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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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The Fox 2 detroit story by Charlie le Duff made the new York Times
You Are Here
Riding Along With the Cops in Murdertown, U.S.A.
Eric Smith for The New York Times
Steve Howe patrols the mean streets in his Chevy cruiser.
By CHARLIE LeDUFF
Published: April 15, 2011
A sign taped to the entrance of police headquarters says it all: “Closed weekends and holidays.” Every weekday, the doors are locked at dusk.
It’s not that the cops here are scared; it’s just that they’re outmanned, outgunned and flat broke.
Flint is the birthplace of General Motors and the home of the U.A.W.’s first big strike. In case you didn’t know this, the words “Vehicle City” are spelled out on the archway spanning the Flint River.
But the name is a lie. Flint isn’t Vehicle City anymore. The Buick City complex is gone. The spark-plug plant is gone. Fisher Body is gone.
What Flint is now is one of America’s murder capitals. Last year in Flint, population 102,000, there were 66 documented murders. The murder rate here is worse than those in Newark and St. Louis and New Orleans. It’s even worse than Baghdad’s.
After the door is unlocked and I enter police headquarters, it is easy to see why. There are only six patrolmen on duty for a Saturday night. So broke is Flint that the city laid off two-thirds of its police force in the last three years. The front desk looks like a dusty museum piece.
I am assigned to ride along with Officer Steve Howe, a 20-year-veteran of the department. Caucasian. Late 50s. Medium build. Mustache. Clump of very well-kempt salt-and-pepper hair.
I sign a release form and am given a bulletproof vest.
“Isn’t that a little bit much?” I ask the sergeant on duty.
“You have to sign your life away,” he tells me.
Cops can be a suspicious, insular lot when it comes to reporters. But Howe and the others are blunt and self-effacing. “We ain’t cops anymore,” Howe says. “We’re librarians. We take reports. We don’t fight crime.”
He guides me through the yellowing jail cells upstairs that had to be closed down recently because of lack of manpower. “If you break into someone’s house, we can’t hold you,” he says with a straight face. “If you’ve got a weapon or you’ve murdered somebody, then county will take you. I don’t see any light at the end of this tunnel. Only darkness.”
We leave headquarters and head out into the night. Howe turns up the heat in his Chevy cruiser and switches on the computer.
“That’s something,” I say hopefully. “Some squad cars in Detroit don’t even have computers.”
“Hold on a sec,” he says. “Let it warm up.”
When it does, I see that there are more than 12 runs stacked up, including a kidnapping call that is more than six hours old. A home-invader call is two hours old. A “man with a gun” call is 90-minutes old.
“Sometimes, we don’t get to a call for two days,” he says. Last fall, an elderly couple called after being held up at gunpoint in their driveway. The police arrived on the scene five hours later.
Traffic tickets?
“Don’t make me laugh,” he says.
We drive 50 miles through the evening, and the city flashes by us in all its monotony. Liquor store. Gas station. Liquor store. Hi-C, 25 cents. Catfish steaks, $1.25. Regular unleaded, $3.65.
The action isn’t heavy tonight, either. Domestic disputes, mostly. A woman will not let her brother into the house, having already destroyed his furniture with a pipe and thrown his clothing into the snow. Another man has beaten his girlfriend and locked himself inside a neighbor’s house. Howe takes reports. The kidnapping call gathers dust.
We pass by an abandoned Victorian with a sign neatly spray-painted on the peeling door: “Please don’t burn.”
“Sorry, slow night,” Howe apologizes. “Last weekend we had four murders.”
Nature calls. Howe pulls into the 7-Eleven for a toilet break and a Big Gulp. As we get out of the car, I see a blue flash of light near the side of the store and the sound of gunfire. A shadow runs toward the apartment complex.
“Back in the car!” Howe barks at me.
Someone might have just become the 14th homicide victim of 2011, and winter hasn’t even broken yet.
Howe calls in: “Shots fired.” He gives the following description: A shadow wearing a hood. And in less than two minutes, the entire Flint police force on patrol swarms the area. All six of them. They find no gun and no victim. They do, however, round up a fidgety kid in a hood, but since he doesn’t have a gun, they kick him loose.
