May 27, 2008
RETROSPECTIVE PART FIVE OF FIVE: The Dark Days That Followed the Infamous Murders on Charleston Avenue
Editor’s Note: As the anniversary of the killing of four teens --- Donte, Megan, Michael, and Eddrick --- reaches the third year, the crime remains open but unsolved. Their killings launched a community-wide demand that drug dealers and drug users hanging out on city streets and abandoned houses be curtailed. As a retrospective, HNN will run on a daily basis a series of stories --- as originally published --- regarding the blackest days in the annals of the city’s criminal history. A $50,000 reward remains uncollected for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible.
Originally Published May 30, 2005
CONFLICT RESOLUTION WITH GUNFIRE, HIP HOP CULTURE, POVERTY BLAMED BY DETROIT OFFICIALS FOR DRUG AND GUN VIOLENCE; 800 MURDERED DURING EIGHT MONTHS OF 2004!
By Tony Rutherford
HNN Writer
Termed the “Detroit Connection,” Huntington police officials have attributed most of our city’s drug problems to Michigan out-of-towners.
Yet, these two cities separated by hundreds of miles of interstate highway have commonalities stemming from drug trafficking and turmoil and/or layoffs in the police departments.
The Detroit News published in August 2004 an in-depth analysis of that year’s shootings. During those eight months, 800 + people had been gunned down. One 49-year-old Detroit resident complained that “I have gone to more funerals than graduations.”
During one particularly bloody week in February 2004, two police officers were gunned down during a traffic stop, a pizza delivery man was killed and an armored car guard was murdered. From Jan. 23-Jan 28, 2004, 18 people were slain, according to reporters Ronald Hansen and Darci McConnell.
Detroit’s Mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, has incentive to shut down the shootings before this summer’s baseball All Star Game and the 2006 Super Bowl. Although Kilpatrick met with 50 local pastors “in an attempt to get residents involved in reporting crimes and to fight against social ills, such as mental health and economic struggles,” law enforcement officials told Reporters Hansen and McConnell to not expect “easy fixes” for shootings fueled by “easy access to guns and drugs.”
While an analysis of Detroit crime stats from January to July 2004 showed 26% of murders were directly drug related, criminologists attribute the bullet plague to additional societal changes, which have not yet been addressed in Huntington. Among them:
When Benny Napoleon was the city’s chief of police from 1997-2001, he claimed the city had a well oiled “crime fighting machine.” The narcotics bureau alone totaled 400 officers. Although they staged 20 to 30 raids per day, 99% of the defendants, according to a 2001 Detroit News report, were “relatively minor” and “two out of three” received probation.
The city developed an undercover “gang squad,” which worked in troubled areas, road on buses and mingled in downtown crowds. Detroit’s then new police chief, Ella Bully-Cummings implemented a program to pay people who report other people carrying firearms, reorganized community policing to get officers and their superiors more involved in neighborhoods, and created a citywide homicide/shootings bureau.
Nearly 2,500 people attended a February 23, 2004 forum at Detroit’s Greater Grace Temple sponsored by the county’s prosecutor.
However, according to former Police Chief Jerry Oliver Sr., these are long-term problems with their roots in poverty. In the August article, he told the Detroit News, “People are out of work, they have no place to live…when you have people with a lot of time on their hands, that’s when crime occurs.”
Apparently, the winter rallies failed to curb the violence. At the time of the February forum 53 Detroit citizens had been murdered. By June 30, 808 shootings had occurred and 234 people had been murdered. That represented a 70% increase over 2003.
And, as Huntington’s Mayor and City Council have proposed budget cuts in the police department of 4%, the Detroit News reported Sunday that “Detroit City Council unanimously voted to cut more than $90 million from the police and fire department budgets and impose a 10 percent salary cut on workers. Police estimate 612 officers will be dismissed along with 120 fire personnel. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said the budget would badly compromise public safety and vowed to veto it.”
To read the August 2004 special report from the Detroit News, click:
http://www.detnews.com/2004/specialreport/0408/16/a01-242749.htm
(Research for this article by Tony Rutherford; the statistics/quotes come from Detroit Times reporters who compiled the stories used in compiling this summary.)
*****
(Originally Published June 7, 2005)
FBI AGENT TESTIFIED THAT DETROIT WOMAN LINKED TO HUNTINGTON’S PROM NIGHT MASSACRE
By Tony Rutherford
During the Detroit federal court bond hearing Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Robinson told the court that ”Miss [Cherylethia Glenchelle] Holmes was linked to the four deaths by three confidential informants, who said she was either involved in the murder, or arranged for the murder of Mr. Donte Ward."
