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Topic: The Dan Bowers story-I hate being a victim!
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Dan Bowers was an East side Flint activist and volunteer. Like many who were attracted to the east side for it's beauty, he never anticipated the influx of gang members and the sometimes wild west and cowboy mentality that prevailed in that area.

One day Dan just disappeared. I was told his health end vision problems had forced him to move . Dan had served on the Flint Area Investment Fund until he uncovered some possible corruption. Then he was removed.

Dan was a longtime Comcast volunteer until his health deteriorated.
Post Mon May 22, 2017 10:25 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Dan's story as written by Dan:

Nine years ago I moved to Broadway Street, down by the river, because it was secluded between I-475 and the Flint River. I liked the river best.

Two weeks later I was assaulted by five men, about 10 blocks from my new home. One robbed me with a knife. I didn't have a problem with giving them my last eighteen dollars, but four of them had tire irons. They used them to break my skull in four pieces and push my upper teeth back so far I couldn't chew again until over a year later, when the doctors rebroke my maxilla and wired my jaws together for six weeks.

It took hundreds of stitches to sew all the flaps of skin on my forehead and the back of my head. My top lip was hanging down below my chin like a thick piece of rope, so they had to stitch inside my mouth too.
Post Mon May 22, 2017 10:38 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

They put the stitches in without any pain relief, not even local anesthesia, because I had so much head injury. As I lay there wishing I could pass out (actually I was trying to) I was thinking how glad I was they hadn't chipped my teeth or put out my eyes.

I begged the doctor to be honest with me, "Do you think I'm going to make it" and he said "o be honest with you, I'm worried you might not". I think the adrenaline from that helped.

It's good that Flint has such good hospitals.
Post Mon May 22, 2017 10:44 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

I told the police where the guys lived, because it happened in front of their rsidence, and they called each other by name as they robbed me.

The police told me that because there was five of them and only one of me, the could make up a story, like maybe I tried to rob them, and I could end up in jail.

It took a year to gt my teeth fixed, because Dr. Siegal looked at my crooked teeth and said they had always been crooked like that.

If he had set my maxilla then, I wouldn't have had to wait a year for it to heal, so it could be rebroken (that hurt more than the first time) and my jaws wired together.

He actually said to me "Your teeth have always been crooked like tht and I'm not going to be a part of defrauding your insurance and straigten them."


I hate being the victim.
Post Mon May 22, 2017 10:52 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

One night about eight years ago, behind my house, the police were out there where I park my car. After a few minutes, I went out on my steps to look. When one of the officers saw me he came over and I asked what was going on. I had stayed close to my house because I knew who he was talking to, and I knew he was a breaking and entering artist, and the last thing I wanted him to know was where I lived.

The officer told me that this guy's car had been stolen and it had been left in the street behind my house. The officer asked me for identification, and as I gave it to him, I explained to him that I would rather not be identified to the man on the street because i was afraid of him and I didn't want him to know where I lived.

The officer took my driver's license and went across the street, handing it to this person and pointing at me.

Some people just don't understand the kind of danger we actually live in, in my neighborhood-the police officer i mean.

Fortunately, this time I wasn't a victim.
Post Mon May 22, 2017 11:07 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

About seven years ago, I had trouble with a woman stalking me.

The police thought this was real funny, so I appealed to a woman officer thinking she would be more sensitive about it.
To be polite, I'll just say she wasn't.
Because of this, things escalated until one night when the woman stalking me brought over two of he male friends. I have aCB antenna on my roof and enjoyed talking on the CB, a habit I picked up while recovering from being assaulted. It gets pretty boring when you can't get off the couch for several months.

Well, these guys went up on my roof to rip my antenna down, and I called the police agin. I say again because she had been there four hours earlier , kicking in my side door . When the police came they said it was a domestic dispute.
Post Mon May 22, 2017 11:17 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

This time the police didn't want to come. I called twice in about ten minutes. I was mad but i didn't know what to do. After i thought about it for a minute, I called the front desk at the police station. While I was explaining to this (lady) police officer that the woman, who had been stalking me, was back at my home and i couldn't get any help, someone started kicking in my back door. (Two new steel doors kicked in on the same day-OUCH)
I must commend this lady officer. I wish I knew her name. As soon as she heard them kicking my door in, she had a car there in minutes. When the officers arrived, they ordered the two men off my roof. They then told the woman and two men to leave immediately. I said I wanted them arrested-but the police told me to "Shut up and go in the house". (A quote)
Two broken doors -a victim again, but i have been done worse...
Post Mon May 22, 2017 11:34 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

About six years ago things started happening, like our cars in the neighborhood were broken in a lot. Stolen cars started showing up on the block, abandoned every couple of weeks, graffiti started showing up on the signs, buildings caught on fire on the block, and car windows were being shot out. Everyone in the neighborhood knew who was doing it.

It was around then "a professional tattoo artist" moved in next door and put his shingle out front. He had a pit bull that he would tie outside the apartment building about four feet from my bedroom window. He lived on the second floor in the apartment farthest from where he tie up the dog, so he couldn't hear it very well.

