Salon.com > Detroit

Eighth grade child shoots self dead at school

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 16:16:00 +0000

According to breaking reports, an eight grade boy in Detroit brought a gun to school and used it to commit suicide. Via ClickOn Detroit:

An eighth-grade student at Davidson Middle School in Southgate committed suicide in the building Thursday morning.

The school was put on lock down and parents were asked to come pick up their students at about 9:15 a.m. School will remain closed Friday.

HuffPo Detroit reported that "the student died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, reportedly in a bathroom, at the Southgate school early Thursday morning" and had reportedly left a note.

Jury convicts ex-Detroit mayor of corruption

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 15:04:00 +0000

DETROIT (AP) — Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was convicted Monday of corruption charges, ensuring a return to prison for a man once among the nation's youngest big-city leaders.

Jurors convicted Kilpatrick of a raft of crimes, including a racketeering conspiracy charge. He was portrayed during a five-month trial as an unscrupulous politician who took bribes, rigged contracts and lived far beyond his means while in office until fall 2008.

Prosecutors said Kilpatrick ran a "private profit machine" out of Detroit's City Hall. The government presented evidence to show he got a share of the spoils after ensuring that Ferguson's excavating company was awarded millions in work from the water department.

Business owners said they were forced to hire Ferguson as a subcontractor or risk losing city contracts. Separately, fundraiser Emma Bell said she gave Kilpatrick more than $200,000 as his personal cut of political donations, pulling cash from her bra during private meetings. A high-ranking aide, Derrick Miller, told jurors that he often was the middle man, passing bribes from others.

Internal Revenue Service agents said Kilpatrick spent $840,000 beyond his mayoral salary.

Detroit: A city in foreclosure

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 21:06:00 +0000

A BOAT LIES on its side in an empty lot. Abandoned in a neighborhood miles from the water, a neighborhood where no one can afford boats, let alone the truck and the trailer that would haul the boat there. But there lies the boat. Now multiply that boat by fifty or even a hundred, tossed over the years in lots all over the city. It isn’t a metaphor. They come from the suburbs, dumped in Detroit because that seems to be the easiest and cheapest way to dispose of such a thing. They dump other things too, none of it legal, and it all becomes a part of a neighborhood.

There are other stories that are harder to see. An empty, boarded-up house might represent someone who has moved on, a symbol of the abandonment this city has seen as thousands of people have, over time, moved out beyond the city limits.

But that emptiness might indicate another history.

Weird news: Fast-food robbery suspect returns to restaurant, gets caught

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 22:54:00 +0000

PONTIAC, Mich. — Officials say a suspected robber of a suburban Detroit restaurant who apparently returned months later to get some food is under arrest after being recognized by employees.

The Oakland County sheriff's department says workers at a McDonald's in Pontiac spotted the 40-year-old man Saturday in the drive-thru.

Sheriff's deputies responded and took the Pontiac man into custody. He was being held at the Oakland County Jail pending charges.

The robbery happened Oct. 5.

Akin slams bailout, asks for bailout

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 21:03:00 +0000

In an email to supporters today, outgoing Rep. Todd "legitimate rape" Akin, R.-Mo., had some unkind words for moochers in Michigan:

The so-called “leadership” of cash-strapped Detroit has a message for President Obama: We voted for you, so bail us out.

It’s sad, but true. In fact, just this past week Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson was quoted as saying: “Our people in an overwhelming way supported the re-election of this president and there ought to be a quid pro quo and you ought to exercise leadership on that. Of course, not just that, but why not?"

He then quotes Ronald Reagan on how dependency leads to dictatorship and then monarchy. And if you make it to the end of the email Akin has just one more thing to add:

P.S. – We still have a little ground to make up on our campaign debt retirement. I would be incredibly appreciative if you could click here to donate $5 or more today.

Mitt “doesn’t get” the auto bailout

Sat, 27 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000

In 2009, Virg Bernero earned the nickname “America’s Angriest Mayor” after a series of quarrelsome debates about the auto bailout with free-market absolutists on Fox News.

The mayor of Lansing, Mich., where General Motors opened two new auto plants during the 2000s, Bernero startled Lego-haired Fox anchorman Gregg Jarrett with a rant questioning why the United Auto Workers -- including Bernero’s father, an octogenarian GM retiree -- were asked to sacrifice wages and benefits while Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers received billions in TARP money.

“I gotta say, in all honesty, I was a little offended by your question, ‘Have the unions given up enough? Has the working man given up enough?’” Bernero shouted, before Jarrett even asked him a question. “My question is, ‘Has Wall Street given up enough, for the billions they have taken?’ I gotta tell ya, I am sick and tired of the double standard: one standard for Washington and Wall Street, another standard for the working people in this country. It always comes down to, in order to be more competitive, we gotta take it out of the hide of the working person.”

Detroit’s former mayor faces corruption trial

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 16:10:00 +0000

DETROIT (AP) — After a last-ditch effort to move the case out of Detroit failed, former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is returning to court for the start of a corruption trial that will last months and could land him in prison for more than 10 years.

Kilpatrick, who was forced out of office in a different scandal in 2008, is accused of collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, kickbacks and other favors. His father, Bernard, is a co-defendant in yet another sordid turn for what once was one of Detroit's most powerful political families.

The 100-page indictment describes Kwame Kilpatrick muscling contractors, rewarding pals and repeatedly reaping illegal benefits — cash, travel, golf, even yoga — while running an ailing city that struggled more than most during the economic downturn.

Opening statements are set for Friday after U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds rejected a request by defense lawyers to move the trial to another city.

"What is extraordinary here is just the volume of evidence, the breadth of the indictment," said David Steingold, a defense attorney not involved in the case. "I can't speak to it, but it looks as though they're just trying to overwhelm Mr. Kilpatrick. They're trying to throw so much mud at him."

“Detropia”: Can Detroit be saved?

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 17:45:00 +0000

If the vague, sweeping rhetoric at both major political conventions mainly concerned economic issues, from jobs to mortgages to the Republicans' witch-doctor insistence that cutting taxes on the super-rich will somehow benefit the rest of us, hardly anyone in either party mentioned the fiscal plight of America’s cities. There’s a good reason for that: The outlook is dire and getting worse. Two California cities (Stockton and San Bernardino) are already in bankruptcy and numerous other municipalities across the country are no longer able to meet debt obligations or provide basic services. In all probability, we’re entering an era when many cash-starved cities will require outside intervention. As filmmaker Heidi Ewing, co-director of the remarkable documentary “Detropia,” puts it, “That’s going to be the next bailout.”

Films in Progress: Detropia

Tue, 29 May 2012 15:30:00 +0000

No city has experienced the highs and lows of capitalism like Detroit. So what does it mean to the country when the most epic of epicenters of American industrial might falls to its knees? And can it rise again? "Detropia" is a haunting portrait of a city on the brink of collapse, told by a chorus of weary but optimistic citizens who have no plans to join the hundreds of thousands who have already defected for easier corners of the country. "Detropia," which won the editing award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, will make its way into movie theaters this fall … with your help. Dissatisfied with the limitations of traditional distributors, award-winning filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady have launched their first-ever Kickstarter campaign to raise distribution funds to take the film far and wide in the fall.

More about the film

Detroit’s story has encapsulated the iconic narrative of America over the last century — the Great Migration of African-Americans escaping Jim Crow, the rise of manufacturing and the middle class, the love affair with automobiles, the flowering of the American dream, and now the collapse of the economy and the fading American mythos.