violeta ikonomova
@violetikon
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investigative reporter @freep / vikonomova @freepress .com
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My latest project, *now out from behind paywall,* finds 1/3 ppl shot and wounded by Detroit cops were either not charged or convicted of conduct for which they were shot.
Most were unarmed or shot in back while fleeing. Key police vid missing 1/2 the time
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sitting behind a guy at ford field whose MO is to buy beers for everyone within three seats of him (front, back, side to side) at every game because “good vibes and we’ll win the game”
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this is how this went:
reporter: Who paid the protesters?
Craig: I don’t know, but I gotta believe —
reporter: Then how do you know?
Craig: I feel good about it, I feel like they were paid. I don’t have any hard evidence but —
reporter: is that how you operate as an officer then?
James Craig at alt location w/o PA system, after being drowned out by demonstrators at his planned announcement, saying something about how he "doesn't have any hard evidence but" believes ppl were "planted" at last summer's racial-justice demonstrations
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Michigan chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, which has attended more than 80 of the Detroit protests, on violence against legal observers Saturday:
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Spent a yr looking at how the Detroit Police Department polices itself. Found an oversight system stacked with officer protections. Cops w/ histories of abuse, lies, bad searches stay on streets, costing taxpayers + jeopardizing trust. Sometimes people die.
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Benson on GOP “challengers” who showed up at vote-count site: “If they thought they were going to intimidate or stop anyone from doing their job inside the TCF center then they don’t know Detroit”
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I’m on UM campus and literally EVERYONE outside is in a mask. I’ve seen probably 100+ people ppl, mostly students, and only one person did not have one on. I’m talking masks to play soccer, run on a track, sit alone at a bus stop. This is incredible.
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It’s my birthday and I’ll enjoy my face on an 8 Mile billboard if I want to
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@maridapr
agree, generally a vessel, but i think this ralph lauren 90s prep might actually be her look
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The Michigan DNR, which runs Belle Isle, says Craig campaign did not ask for security and "affirmed they understood crowd control would be the responsibility of the campaign." Craig has blamed the DNR and "paid protesters" — who say they're unpaid — for the bungling. From DNR:
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I profiled Hakim Littleton, the first of three young men killed this summer by Detroit police. Littleton, 20, has been viewed not as a victim but a villain — deserving of his fate bc he shot first at cops.
Here are 5,000 words on why his life mattered too.
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Five years ago, Detroit promised hundreds of neighborhood properties to two developers in the name of turnaround. It hasn’t worked out.
My latest deep dive:
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Prisoners at Lakeland say they're suffering headaches and upset stomachs as a result of brown water. The Michigan Department of Corrections says "there isn't a problem" and won't provide bottles, forcing some to stay thirsty amid high temps + a lack of AC.
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Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones' Chief of Staff, everybody
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en route to the train station reopening thinkin bout how in 2010 the graffiti on this building said “I hate my family”
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I’m eating dinner alone on a heated patio off Telegraph and I have not been this happy in a long, long time
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if someone had told me owning a home in southeastern michigan would involve shoveling human shit from my basement after heavy rains i would have opted to live somewhere else
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City of Detroit now claiming it can't even release a list of officers who work for DPD
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It is sooooo suss out here you can’t even see the ren cen just why
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Detroit's 48214 zip is 80 percent Black, but a pair of high-profile landlords in the area rent just 20 percent of their units to Black people.
The landlords, Reimer Priester and Alex DeCamp, are now being sued for discrimination by their non-Black tenants
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Tensions still running high outside vote count at TCF center in Detroit. Trump supporter claims ballots were slipped in out of nowhere, Black Biden supporter calls BS. Trump supporter accuses him of “skin-colored politics,” Biden supporter calls him racist.
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man. it was bad when it was "school shooting" but, god damn, it is so much worse now that it's "red flags inadequately addressed by school officials cleared way school shooting"
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what a world we live in that profile after profile is written on a police shooting victim's checkered past but not a single one on the track record of the officer who killed him because the police department does not release his name, would take weeks to release his records
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lol @ these reporters grilling Whitmer about re-opening INDOOR DINING in the midst of a pandemic surge, citing econ pain for employees/owners. Would have maybe made more sense to focus on the econ aid she's seeking + how far it can go
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A reminder that Detroit taxpayers paid for the Duggan admin’s failed countersuit of protesters. Judge says city failed to show protesters were involved in alleged conspiracy, that any “unlawful actions are either misdemeanors or local-ordinance violations.”
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this show is one part car commercial one part rise from the ashes propaganda one part telethon style concert... at the nexis of public private culture.... dated and futuristic at the same time... wouldn't miss it for the world
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great q by Stephen Henderson on Detroit Today: “what’s the difference between this Joe Biden, who stands w/ UAW workers on the picket line and the Joe Biden who blocked a strike by national railroad workers last year”
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The deep dive into ex-Detroit Chief James Craig you’ve all been waiting for and were for some reason never provided with.
My latest, with
@pomterkins
and
@metrotimes
:
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it's hard to overstate how effective dark/corporate/Duggan-aligned money is in defeating grass roots progressive efforts in Detroit. It helped kill Prop A, win races for insurance "reform" candidates, pass Prop N, and now, possibly kill Prop P
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$2,300 if u wanna know how much of ur tax $ the city of Detroit is paying out for problem cops 🙃
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Lifelong Detroiters pose for pic at site of ill-conceived Bedrock ad to show the city as it really is
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It’s municipal election day in Detroit!
I focused on the council races + flow of $ this cycle. The 9-member body that generally votes with mayor will undergo the highest turnover in nearly a decade after 2 members resigned following corruption charges.