Frustrated, Howe heads back to the car and watches the kid walk away. Two more people are killed in Flint the following week.
A version of this article appeared in print on April 17, 2011, on page MM28 of the Sunday Magazine.
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Fri Apr 15, 2011 12:08 pm |
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twotap
F L I N T O I D
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| Yup thats Flint alright. |
_________________
"If you like your current healthcare you can keep it, Period"!!
Barack Hussein Obama--- multiple times. |
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Fri Apr 15, 2011 12:13 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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New York Times article about police ride along calls Flint Murdertown, U.S.A.
Published: Friday, April 15, 2011, 12:03 PM Updated: Friday, April 15, 2011, 12:11 PM
By Kris Turner | The Flint Journal The Flint Journal
FLINT, Michigan — A New York Times article published today described Flint at Murdertown, USA.
The article follows Flint police Officer Steve Howe on one of his patrols. It says:
Flint is the birthplace of General Motors and the home of the U.A.W.’s first big strike. In case you didn’t know this, the words “Vehicle City” are spelled out on the archway spanning the Flint River.
But the name is a lie. Flint isn’t Vehicle City anymore. The Buick City complex is gone. The spark-plug plant is gone. Fisher Body is gone.
What Flint is now is one of America’s murder capitals. Last year in Flint, population 102,000, there were 66 documented murders. The murder rate here is worse than those in Newark and St. Louis and New Orleans. It’s even worse than Baghdad’s.
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Fri Apr 15, 2011 12:21 pm |
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twotap
F L I N T O I D
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Napolitano  said the Mexican border is safe so perhaps a move there would be advised. Be interesting if the NYT did an actual investigative report to dispell big sis's lie but dont hold your breathe on that one. |
_________________
"If you like your current healthcare you can keep it, Period"!!
Barack Hussein Obama--- multiple times. |
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Sat Apr 16, 2011 8:58 am |
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Adam
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"Dear Friends,
Recently, the City Of Flint has been the subject of some very negative press. A freelance reporter from Detroit, with the help of a few opportunistic police officers joined forces to paint a very unfair picture of Flint’s public safety challenges. My administration was given no opportunity to participate or answer questions, and I am deeply disturbed by yet another cheap shot at the City of Flint.
Let me set the record straight. My administration has dedicated a greater percentage of available resources to public safety than ever before. More than 70% of the city’s general fund is dedicated to public safety. We are partnering with Federal, State, and County law enforcement officials and implementing innovative approaches to address the long standing public safety challenges of violent crime, gangs, drugs, and quality of life issues.
On May 3rd voters in Flint will have an opportunity for the first time ever to approve a jail millage that will provide dedicated funding to keep our city jail open. This is an identified problem and I proud that City Council members and community leaders have come together to support fixing this long-standing stumbling block. We must send a strong message to those who are breaking the laws in our community that there are consequences and repercussions for those acts of lawlessness.
Our highly skilled public safety force of more than 120 men and women remains strong, and fully prepared to keep the citizens and visitors of this community safe. Residents can be assured that there is more than handful of officers patrolling the streets of Flint. We have a force of more than 20 officers on duty prepared to answer calls in every section of this city on every shift. On each shift, officers are assigned to general and directed patrols, community policing, special operations, traffic calls and youth cases. Many individual officers do not know the full strength and power of the department. The notion that 6 officers are on duty in the City of Flint on any given shift is absurd and, quite frankly, wrong and misleading.
We also continue to work proactively through our Ceasefire and Blue Badge programs to prevent crime. We have opened a police mini-station in every ward of the city. We are now exploring opportunities and partnerships to open more mini-stations.
We continue to seek out positive opportunities for our youth in this community. The Boys and Girls Club of Greater Flint has established a second location in our newly renovated Haskell Community Center with the partnership of PAL, the Police Activities League. The center is providing mentoring and positive intervention in the lives of young people.
With all of this hard work underway, I take offense at this irresponsible media who come into our city to use our public safety challenges to advance their own sensational, fear mongering agenda. I am even more offended by the audacity of those few police officers who provided dishonest and incomplete information. The officers’ actions are disrespectful and harmful to the tax paying citizens of this community who expect their officers to have honor and to uphold their oath to protect and serve at all times. Without question, these officers are entitled to voice their own opinions. And if they no longer desire to honorably and faithfully serve this community, there is nothing compelling them to remain with us here. There are many who would love the opportunity to serve this community.