According to The Detroit Times, FBI Special Agent Paul Sorce testified that three confidential informants told investigators in West Virginia that Cherylethia Glenchelle Holmes got into a dispute with one of the victims, Donte Ward, 19, after he allegedly "ripped off money and/or marijuana" from Holmes. At the time of the Huntington killings, Ms. Holmes lived only a few doors down from Ward on Charleston Avenue. She had complained of receiving “threats” after the murders and had told police she was moving back to Detroit.
Huntington detectives had gone to Detroit to arrest Ms. Holmes who had previously been charged with drug distribution and possession of an automatic weapon in February. The Times reports that those charges will be dropped and federal charges instituted against the 23-year-old unemployed mother. At the time of her February arrest, she gave a South Point, Ohio, address, but this has been determined to be a falsehood on her part.
However, Magistrate Judge R. Steven Whalen reluctantly granted her bond after admitting “this isn’t a mother of the year candidate.” Agent Sorce strongly objected to the $25,000 bond asking how a woman receiving $550 a month in public assistance could afford a cash bond and fund to hire her own attorney.
The judge imposed strict conditions on the woman’s release and ordered her to return to West Virginia for arraignment on the drug charges.
Apparently, the judge’s decision to allow her to remain free on bond stemmed from neither the F.B.I. nor Huntington authorities have enough information to charge her with the killings. Agent Sorce, according to the Detroit News, had acknowledged under cross-examination by Holmes’ attorney that West Virginia police had received other tips on the murders and were not prepared to charge her in the prom night slaughter.
To read the Detroit News article: http://www.detnews.com/2005/metro/0506/07/B01-206416.htm
E-mail HNN Yahoo Google
Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
RETROSPECTIVE PART FIVE OF FIVE: The Dark Days That Followed the Infamous Murders on Charleston Avenue
Editor’s Note: As the anniversary of the killing of four teens --- Donte, Megan, Michael, and Eddrick --- reaches the third year, the crime remains open but unsolved. Their killings launched a community-wide demand that drug dealers and drug users hanging out on city streets and abandoned houses be curtailed. As a retrospective, HNN will run on a daily basis a series of stories --- as originally published --- regarding the blackest days in the annals of the city’s criminal history. A $50,000 reward remains uncollected for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible.
Originally Published May 30, 2005
CONFLICT RESOLUTION WITH GUNFIRE, HIP HOP CULTURE, POVERTY BLAMED BY DETROIT OFFICIALS FOR DRUG AND GUN VIOLENCE; 800 MURDERED DURING EIGHT MONTHS OF 2004!
By Tony Rutherford
HNN Writer
Termed the “Detroit Connection,” Huntington police officials have attributed most of our city’s drug problems to Michigan out-of-towners.
Yet, these two cities separated by hundreds of miles of interstate highway have commonalities stemming from drug trafficking and turmoil and/or layoffs in the police departments.
The Detroit News published in August 2004 an in-depth analysis of that year’s shootings. During those eight months, 800 + people had been gunned down. One 49-year-old Detroit resident complained that “I have gone to more funerals than graduations.”
During one particularly bloody week in February 2004, two police officers were gunned down during a traffic stop, a pizza delivery man was killed and an armored car guard was murdered. From Jan. 23-Jan 28, 2004, 18 people were slain, according to reporters Ronald Hansen and Darci McConnell.
Detroit’s Mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, has incentive to shut down the shootings before this summer’s baseball All Star Game and the 2006 Super Bowl. Although Kilpatrick met with 50 local pastors “in an attempt to get residents involved in reporting crimes and to fight against social ills, such as mental health and economic struggles,” law enforcement officials told Reporters Hansen and McConnell to not expect “easy fixes” for shootings fueled by “easy access to guns and drugs.”
While an analysis of Detroit crime stats from January to July 2004 showed 26% of murders were directly drug related, criminologists attribute the bullet plague to additional societal changes, which have not yet been addressed in Huntington. Among them:
1. Conflict resolution: People too readily pull guns to settle disputes;Like Huntington, the Detroit police force has endured layoffs and has suffered from inadequate resources. Unlike Huntington, their force developed what even federal investigators termed a reputation for aggressive behavior.
2. Job loss: Detroit in 2004 lost 36,300 jobs which was more than any other U.S. City, leading a former police chief to describe poverty as a major factor in the gun and drugs scene.
