Detroit Slumlord Michael Kelly Continues to Profit

The city of Detroit, my hometown, can be akin to the Wild Wild West when it comes to basic things such as the buying, selling, renting, and maintaining of property. Local ordinances and state laws tend to be biased towards landlords and/or the wealthy. 

Because Detroit is physically a huge place, six times larger than Manhattan, twice as large as Brooklyn, and about one and half times the size of Boston, the relevant regulators lack the time or resources (or often the interest) to catch enough bad actors to enforce compliance. 

As drivers know, the mere knowledge that police whom you see and don't see are occasionally watching you can "convince" you to travel at or around the posted speed limits. But if people knew that police generally weren't watching or could only give $5 tickets when they caught someone doing 95mph, then more and more people would speed.

Many Black Detroit homeowners are caught in a vicious cycle. They weren't earning a lot thanks to job market discrimination. Banks also discriminated against Blacks by trapping them into mortgages with higher interest and fees than their credit scores justified. This left them with less money available to repair their homes or ride out job loss or medical emergencies. Making matters worse the City of Detroit maintained very high property taxes to try to make up for white flight and increasingly black flight. When downturns occurred many Detroiters ended up losing their homes and had to become renters.  Many then became tenants of people like Michael Kelly.

Darlene Spells let out an exaggerated sigh as her son Corey peeled away the black tarp lining the front wall of the living room. Behind the plastic, where one would typically expect some sort of plaster sheeting, thin slats of wood lay stacked like rotting Lincoln Logs.

"Corey, show the bathroom too!" Spells directed from her bed in the room next door. Upstairs, more slats of wood peeked out below the shower head. The real damage, however, was only really understood when standing in the downstairs kitchen, where a yellow stain metastasized across the wood-fiber ceiling. The leak had been going on for years, she said.

Woman Bites Other Woman's Face and Ear in Sexual Assault

No means no, right? That is a ubiquitous and correct message that everyone should hear and understand today. You can ask whoever for whatever but if he or she declines your generous offer then that's it. Move on to someone else. Unfortunately one Allison Weaver, a South East Michigan woman, appears not to have taken that common cultural message to heart. It is important to understand that no means no. It is also important to remember that contrary to some other ubiquitous messaging, not all of the violent sex criminals out there are men.

The Oakland County Sheriff was called to the Lake Village Apartments on Norfolk in Rochester Hills around 1:30 Tuesday morning. A neighbor on the first floor reported hearing someone moaning and calling for help. When deputies arrived, they also heard someone calling for help and entered the upstairs apartment. That's where they said they found two partially naked women in a bedroom, covered in blood.

Deputies say one of the woman had numerous bite marks on her face and other facial injuries, and that part of her left ear was bitten off. The other woman, now identified as Weaver, was hovering over the victim and that they were lying on the floor, deputies said. The victim, a 48-year-old woman of Rochester Hills, was taken to the hospital for treatment.

Michigan Prosecutor Sleeps with Rape Victim

You would imagine that most prosecutors of sex crimes would be focused on making sure that justice was done and that the perpetrator of the crime was justly punished. 

You would imagine that a prosecutor would not have to be told that his or her job is to put away the bad guys (gals) and not, repeat not, to get nookie from the victim of the crime. You would imagine that. But for at least one prosecutor in Michigan you would be wrong. 

LANSING — Michigan State Police have launched a criminal investigation into an assistant attorney general who has been accused of having an inappropriate, intimate relationship with the victim in a rape case he was prosecuting. Brian Kolodziej, who was hired in September 2018 under former Attorney General Bill Schuette, was put on administrative leave and subsequently resigned last week after the relationship came to light, said Attorney General Dana Nessel.

“To say I’m horrified and disgusted is really an understatement,” she said. “In over 25 years of practice, I have never before even heard of a situation like this.” Nessel wouldn’t provide details of the situation because it’s still under investigation, but noted that she learned of it after a complaint was filed with State Police. All of the cases handled by Kolodziej will be reviewed by the Attorney General’s Office to make sure defendants received due process.

Michigan Apples

One good thing about living in Michigan is that you get first dibs on a pretty amazing variety of apples every fall. Now it won't officially be fall for another ten days or so but football has started, leaves have begun to turn color, and apple orchards are starting to toot their horns about what they have to offer. Probably in a few weeks when the temperature has fallen to what I consider real fall weather and more of the harvest has become available I will go to an apple orchard near me. I am sure the ones listed in this story are nice.

