The bell needs to toll for thugs in Detroit legal system

Forty traffic stops later, this one was finally stopped.

The buzz this week has centered on three cases, including two highlighting particularly dumb criminals and autos, that came to public attention via media from local law enforcement. The auto ones allegedly center on two less upright residents and both of their ventures into the city of Ferndale.

Of course, those cases are now being published globally, putting Detroit, once again, in the center ring of the Bigtop of Stupidity. Cue the calliope and elephants. Apparently we can still take the cake.

The first involved 33-year-old Renee Lashon Beavers, of Detroit, who was pulled over on Wednesday in Ferndale and accused of driving a car she stole in Adrian. Beavers claims she met the owner at a shelter, giving her $1,000 for the 1999 Dodge Stratus, but took off with the vehicle when the woman wanted $400 more.

When police caught up with La Beav, she was cruising through Ferndale with a 24-ounce beer between her knees; the unsigned car title was in the glove compartment. Although she denied imbibing and the police report mercifully indicates she wasn't drunk, it only lent more mystery to her already dubious record. The most surprising fact is that she's been stopped for at least 40 traffic violations over the last decade, including drunk driving, and never had a driver's license to begin with.  

Obviously she couldn't pass driver's ed, but I digress...

Instead, she casually went about breaking the law while haunting everyone else.

The Detroit Free Press reported that Beavers "was never arrested because Detroit and Highland Park police lacked jail space.

Quoting Detroit Police Chief Warren Evans, the article said that the practice of excusing traffic scofflaws is common. Letting them drive off with just a ticket due to lack of jail space and supervisory staff, in spite of other outstanding traffic warrants, is a problem Evans says he plans to change.

In a separate interview, Evans says he goes out two nights a week and works the streets, stopping motorists who rarely have driver's license, registration, or insurance.

"For far too long, we've had an unwritten policy here that we're not taking these people into custody," Evans said. "When we stop people in Detroit for minor violations, they will tell you, 'I won't do that north of 8 Mile or west of Telegraph.' We tolerate that, and it's got to change." 

How inevitable is it that this spills back into the former-mayor Kwame Daze? Evans says a six-year policy, put into effect by one of Kwame's many female "cronies"- a federal monitor, Sheryl Robinson Wood who happened to have "a personal relationship" with KK and created a consent decree during her $14 million "job" overseeing the Detroit Police Department - was meant to curtail police misconduct, but actually led to departmental reluctance to make arrests.

Oh, Kwame; can we EVER get out from under your endless burdens and corrupt cronies?

But Ferndale don't play that, homies. 

Date nightmares are named McCoy (Oakland County Sheriff's Dept.)

The Free Press reports that Ferndale's police department is better prepared to deal with repeat offenders, so Beavers won't skip this time.

They also aren't fazed by Detroit's lackadaisical policies that enable chronic offenders. The Free Press quotes Ferndale Lt. William Wilson, as saying that Detroit's been providing "the ability to keep skating along like she did."

The newspaper also researched state records stating that despite her many years of "driving," this event will constitute Beavers' debut in traffic court and will be the first time she has to comply with court judgments. Her last traffic stop was on July 4, 2008 for violating child-restraint laws, as well as failure to have a license. She never showed in court for that, yet was never picked up with the subsequent bench warrant, according to Southfield Assistant City Attorney Bonnie Fitch.

Now, however, Southfield promises to "pick her up (from Ferndale) and have her arraigned here."

What awaited La Beav in Ferndale, meanwhile, was Thursday's arraignment for the Oakland County prosecutor's charges of unlawfully driving away an automobile, having an open intoxicant in the car, receiving and concealing stolen property and driving with a revoked or suspended license.

The Detroit area was barely digesting this mess, when news leaked about the April 24th First Date From Hell, which also involved Ferndale.

Following their meet-up at Greektown Casino in Detroit a week earlier, 23-year-old Detroiter Terrance Dejuan McCoy dined with a 27-year-old woman at Buffalo Wild Wings in Ferndale, where she only knew him as "Chris."

She had picked up McCoy at his apartment in her car, which she told police also contained a backpack with $300 cash, a laptop, iPod and digital camera.