3. Hip Hop Culture: A gangster image in which young people “shoot the gun until its empty” causing “a lot of people to get hit in the crossfire.”
4. Drug related disputes: These involved drug gangs or factions, perceived drug rip offs, and retaliatory actions involving drugs. (Police and other experts determined although initial investigations showed drugs as the culprit in 26% of murders, these statistics roe to “between 65 and 70 percent” of the city’s murders because as Hansen and McConnell reported on August 15, 2004, “the initial analysis is based on whether drugs are found at the crime scene when police arrive.”
When Benny Napoleon was the city’s chief of police from 1997-2001, he claimed the city had a well oiled “crime fighting machine.” The narcotics bureau alone totaled 400 officers. Although they staged 20 to 30 raids per day, 99% of the defendants, according to a 2001 Detroit News report, were “relatively minor” and “two out of three” received probation.
The city developed an undercover “gang squad,” which worked in troubled areas, road on buses and mingled in downtown crowds. Detroit’s then new police chief, Ella Bully-Cummings implemented a program to pay people who report other people carrying firearms, reorganized community policing to get officers and their superiors more involved in neighborhoods, and created a citywide homicide/shootings bureau.
Nearly 2,500 people attended a February 23, 2004 forum at Detroit’s Greater Grace Temple sponsored by the county’s prosecutor.
However, according to former Police Chief Jerry Oliver Sr., these are long-term problems with their roots in poverty. In the August article, he told the Detroit News, “People are out of work, they have no place to live…when you have people with a lot of time on their hands, that’s when crime occurs.”
Apparently, the winter rallies failed to curb the violence. At the time of the February forum 53 Detroit citizens had been murdered. By June 30, 808 shootings had occurred and 234 people had been murdered. That represented a 70% increase over 2003.
And, as Huntington’s Mayor and City Council have proposed budget cuts in the police department of 4%, the Detroit News reported Sunday that “Detroit City Council unanimously voted to cut more than $90 million from the police and fire department budgets and impose a 10 percent salary cut on workers. Police estimate 612 officers will be dismissed along with 120 fire personnel. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said the budget would badly compromise public safety and vowed to veto it.”
To read the August 2004 special report from the Detroit News, click:
http://www.detnews.com/2004/specialreport/0408/16/a01-242749.htm
(Research for this article by Tony Rutherford; the statistics/quotes come from Detroit Times reporters who compiled the stories used in compiling this summary.)
(Originally Published June 7, 2005)
FBI AGENT TESTIFIED THAT DETROIT WOMAN LINKED TO HUNTINGTON’S PROM NIGHT MASSACRE
By Tony Rutherford
During the Detroit federal court bond hearing Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Robinson told the court that ”Miss [Cherylethia Glenchelle] Holmes was linked to the four deaths by three confidential informants, who said she was either involved in the murder, or arranged for the murder of Mr. Donte Ward."
According to The Detroit Times, FBI Special Agent Paul Sorce testified that three confidential informants told investigators in West Virginia that Cherylethia Glenchelle Holmes got into a dispute with one of the victims, Donte Ward, 19, after he allegedly "ripped off money and/or marijuana" from Holmes. At the time of the Huntington killings, Ms. Holmes lived only a few doors down from Ward on Charleston Avenue. She had complained of receiving “threats” after the murders and had told police she was moving back to Detroit.
Huntington detectives had gone to Detroit to arrest Ms. Holmes who had previously been charged with drug distribution and possession of an automatic weapon in February. The Times reports that those charges will be dropped and federal charges instituted against the 23-year-old unemployed mother. At the time of her February arrest, she gave a South Point, Ohio, address, but this has been determined to be a falsehood on her part.
However, Magistrate Judge R. Steven Whalen reluctantly granted her bond after admitting “this isn’t a mother of the year candidate.” Agent Sorce strongly objected to the $25,000 bond asking how a woman receiving $550 a month in public assistance could afford a cash bond and fund to hire her own attorney.
The judge imposed strict conditions on the woman’s release and ordered her to return to West Virginia for arraignment on the drug charges.
Apparently, the judge’s decision to allow her to remain free on bond stemmed from neither the F.B.I. nor Huntington authorities have enough information to charge her with the killings. Agent Sorce, according to the Detroit News, had acknowledged under cross-examination by Holmes’ attorney that West Virginia police had received other tips on the murders and were not prepared to charge her in the prom night slaughter.
To read the Detroit News article: http://www.detnews.com/2005/metro/0506/07/B01-206416.htm
E-mail HNN Yahoo Google
Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