But in Michigan it's hard to drive twenty minutes without running into an apple orchard somewhere. Maybe next year I will try some a bit farther afield. Of course apple orchards offer more than apples. They have cakes, pies, candy, syrup, donuts, fritters, and all sorts of other goodies that are derived in part or in whole from apples.

Area orchards and cider mills have opened for the season, offering treats such as apple cider, donuts, pies and fresh apples.
The Michigan Apple harvest 2019 crop estimate is 25.25 million bushels (1.06 billion pounds), according to the USApple Outlook meeting held recently in Chicago.
This year's crop estimate is in line with the average harvest, which is about 25.2 million bushels per year.

Detroit Public School Chess Prodigy Charisse Woods

I have always enjoyed playing chess. I wish I were better at it. One person who is better at it than I and likely to improve more in the future is  Charisse Woods, a ninth grader at Detroit's Cass Technical High School. 

Woods is leaving for Mumbai, India to compete in the World Youth Chess Championship. In other words..she's a really good chess player. She will be the only chess player from Michigan representing Team USA.

Charisse Woods is getting ready to head to Mumbai, India to compete in the World Youth Chess Championship. The ninth-grader at Cass Technical High School first learned to play chess when she was just 7 years old. She says she loves how the game keeps you thinking.

"There's like trillions of different positions," Woods said. "The game is so dynamic. It changes so often. I love the challenge, getting to travel and meeting new people."

Michigan White Woman Calls Police On Black Man For Reckless Eyeballing

American Black men who are present where white people think they shouldn't be are in danger of either being assaulted (if the white person in question happens to be male and/or larger than you) or of being arrested by the police (if the white person in question happens to be female and/or smaller than you).

This was often called "reckless eyeballing" after the southern habit of arresting black men accused of looking at a white woman. Looking a white woman in the eyes, or with with what she thought was sexual interest, or just making her uncomfortable could and did lead to arrest, assaults, beatings, lynchings, murders and pogroms.  

Matt Ingram was among the last convicted under this framework, in a 1951 case made notorious by civil rights activists in North Carolina. A seventeen-year-old white woman named Willa Jean Boswell testified that she was scared when her neighbor Ingram looked at her from a distance of about 65 feet. Prosecutors demanded a conviction of assault with intent to rape that was reduced to assault on a female by the judge, leading to a two-year sentence.

At the appeal in Superior Court, the judge instructed the jury that Ingram was guilty if he used “intentional threats or menace of violence such as looking at a person in a leering manner, that is, in some sort of sly or threatening or suggestive manner…he causes another to reasonably apprehend imminent danger” The all-white jury again returned a conviction, leading to a six-month sentence of labor on the roads, suspended for five years.

Cases like this were why many older Black men I know avoided even transparently consensual and utterly platonic interactions with white women. They considered it imprudent or even dangerous. But times have changed have they not? Well they have and have not. Recently not far from me, this happened:

Royal Oak police have launched an internal investigation after officers stopped and questioned a black man reportedly because a white woman said he looked at her suspiciously. 

Dumb Criminals Strike Again!

I have always been amazed and somewhat amused by criminals who do really stupid things for really small rewards. This could be a school board member who agrees to take a $200 bribe in order to steer business to a favored company and ends up serving 10 years in prison as a result. 

Or in this case I was wondering why, at a time when gasoline is not cheap, a woman would apparently decide to drive roughly 35 miles from Garden City, Michigan to Pittsfield Township, Michigan in order to attempt to snatch a purse from a 93 year old woman.

A Garden City woman has been charged with stealing a purse from a 93-year-old woman in a Pittsfield Township parking lot, according to authorities. Police said the incident happened at 4:30 p.m. Sunday in the 3000 block of Packard Road in Pittsfield Township.

Michigan Woods Come Alive With Sound

I live in a semi-rural suburban development. Emphasis on the "semi-". There are still some small patches of woods, parks, and farmland left within walking distance of my subdivision but I imagine in the next two decades or so they will all be cut down and paved over. Because progress.

So even though I'm not the biggest outdoors enthusiast it is still nice to get away sometimes and enjoy nature. For some people of course one of their important life goals is to enjoy nature and be at one with the flora and fauna of this wonderful planet. Those people would likely appreciate this story.

Afton — The oddly shaped wooden mega-sized megaphone appears ghost-like through the trees. Anne Fleming walks a little faster, drawn to the structure. “This is an amazing place,” said Fleming, 51, a spokeswoman for the Little Traverse Conservancy. “It is out in the woods away from everything and very special.” Completed and installed on a ridge on conservancy property along the Pigeon River in late May, this 10-foot-long audio device nestled among trees in northern Michigan allows the curious to listen to nature and all its splendor. The megaphone, which is just being discovered by hikers and outdoor enthusiasts, is believed to be the only of its kind in the United States. 

