Michigan struggles in brief

Report covers up FBI killing of imam

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox issued a report Sept. 30 on the killing of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah. This African-American Muslim and community leader was shot at least 20 times by FBI agents on Oct. 28, 2009, at a Dearborn, Mich., warehouse where he had been lured by informants under false pretenses.

When the imam arrived to purportedly unload goods from transport trucks, which in actuality had been supplied by the FBI, he was attacked by a police dog and shot to death by several agents. The report issued by Cox upholds the actions and position of the federal government.

The report begins with unsubstantiated allegations taken directly from the U.S. District Attorney’s office in a 44-page criminal complaint issued at the time of Imam Abdullah’s killing. Cox states that “FBI agents’ use of deadly force in this matter was legally justified.”

In a report issued by the Dearborn Police Department on Oct. 1, new details reveal that the killing of the imam was a counterterrorism operation. To assist Detroit agents, the FBI brought in more than a dozen agents from an elite squad in Quantico, Va., known as HRT — Hostage Rescue Team. (Detroit Free Press, Oct.1)

According to the Free Press, “Three of the four agents who shot at Abdullah were with HRT. The team is known for dealing with hostage or counterterrorism situations.”

In addition to 66 federal agents being involved in the operation, there was also the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Wayne County Sheriff’s Department, Detroit Police and Dearborn Police.

Various organizations have rejected the attorney general’s report as relying almost exclusively on information provided by the FBI and government informants. The Council on American-Islamic Relations of Michigan has criticized the report as being one-sided.

A press statement issued by the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality on Oct. 1 said, “We believe that the 22-shot barrage that brought an end to the life of Imam Luqman, and which resulted in at least 10 men awaiting trial on minor criminal charges, represents a misuse of federal, state and local ... resources.” (Detroit News, Oct. 1)

Hearing on Detroit fires, energy giant

A hearing called by the Michigan Public Service Commission on Sept. 29 in Detroit provided few answers to the internal operations of DTE Energy with regard to complaints that the corporation failed to respond to requests for repair of faulty equipment that subsequently contributed to setting 85 fires in the city on Sept. 7.

Public comment was heard by Daniel Nickerson, an administrative law judge for the MPSC. A representative of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shut-offs addressed the hearing and cited newspaper quotes of neighborhood residents who said they had called in requests to repair equipment for several days prior to the fires.

Nickerson acted as if he were unaware of such claims, even though all of these accounts were published in both Detroit dailies, the News and Free Press. Nickerson then said that the only purpose of the hearing was to gather information from those affected by the fires.

DTE Energy is a monopoly in southeastern Michigan. The company has publicly admitted it disconnects both electrical and heating services for more than 150,000 households per year. Over the last 15 months there have been media reports that at least a dozen people have died after their utility services were terminated.

The Rev. Ed Rowe, pastor of Central United Methodist Church in downtown Detroit, told the MPSC, “We need a moratorium on utility shutoffs.” Rowe also told the commission that the utilities should not be owned by a private corporation.

DTE Energy, which claims to have more than $20 billion in assets, has failed to reinvest its profits into providing maintenance and upgrading its equipment. The corporation has blamed illegal utility hookups for the fires and deaths.

Detroit firefighters have had their ranks trimmed down to 500 personnel. Budget cuts due to massive debt-service payments to the financial institutions are hampering the ability of the city government to respond to emergencies. The Moratorium NOW! Coalition has distributed leaflets and held rallies, mass meetings and demonstrations demanding that the city administration declare a suspension of debt payments to the banks.

Household income drops 21 percent

The rate of poverty has increased tremendously among all sectors of the working class according to recently released U.S. Census data regarding income and household assets. Poverty rate increases have been most substantial, however, among women, African Americans and Latinos/as.

Michigan has experienced the largest drop in household income of any other state in the U.S. Census data made public on Sept. 29 reveal the state’s median household income fell by more than $12,000 over the last decade, or the equivalent of cutting $1,000 from a family’s monthly budget.

According to the Detroit News, “The drop was stunning in both its size and its singularity: No other state came close to losing the estimated 21.3 percent of its median income between 2000 and 2009, and no state endured the 6.5 percent drop seen from 2008 to 2009.”

In Detroit, with a population over 80 percent African-American, one-third of the city’s residents lived in poverty in 2009. (Detroit News, Sept. 29)

For residents of Detroit, the median income declined by 31.3 percent over the last decade. The city ranks fourth among all municipalities in the U.S. most adversely affected by the capitalist economic crisis.