After their dinner, the female said McCoy claimed he left his wallet in her car, and asked for the keys to the 2000 Chevy Impala. She says she then saw McCoy light out in her car from the restaurant parking lot. Meanwhile, stuck with the bill, too, she immediately called Ferndale police, who weren't able to find him.

The car showed up 11 days later in Detroit, but was also missing the radio.

What McCoy failed to remember, however, is that he shared phone conversations with the woman, including one where he'd sent her a photo of himself. Authorities were able to retrieve his number and track him down.

Media reports claim that McCoy's criminal record shows two previous convictions for unarmed robbery in 2005, and that he was wanted for absconding from probation in Farmington Hills.

Ferndale grabbed McCoy from the Wayne County jail on July 28, and he's now being held on $25,000 bond for trial in Ferndale. Thursday he was charged with unlawfully taking the car, a five-year felony.

While these latest two examples of Being Bad in Detroit await their moment before the justice system, Detroit tries to bounce back yet again from two more black eyes.  

A reliable source within Detroit's court system tells me that this is NOT an isolated problem - that thug mentality and unbelievably boorish people rule the overall criminal community, and it is especially apparent when it finally arrives in court. Daily.

"Jurors, judges and witnesses are regularly threatened," my source said, "and it isn't unusual for them to be physically attacked during a trial. Cell phones have to be completely surrendered before entering the courtroom, because - among other examples of frightening behavior - drug deals go down right in the courtroom, as well as hits brazenly made on key parties right during a trial."

It's dangerous to carry a wallet or purse, use a bathroom, and hundreds of other court building nightmares, because people have no clue how to maintain civilized behavior - and some of the suburban ones, too, other sources reveal.

Suspects in the Matt Landry murder are only teenagers. 

It didn't go at all unnoticed that the cocky 17-year-old lead suspect, Ihab Maslamani, in the shockingly cold abduction, carjacking and murder of Chesterfield Township's 21-year-old Matt Landry smirked at TV cameras during his arraignment in a Roseville district courtroom, just before casually spitting on the floor. Of course, given the widely broadcast spree of crimes Maslamani is accused of - spanning from armed bank robbery and carjacking to murder - disrespect for the courtroom undeniably ranks as very minor by comparison.

But, it is typical of people who progress to bigger crimes when they benefit early by mercy from the justice system. 

And, when does it stop? Can't authorities set the bar to make people accountable? If people can't learn values early, they sure need to be taught them somewhere - although their day of reckoning in a courtroom is undoubtedly years too late.

In Maslamani's case, talk of deporting him back to his native Lebanon - he's said to have been foisted at the age of eight by his birth parents on a string of unsuspecting relatives and the foster care system in Canada and the U.S. - is officially off the table. Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith says Maslamani will be tried for the crimes here and if found guilty, be sentenced and serve.

Wow. Before Smith said that, people were already taking bets about al Maslamani's deportation and subsequent membership in al qaeda, where he could predictably further prey on innocent people.

Thanks, Eric Smith. And, Wayne County has the mighty Kym Worthy, Prosecutor and Pitbull of the Kwame Daze.

Detroit area leaders and authority figures need to take the hint from Worthy and Detroit Public Schools' Robert Bobb and step up and make justice happen. They need to turn things around so the name of the game isn't "Look What I Always Get Away With," but "Well, the Detroit Party's Sure Over for Those Who Deserve It."

Evans says that Detroit's consent decree resulted in far fewer arrests for misdemeanors, adding that although more than 1,100 people were shot in the city this year, but that Detroit takes it for granted, that it's "expected."

"We have to find a way to stop letting reports of violence and death pass by like commercials in the daily drama of our lives," he said. 

In accepting part of the blame, Evans added, "We have provided such slow response times and slow service to citizens' complaints that they're not particularly enamored of us, anyway. One of the ways you get people to respond is to respond to them."

Isn't it way past time? Inquiring, well-behaved minds need to know.
 

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For more info: 

http://m.freep.com/detail.jsp?key=513319&rc=ne&full=1
http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/local/Landry_Murder_Suspects_Face_C
http://www.dailytribune.com/articles/2009/08/28/news/srv0000006240595.txt
http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/people_kwame_kilpatrick/.