The huge structure is on the 400-acre Boyd B. Barnwell Family Nature Preserve where it adjoins the Andreae Nature Preserve and the Pigeon River. 

The Principal is a N******!

In the classic Mel Brooks comedy Blazing Saddles, a black man is appointed to be sheriff of a Western town. The new sheriff initially doesn't know that the state's corrupt attorney general and governor only appointed him in the hopes of making the townspeople lynch him, drive him off, or simply leave, thus allowing the corrupt public officials to buy up their land cheap and make a financial killing when the new railroad is built. 

The racist townspeople are shocked and unhappy to see that the new man in charge is a black man. Later a townswoman privately tells the sheriff that although she's impressed with the great job he's done please don't tell anyone she said that because after all she certainly doesn't want to be known as a n***** -lover.

I was reminded of that movie when I read about the controversy surrounding new Principal Zeke Ohan of Hancock Middle and High School in Michigan's UP (Upper Peninsula). Mr. Ohan is Black. The town and the UP are overwhelmingly white. Often times some whites don't think anyone is racist unless they're wearing Nazi flag underwear and screaming racial slurs at the top of their voice anytime they see a Black person. And even then there will be quite a few people who say that the person doing that is misunderstood or just having a bad day.

I think racism is more nuanced than that. I have met many whites who have no major problem with Black people, provided they are in a superior work position to the Black person. When a Black person, especially a Black man, makes more money than they do, is in a higher position than they are or has the ability and the drive to tell them what to do and make them do it, a different side of their personality emerges. I think that's what happened at Hancock. 

Hancock — Zeke Ohan wasted little time after becoming a high school principal in the Upper Peninsula in 2017. He carried out a plethora of changes that already are bearing fruit. Enrollment and test scores at Hancock middle and high schools are up. More graduates are going to college. Students and parents like the hard-charging administrator.

Flooding in South East Michigan and Metro Detroit

It is a matter of increasing frustration, annoyance and black humor to me that almost every time we get more than two or three inches of rain in SE Michigan, entire sections of our roadways and expressways become impassable for days. This really shouldn't occur in the United States of America. 

Some people, including myself at times, might snark about crappy Third World standards or problems. Well. If you spent the past sixty or seventy years under the boot of European colonialism or fighting US funded civil wars at least you have a valid reason for not having solid infrastructure that's up to snuff. The US has no such excuse. 

Michigan Gerrymandering Case

Gerrymandering is when a political party redistricts in an unfair partisan method so that its political dominance and ability to win elections is maximized while the ability of rival parties or disfavored minorities to do the same are minimized. 

Both parties do this although the Republicans have arguably taken it to new heights, or lows, depending on your point of view. Courts have been reluctant to get deeply involved in such disputes, often taking the stance that with certain egregious exceptions, redistricting is an inherently political process and not so much a legal one. 

Parties compete to win control of government precisely to draw political boundaries for their own benefit. But courts do occasionally step in and force the legislative branches to make changes. We just saw an example of this in Michigan.

Detroit — Michigan must redraw legislative and congressional districts for the 2020 election because current maps drawn by Republicans represent a political gerrymander “of historical proportions,” a three-judge federal panel ruled Thursday. The blockbuster ruling — which a legislative leader said Republicans will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court — requires Michigan to conduct special state Senate elections for certain seats next year, cutting in half the four-year terms that current lawmakers are now serving. 

The “predominate purpose” of the redistricting plan approved by the Michigan Legislature in 2011 “was to subordinate the interests of Democratic voters and entrench Republicans in power,” said the unanimous decision written by U.S. Circuit Judge Eric Clay, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton. 

Grand Rapids Police and Teens

I've written about how I am not overly fond of police. In my experience and those of many people I know, police tend to be overly aggressive with black people, particularly with black males of any age. Police actions cause fear, contempt, and hatred.

I think that police too often reflexively choose the harshest penalties when interacting with black people: racial insults, unnecessary searches, use of force, citations and tickets when a similarly situated white person gets assistance or maybe a warning, etc. All that said I've also written about how irritating I find it to have people (usually teens) walking in the middle of the street. The sidewalk is for walking. The street is for driving. I don't drive on the sidewalk and have the audacity to get upset when someone says that the action is wrong.