After a couple of months, I reluctantly called the police. If they came, they would just drive by, but usually they told me "If it isn't n emergency, don't call 911".
Post Mon May 22, 2017 11:51 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

When it started getting cold outside, the dog stared barking more and more. It surprised me that the other tenants didn't complain to the landlord, but the would tell me about it.

After not getting any sleep for a couple of weeks, I was at my wits end. As i lay in bed listening to him bark one morning I decided to join him, so I barked back. "When in Rome"... After about ten minutes "Inkslinger", (as he was called) came out just livid. He started screaming that I better stop barking at his dog or he was going to kill me. Yes, he really said that,

He was just like the police. He thought that he should have rights that I don't have.

The final chapter to "Inkslinger's" dog was that he got loose one day and ws hit by a car and killed . May he rest in peace. At least i hope it's peaceful because he was buried on my property, just below my bedroom window.
Post Mon May 22, 2017 12:07 pm 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

This was also the year I came home from work one day to find everything of value in my home gone-two TV's, four VCR's, all my tools, video camera, cash- the house was ransacked. The thief took his sweet time. I think he knew I was at work.
I hate being a victim.

It was about this time my gas tank was "sugared"- I had to walk or ride a bicycle for almost a year to get around.

It was also about this time that a guy drove around the block so fast, he lost control of his car and ended up driving on the lawns between sidewalks and houses. Racing around the block twice, I'd had enough. When I called 911, you could still her him going around the block like he was on a race track, as i was on the phone. I was told they couldn't do anything unless I had his license number. So I went down the street and got it.
Post Mon May 22, 2017 6:28 pm 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

UNfortunately, he saw me looking at his car from across the street. So while I was on the phone he came down to the house and started assaulting my brother who lived with me at he time. My brother, Steve, has a black belt and is not afraid to fight. But I didn't want him to his not afraid o fight. But I didn't want him to hurt this guy because in my neighborhood, victims have no rights, and I was afraid he might end up in jail.

You see, I prefer to be a pacifist, but I'm not afraid to fight either.

(I was a practicing pacifist until I met the five guys with tire irons and then I was taught a hard lesson-why pacifist ends with "fist".)

I sent my brother into the house and sat on the top step of my porch, with my back against the screen door, to keep these two apart.
Post Mon May 22, 2017 6:38 pm 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Sitting there with my police scanner listening for the call, I ordered him to leave or I would have him arrested for trespassing. His response to this was to pull out a large knife and stick it in my throat.

While I'm there trying to keep these two apart (with a knife to my throat) my brother and his wife are trying to get the police to send a car. After twenty minutes and several calls to 911, the operator would just pick up the phone and hang it up instead of answering it.

About forty minutes later, the police finally came, saw the guy with with a knife in my neck. The guy turned and saw the police, folded up his knife, put it in his pocket, dropped the beer he had in his other hand and just walked down the sidewalk.
Post Mon May 22, 2017 6:50 pm 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

The officers didn't even get out of their car. They rolled down the window about four inches and asked "What could the do for me"? (It was real obvious they had no intention of doing anything, and were irritated to be bothered oer something so trivial)

I told them what had happened and they said, "well, what do you want us to do about it?" I told them if nothing else I wanted him arrested for trespassing. They told me they could do that only if they told him to leave and he refused. So I said what about the fact he's carrying a concealed weapon. They said they would check it out and drove on down the street. I didn't see them again.

See I'm learning how not to be the victim. I didn't fight back.
Post Mon May 22, 2017 6:58 pm 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

This person came back a little while later and said he was going to get me. The next day he stood across the street and shot out my front windows with slingshot as I watched from inside. Nothing was ever done about ny of it.

Five years ago the apartment building down the street began getting tagged by "Crazy Ray" and others. You see tagging is how gangs mark their turf- like a cat spraying around to keep other cats away.

The problem with this is when rival gangs see this graffiti, they paint their own signs on top of it to "disrespect" each other, which often escalates into open hostility and eventually even death.

The writing was on the wall for several months, layer after layer of threats, until someone set fire to the building. It didn't stop there, because the building next door was burned down a few months later. Then the next building went up in flames, and then the one behind it. If you are tired of being a landlord and you want to collect the insurance on your building, just rent it to a gang member-soon it will be gone.
Post Mon May 22, 2017 7:20 pm 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Altogether, we lost over twenty apartments that year on Broadway Street, down by the river. Well we didn't lose them right away because they sat there, boarded up, for five years.

And for five years we had a parade of homeless people, cats, drug dealers, gang activities, and fires every few months. Finally this spring the biggest of the buildings caught on fire for the last time. A gas main broke during the fire and finished it off. For weeks after that, we had cats and kittens wandering all over the neighborhood- lots of cats and kittens.

For the second time, I came home to find my house ransacked again and everything that my insurance had replaced was gone. It seemed really strange to me that someone came into my house, loaded up a truckload of stuff, and even though there are six apartments next door, no one saw anything. It must have seemed strange to the police too, because the State Police came around investigating the robbery. They were questioning my neighbors for evidence that I was committing insurance fraud. Of course they never found the thief.

I hate being the victim... Especially when I get blamed for it.
Post Mon May 22, 2017 7:36 pm 
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