Flint has had difficult challenges with crime for over forty years, and our murder rate has been and continues to be totally unacceptable. This was no secret to these officers when they asked to be hired by our department, and certainly not news for the media.
Yes we have our challenges, like many other communities, but working together with the resources available, we are putting in place solutions. It will take a sustained effort for our community to have safer streets, new jobs, strong neighborhoods, and opportunity for all. Signs of our positive transformation are coming up. Just this week Kiplinger’s Report named Flint, Michigan one of eleven comeback cities in the USA based on the job creation forecast from Moody’s.
At this important time, we will not let a misguided few distract us from the important work that we must continue to do to create a better Flint for all of us and generations to come.
Thank you for your continued support.
Sincerely,
Dayne Walling" |
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Sat Apr 16, 2011 2:08 pm |
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Crowfeeder
F L I N T O I D
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Unless I miss my guess,the national media attention is far from over.All hell could break loose this summer. |
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Sat Apr 16, 2011 2:49 pm |
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Dave Starr
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Hey, Dane, is that why it took 2 1/2 hours to get a car to take a look at Chevrolet & Dayton the other day after over 20 shots were fired and several people called 911? Is that why it takes days to have an officer respond to a home invasion in progress call?
Jobs? Does that include the jobs at Diplomat that require degrees in chemistry and related fields? Does that include the jobs at the truck plant that will involve calling back laid off workers and no new hires?
Ministations? When are they open? I regularly drive past the one on Ballenger near Flushing and never see it open. Has the one at Hurley opened? A friend tells me she drives past the one at King & Bishop almost daily & never sees it open.
Hopefully, Mr. LeDuff or someone will keep an eye out for possible retaliation against the officers in question. I know the local media sure won't. |
_________________
I used to care, but I take a pill for that now.
Pushing buttons sure can be fun.
When a lion wants to go somewhere, he doesn’t worry about how many hyenas are in the way.
Paddle faster, I hear banjos. |
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Sat Apr 16, 2011 6:03 pm |
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FairPlay
F L I N T O I D
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| As embarrassing as this story may be to our elected officials, it's about time that our declining public safety garnered some type of mainstream attention! |
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Wed Apr 20, 2011 6:01 pm |
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Ted Jankowski
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quote:
untanglingwebs schreef:
New York Times article about police ride along calls Flint Murdertown, U.S.A.
Published: Friday, April 15, 2011, 12:03 PM Updated: Friday, April 15, 2011, 12:11 PM
By Kris Turner | The Flint Journal The Flint Journal
FLINT, Michigan — A New York Times article published today described Flint at Murdertown, USA.
The article follows Flint police Officer Steve Howe on one of his patrols. It says:
Flint is the birthplace of General Motors and the home of the U.A.W.’s first big strike. In case you didn’t know this, the words “Vehicle City” are spelled out on the archway spanning the Flint River.
But the name is a lie. Flint isn’t Vehicle City anymore. The Buick City complex is gone. The spark-plug plant is gone. Fisher Body is gone.
What Flint is now is one of America’s murder capitals. Last year in Flint, population 102,000, there were 66 documented murders. The murder rate here is worse than those in Newark and St. Louis and New Orleans. It’s even worse than Baghdad’s.
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Thanks for pointing that out.. I get so frustrated with those whining about the War when Flint is in worse shape but the nation isn't up in arms over Flint. Maybe we need a few roadside bombs to get people's attention. (Being extremely sarcastic, not meant for idiots to go out and do something that stupid) Thought I better qualify that statement. When we have a graduation rate lower than the poverty level. |
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Thu Apr 21, 2011 3:23 am |
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Ted Jankowski
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| Hey thanks for the link also. i read the article. Just as bout as good as the Flint Journal. Lacking in any real reporting. Just like that Article you mentioned before about the Judge giving the tenant 30 extra days to vandalize that apartment. Hmmm. The judge didn't do that. He only went along with the agreement that the Landlord her Attorney and the Tenant presented to the court. Amazing how well the Urinal does it's research. |
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Thu Apr 21, 2011 3:29 am |
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