So before watching this video I was all set to blast the cops but afterwards I don't see what the police did wrong. The police officer could have stayed in his car and drove on, but that's similar to saying the police don't need to pull over a highway speeder who has slowed down. Most of the times they don't. But every so often they do. In and of itself that is not a crime. Unless you are ready to hold court in the street and kill or die, you won't win confrontations with police. If the police order is legal, most people will end up complying with it, willingly or not. If the police are committing a crime, then I do believe that we have the right to refuse the illegal order and defend ourselves. But that's not what the below video shows. The orders were legal. Few cops will let a citizen ignore them and walk away from a legal detention. 

Selfmade Kash Performs Self Own

You know, if you're going to be a criminal it's probably not the smartest thing to do to let everyone know that you're a criminal, brag about your criminal success, offer to teach others how to become successful criminals, and generally do everything just short of leaving a notarized confession of your crimes at the local police station to make sure the police and prosecutors know exactly who, what, when, where and why you've been doing. This kind of extravagant law breaking and taunting tends to annoy and embarrass the local police and prosecutors (especially if you didn't make sure they got their cut); they will go the extra mile to make certain that you are arrested, jailed, prosecuted and convicted. 

The most powerful and successful gangsters are usually the ones you either never heard of or who have everyone scared to say their name. The criminals who last aren't the ones on youtube or Instagram boasting about what they do. It is amazing to me that some people have such massive egos that they would rather let the entire world know of their alleged actions, even if that means they're going to be doing their thing in jail or prison. To this day no one knows who committed the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, who murdered Jimmy Hoffa, or who put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp. The people who did those things were smart enough to keep their f****g mouths shut. It remains an open question as to whether rap music causes low IQ or if people with low IQ cause rap music.

Detroit — Federal prosecutors threw shade at a Detroit rapper and self-professed god of credit card fraud Thursday by indicting the man, who fancied jewel-encrusted necklaces made out of credit cards and bragged about his alleged crimes on Instagram. Jonathan Woods, 25, who raps under the nickname “Selfmade Kash,” was charged with wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and possession of unauthorized access devices. 

Lake Michigan Waves

This is what 40 MPH winds and 15 foot waves look like. The Great Lakes are more inland seas than what most people think of when someone uses the word lake. There's a lot of natural beauty in the world if you only take time to appreciate it.

Gay University of Michigan Professor Accused of Rape

It is important to remember that no matter what we might hear from the more hysterical types in this #metoo era that immoral and criminal behavior can occur among both genders and in any sexuality.

Predation is not by any means something that only heterosexual males do to women. This latest story made me wonder if the University of Michigan might not have some explaining to do and/or even a little housecleaning. As always we should always grant every accused. male or female, gay or straight, the presumption of innocence. This particular alleged incident goes against the preferred media narrative. I have no idea if the powers that be at the University of Michigan knew of the rape allegation or all of the other sexual harassment allegations detailed in the story below. I would hate to think that people turned a blind eye to certain facts because they were eager to score a skilled performer or because they didn't want to be the ones to sound the alarm on a couple who were the poster boys for the country's acceptance of gay marriage. One minute you're on top of the world. The next minute, you're being extradited to Texas, which is not a phrase most people ever want to hear.

A jailed University of Michigan professor and his husband, accused of drugging and raping a man in 2010, won’t fight extradition on charges they face in Texas.

David Daniels, a 52-year-old opera singer, and William Scott Walters, a 36-year-old conductor and singer, both of Ann Arbor, waived their right to extradition hearings during brief appearances in Washtenaw County Trial Judge Carol Kuhnke’s courtroom Friday, Feb. 1.

Racist Detroit White Cop Humiliates Black Woman

Racism isn't just about committing genocide or hurling racial slurs in a never ending Tourette's spasm. It's also about refusing to extend the same courtesy to someone else that you would extend to a member of your own or more preferred group. It's about enforcing the law to the full extent without exceptions when it comes to THEM but being reasonable when it comes to US. Although Michigan is a great state it is also in many ways the Mississippi of the Midwest when it comes to race, though Indiana and Ohio are always in the running. One thing which my parents and other older people always stressed to me was to follow rules as best I could because usually many of the people enforcing the rules would have no mercy on me for even a minor violation. They wouldn't give me the benefit of the doubt. I learned that to be true. 

What strikes me about this story is not the fact that the officer made a legitimate traffic stop. It's that the white officer took pleasure in humiliating and insulting a black woman. Yes, regardless of race, everyone should always keep their driver's license, vehicle registration and insurance paperwork up to date and paid in full. I certainly do. But I think that in this case the officer would have found something else with which to harass the young woman.

