Detroit water doom: Mass incarcerations for protesters following shutoffs!

Looks like someone is trying to send a message.

MASS WATER SHUT-OFFS, MASS INCARCERATION AT MOUND ROAD PRISON FOR PROTESTERS
Posted on 05/28/2014 by Diane Bukowski

The State of Michigan’s fascist iron glove is pounding on Detroiters, using mass water shut-offs without notice, and mass concentration camp imprisonment at the Mound Road state facility. There, hundreds are locked into filthy holding rooms without sanitation, proper food, water and medical care, guarded by Michigan Department of Corrections personnel.

That is the horrendous story Charity Hicks told VOD, after her arrest during mass water shut-offs in her east-side neighborhood near Osborn High School. On May 23, members of the People’s Water Board, Moratorium NOW! and others protested the shut-offs outside the Detroit Water Board building as part of a series of weekly “Freedom Fridays.”

“The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) is initiating this project to reduce DWSD’s delinquent water accounts,” DWSD Director Sue McCormick said in a letter to the Board. “As part of the overall plan to increase DWSD’s revenue collection, the Department will increase its efforts of water shut-offs for customers with a 60-day or more past-due balance. . . This project will target approximately 70,000 residential accounts throughout the City of Detroit over a period of two (2) years.”

Hicks said the contractor got mad when she asked to see the termination orders for herself and her neighbors.

“He told me they are on the computer and he couldn’t produce them,” Hicks said. “They are shutting people off with no procedures and no due process, despite the critical importance of the water infrastructure. The guy went to his car to look up the orders I thought, and I followed him so he could show me on the computer. I was leaning up slightly into the car to see, and all of a sudden he peeled off, hitting me and causing me to fall down and hurt my hip and gash my foot, which began bleeding. He didn’t say get back, and I just got discombobulated and fell down.”

Hicks said a one-gallon red plastic gas container fell off the back of his truck when he hit a bump in the road. She then called 911 to report that she had been assaulted.

“The police came, looked at my foot, and then told me they were going to charge me with felonious larceny for stealing city equipment. They said if they were going to believe anybody, it would be the city. All of a sudden, I became the perpetrator.”

Hicks said she had hurriedly dressed and was virtually naked, with no shoes, no socks, no underwear, no keys or other belongings. She said the two officers, who were white, arrested her in front of her home, did not read her her rights, then made racist remarks to her as they drove her to the Mound Road facility.

“They were completely racist, disrespectful and arrogant,” Hicks said. “They told me I seemed to be pretty articulate, asked how many degrees I had, and said it was clear that I wasn’t a typical Detroiter. They said they were ‘good ‘ol boys’ and kept playing country music on the radio.”

- See more at: [link to voiceofdetroit.net]

More at link about holding cell conditions...this sounds bad. Havent seen any local reports on the incarcerations. Freep and NY Times warned about this in March.

Detroit to resume water shutoffs for delinquent customers ...
www.freep.com/.../Detroit-resume-water-shutoffs-delin...
Detroit Free Press
Mar 22, 2014 - With the harsh winter's end, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department is resuming efforts to shut off water service for thousands of ...

But listen to this:
“They threw me in a cell with hundreds of women,” Hicks recounted. “There was one urinal and no water to drink or wash with, and there was human waste including menstrual blood all over the floor. No water, no nothing. We had to use the urinal with no regard to our health and safety, where we could get HIV, hepatitis and other diseases. Even the Border Patrol brought a woman in because they are stopping people there who have warrants.”

Uh oh. Does anyone have more info about this mass incarceration business??

- See more at: [link to voiceofdetroit.net]



Last Edited by RadChick on 05/29/2014 11:56 AM