred Nov. 28, 2014.

He said he was sitting in a car outside, and entered the home after his uncle called for him from inside during an apparent argument. He said he did not see the younger Franklin with a gun at first on entering, but did see the elder Franklin with one, putting his hand across his chest to draw it. He said he drew his own gun from a holster and fired at him. All three individuals had concealed weapons permits.

Long’s lawyer Charles Longstreet II objected to admission of the statement because Walton was not present for the entire interrogation and because it was not inclusive of the entire two and one-half hour interview, which was videotaped.

“My client said he was not the first person to fire a shot, and he maintained that throughout the interview,” Longstreet said. “My client said Howard Franklin had a revolver, and [the police] did discover that.”

This is part of one of three new so-called “sqatters” laws sponsored by conservative State Rep. Kurt Heise (R). Although they criminalize squatting, they also protect some rights of previous owners and their relatives, as well as renters, who are not considered squatters. 

He also said that sufficient time had not elapsed between the date of the new deed, Nov. 10, and the incident on Nov. 28, for a legal eviction to be carried out. Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor Daniel Williams countered that the occupants were “voluntarily” evicting themselves.

Detroit police officer Scott Holbrook, who said he had been on the force for a year, testified that he and his partner were called to the home by an employee of Catherine Franklin. He said they found “a lady on the porch not breathing,” and a “man on a pile of clothes not breathing.”

He said Howard Franklin had a .38 Special Ruger revolver. He said it had not been fired, since he emptied the gun of five unspent rounds before putting it into evidence. He said the gun was in Franklin’s left side shirt pocket, with the handle protruding. On cross, he said the gun would have to have been taken out of the pocket with Franklin’s right hand, causing his arm to cross his chest.

He said he did not examine the woman on the porch. An employee of Catherine Franklin’s testified earlier that she had a gun in her hand when she fell out the front door, mortally wounded. No forensic evidence has been presented.

Judge Carter said she would review a two and one-half hour video of the Long interrogation in camera before resumption of the exam and disposition of the case Tues. Jan. 6 at 1 p.m.

After the exam, Mike Shane of the Moratorium NOW Coalition Against Foreclosures, Evictions, and Shut-offs said they and other groups are instituting a city-wide campaign for an immediate moratorium on all tax foreclosures, due in part to the increasingly volatile situation they represent. He said in particular occupied properties should not be sold, and called for the charges against Long to be dismissed.

Newly installed Wayne County Executive Warren Evans previously called such a moratorium on mortgage foreclosures during his tenure as Wayne County Sheriff.

Mike Shane at rally against Detroit banks in 2013.

“This [type of incident] can happen again,” Shane said. “Clearly county and city officials are running roughshod over the neighborhoods pushing these foreclosures through. There are at least 20 different kinds of irregularities that we’ve found in the foreclosures. Housing is a human right. We don’t need to be increasing Detroit’s homeless population. People are paying too much on property taxes anyway. The county and the city are not emphasizing proper eviction procedures to the people, and Police Chief James Craig is telling everyone to get armed to defend themselves. They’re sending mixed messages.”

He said the Coalition is approaching 20 community organizations this week to get support for a moratorium.

Along with the 15114 Piedmont home, community organizer Agnes Hitchcock said at least 16 others nearby on Piedmont have large past due tax bills, with one foreclosure, one owing for four years, three for three years, and two for two years. All are subject to foreclosure.

Confrontations between new owners and occupants are taking place with increasing regularity.

Ardmore home where winning bidder Tracey Moore illegally removed everything in the owner-occupied house without court order.

One woman told VOD that the home on Ardmore which her husband’s grandmother Faustine Hawkins has occupied since at least 1988 was evidently sold at the October auction. However, Ms. Hawkins had quit claimed the home, where her grandson Keith Dortch spent his entire life, to him in 2012, as shown in county records. Register of Deeds records for both Hawkins and Dortch show no foreclosure action taken against the property. Mrs. Dortch is temporarily in a nursing home recovering from a stroke, but the woman said she is expected to recover and return home.

However, Wayne County Probate Court Judge June E. Blackwell Hatcher granted an Adult Foster Care petition for conservatorship for Ms. Hawkins Nov. 10. AFC claimed in their petition that Ms. Hawkins has dementia, and “the adult has property that will be Wasted or dissipated unless proper management is provided.”

On Nov. 11, the treasurer deeded the house to Tracey Moore of Detroit from the October tax auction.

March 1 meeting on foreclosures, evictions and other community matters, attended by many Rosedale Park residents. At right are Abayomi Azikiwe and Dave Sole of the Moratorium Now! Coalition,

“She [Moore] got a dumpster and had everything thrown out of our home,” the woman said. “Granny is 88 had a lot of treasured properties in there. My husband got upset when he came by, and the police were called, but he wasn’t charged. We filed to take [Moore] to court, but she didn’t show up for the hearing. Now cars keep riding by our house but we’ve changed the locks and my husband has told them not to come back on the property anymore.”

The new so-called “squatter laws” actually provide for compensation to a legitimate occupant for damages three times the original value if they are illegally evicted.

Jamal Gilmer, Sereena Patterson/Photo Fox 2 News Detroit

In another case Dec. 9, covered by MyFoxDetroit’s Ronnie Dahl, Detroit police arrested Jamal Gilmer when he went to the house he had just purchased to get the previous owner, Sareena Patterson, to move out. Angry when police told him he could not order Patterson out without a court order, since she had a deed and was not a squatter, he told the police he didn’t need them and approached the house himself.

Patterson told Fox 2, “When you go from ‘We’re going to work out a deal, I don’t want the house’ to all of a sudden I need to get out, well then you’re going to have to go file the papers, so I can get out.”

West Outer Drive home bought by 25-year-old winning bidder.

Gilmer bemoaned his fate, saying “I had to spend a night in jail. It cost me another $100 to bail myself out and it’s like my hands are tied.”

Channel 7 covered  another case Dec. 17, in which the new owner, Brittney Harden, 25, who said she paid $50,000 for the West Outer Drive home, claimed the occupants were squatters.

Fox 2 headlined the story asserting that the occupants were indeed squatters. But the so-called “squatter,” a mother of small children, told Dahl that she had rented the house for seven years from the landlord, who lost it in the foreclosure sale. Dahl reported that Harden has now gone to 36^th District Court to go through proper eviction procedures. According to Register of Deeds records, Harden herself lost her home to tax foreclosure earlier in the year.

For more information, contact the Moratorium NOW! Coalition at http://www.moratorium-mi.org/.

Related:

New state “squatters” laws at 2014-PA-0223 eviction rights landlord and tenant Heise and 2014-PA-0224 Anti-squatter and 2014-PA-0225 penalties for squatting.

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/01/01/stop-tax-evictions-drop-charges-vs-alonzo-long-jr-come-to-hearing-fri-jan-2-1-pm/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/12/19/two-dead-one-wounded-one-youth-facing-life-in-prison-for-defense-against-armed-eviction-attempt/