Detroit — A Detroit police officer has been reassigned while the department investigates racially-charged comments made during a traffic stop and posted to the officer's social media this week. The alleged incident happened during a traffic stop near Joy Road and Stout Street on the city's west side Tuesday night, police said. Officer Gary Steele pulled over Ariel Moore, 23, for an expired registration on her license plate and seized her vehicle. He told Moore to exit the vehicle and that it would be towed. Moore walked about a block to her home in below freezing weather.

Michigan Republican Governor Weakens Minimum Wage/Paid Sick Leave

Apparently, many Republicans don't really believe in democracy if by democracy you mean that the people ultimately get the final say. What they do believe in though is using the process of democracy to thwart the will of the voters. Lose an election? Rewrite the laws and rules so that the incoming elected officials don't have the same power that you had when you were in office. 

Getting worried about ballot initiatives but don't want to be seen to oppose them before an election? Adopt them and then immediately gut them after the election.

Lansing — Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder on Friday signed controversial bills to weaken minimum wage and paid sick leave initiatives that had been headed toward the Nov. 6 ballot before intervention by the Republican-led Legislature.

The minimum wage law will raise Michigan’s rate from $9.25 to $12.05 per hour by 2030, instead of the $12 by 2022 proposed under the initiative. The minimum wage for tipped restaurant workers will rise to $4.58 by 2030 instead of $12 by 2024. The paid sick leave law now exempts more than 160,000 small businesses that have fewer than 50 employees each from a mandate that would have otherwise applied to every company in the state.

H1-B Visa Worker Assaults Woman on Spirit Airlines

Supposedly India is the most dangerous nation in the world for women. It's difficult to compare sexual assault statistics between the US and India because of different definitions of rape and different cultural expectations about reporting and blame. The official statistics show that there are more rapes per 100,000 in the US than in India. 
I don't know about that. I do know that one Prabhu Ramamoorthy, an Indian national, assaulted a woman on an airplane. Fortunately the woman immediately identified Ramamoorthy as the attacker.

With his wife crying in the courtroom, a Rochester Hills man was sentenced to nine years in prison Thursday for sexually assaulting a sleeping woman on an airplane, sticking his hands down her pants and penetrating her genitalia while his wife sat next to him. As prosecutors put it, Prabhu Ramamoorthy "committed one of the most brazen airplane sexual assaults ever prosecuted in this district" when he knowingly took advantage of a sleeping, intoxicated woman who could not fight back.

The 35-year-old defendant, who chose not to speak at his sentencing hearing or address the victim, will be deported to India when he gets out of prison. He will never be allowed back into the United States. U.S. District Judge Terrence Berg said that he was "concerned" that the defendant offered no expression of remorse, but that he wouldn't hold it against him, noting defendants have a right to remain silent and can't be forced into saying anything.

Cops Chase Crazy Crackheads

The obvious takeaways from this story are that (a) crack cocaine is a hell of a drug (b) drug abuse prematurely ages people something fierce and (c) despite what they sometimes claim cops are actually able to refrain from use of deadly force in stressful and dangerous situations when they want to do so. 

And who is stupid enough to light up the crack pipe in front of agitated police officers attempting to make an arrest? Crackheads are stupid enough. That's who. And I can't be the only person who finds it ironic that the other dopehead arrested is actually named Weed. This is less Thelma and Louise than Dumb and Dumber.

A 36-year-old female motorist from Eastpointe who a Macomb County Sheriff's deputy tried to pull over smoked crack cocaine and then led authorities on a car chase, officials said Thursday. The incident happened at about 2 a.m. Oct. 25 in Harrison Township, according to the sheriff's office. 

Detroit Squatters Lose A Round

Because many of my older relatives, friends, and people I know in Detroit grew up in racially defined horrible poverty and segregation with plenty of experiences with evictions and racist insults they tend to be, well shall we say, less than sympathetic to incidents where someone is ripping off a landlord. Because Detroit is relatively impoverished with spotty enforcement of criminal and civil codes around housing, health, and waste management many landlords in Detroit have indeed taken the opportunity to screw over tenants and the taxing authorities as often as they can and as hard as they can. 

If you want people to internalize such values as respect for other people's property and paying their bills on time then you need to make sure that they have an opportunity to succeed by doing things the right way. If they are shut out of all opportunity they might not have much respect for your property. It's just human nature.

The answer is not to pick one side or another and blindly cheer them on but to create and follow law that is fair both in its execution and its definition. The landlord must be forced to maintain the property and submit to routine unbiased inspections to make sure the property is up to code. The tenant must pay their rent on time and in full. The tenant must have a financial incentive not to wreck or damage the property during the rental period. Pretty simple stuff right? The tenant and landlord have entered into a contract. The state needs to enforce that contract. Both sides should give each other incentives to treat each other well. Win-win for everyone.