What I found, a thread:
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A dispatch from Detroit's low-turnout districts, where people are utterly disillusioned and many don't plan to vote.
“We haven’t gotten much of anything from any president at this level in life, being the people that we are.”
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Tlaib -- whose district includes much of Dearborn and Dearborn Heights -- is campaigning on her pro-Palestine stance
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the trickiest part of reporting on government is figuring out if you're being gas lit or just legitimately don't understand what's going on
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do other cities close to the public for a week when the draft comes their way i wonder?
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Sunday Lions tickets should be dispersed based on merit, i.e., total hours invested in watching them lose
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Detroit solidarity in the dead ass of winter is the greatest solidarity I’ve ever known
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Woman outside TCF in Detroit pleads for no fraud in vote count . “If you brought in votes that were not true ... stop what you’re doing. You can stop now and say you’re sorry, there is forgiveness.”
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a four-act play, starring Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon
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Went to the bar. For those of you who haven’t been dudes are now so broke that when they ask what ur drinking they say “ok cool just wondering” and never come back w/drinks
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Too-cozy relationships, a bloated 44-member board and a lack of basic financial controls paint pic of Detroit Riverfront Conservancy as a nonprofit with its guard down, experts say.
“The good old boys network didn’t police itself and someone took money.”
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No, the City of Detroit is not spending $888 per Covid test
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Woah this real ?
Never forget that the plan to build a Detroit Subway in 1918 lost by one city council vote.
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My latest article, on Wayne County prosecutors’ repeated use of Detroit police Sgt. Stephen Kue (85 citizen complaints) as a witness in cases against people shot by police + its failure to disclose that he’s been caught lying 4 times.
w/
@andreamsahouri
:
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jaw-dropping investigation by
@paulegan4
on Michigan energy regulators' cozy relationship w/ industry
80% of the regulatory commission's funding comes from DTE + Consumers, most deliberations are secret, no commissioner's voted against anything since '15
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Officers are heard urging each other to turn off their body-worn cameras and complaining when a crowd was easily subdued in new footage obtained by
@DETWILLBREATHE
.
"I wanted more," an officer said.
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Just asked my dad if he thinks humans have free will and he told me not to engage him with “abstract concepts for people who have nothing better do“
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i'm probably most struck by the fact that it's not uncommon to hear longtime UAW workers making top wage name their chief concern the two-tier system, which primarily hurts not them but newer employees
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another scoop i never asked for
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a scoop
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Help me count the ways the city of Detroit uses taxpayer resources to sell taxpayers on stuff they'll pay for.
Project Green Light -
Blight Bond -
ShotSpotter -
Another dev tax break -
Reverend Anthony shares his support for the 1.5 Billion Dollar District Detroit Project. City council is expected to vote on District Detroit next week.
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plz excuse my appearance + enjoy the Detroit City Clerk’s new hold music
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nine months after contracting Covid at her restaurant job, my roommate smelled again for the first time last night. she wept. she memed. it was beautiful
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Get a load of the Oakland County Health Department, which not only did not respond to MT's request for comment, but HIT UP THE RESTAURANT AT THE CENTER OF THE STORY AND ALERTED THEM THE PAPER WAS ASKING QUESTIONS LMAOOOO
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Voter 51 at precinct 220 in Detroit. Never got absentee ballot despite clerk receiving my request + saying they sent it out three weeks ago. Surprised poll worker goes “another one!” when I ask to spoil ballot in order to vote. Says they’ve already had several ppl w/ my sitch
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how hard would it have been to just come out and say this? instead we had the nondisclosure saga, GOP's insinuation his departure was about nursing homes, and the restaurant lobby pushing for even looser restrictions when these were already a compromise
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Poll finds NEARLY 3/4 OF MICHIGAN DEMS WANT GAZA CEASEFIRE just days before presidential primary in which they're being urged to send that message by voting "uncommitted" rather than Biden
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!!IMPORTANT STORY ALERT!!
!!IMPORTANT STORY ALERT!!
!!IMPORTANT STORY ALERT!!
!!IMPORTANT STORY ALERT!!
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my mom heard me on an interview today and slipped me this note of advice
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RIP Bob Carmack, who devoted the last six years of his life to being a thorn in Mayor Mike Duggan’s side
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Your periodic reminder that Detroit commissioned a study to understand its affordable housing needs, found 97% of rentals were affordable to ppl earning 80% of area median income, then proceeded to mandate developers meet an 80% AMI requirement + paid for it w/ its limited fed $
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when the Oxford shooter’s parents were found 40 miles away in a building on Detroit’s east side, reporters asked if they had help getting there, if their helper could face charges, if they were attempting to flee to Canada.
And then there was this:
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Contributions to Detroit city councilmembers from Clark Hill PAC + its employees. Council voted Tues to give the law firm $200,000 for a case that includes a countersuit of protesters. (McCalister has been on council for one term, remainder 2+)
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remember when MI SOS made someone dump their ACAB plate bc it was offensive? Found this one outside my house today:
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Heard some great q's at last night's panel on Gilbert's $60M incentive ask for the Hudson's site.
Among them: Why subsidize more office/hotel space at time of high vacancy? What's guarantee 2K promised jobs will be new?
@PomTerkins
+ I w/ some answers:
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Chief Craig is often applauded for his swift release of video in shootings by officers. He supplied some just Monday, when police killed a guy they say shot at them first.
But there will be no vid released in a deadly Tuesday incident. Why remains unclear.
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Good q. There were also ppl w walkers and on motorized wheel chairs sharing space w traffic on Jefferson this weekend
The QLINE was broken down on Sunday with “significant delays” so I decided to walk to midtown instead and came across huge sections of unplowed sidewalks along the way. How is someone with limited mobility supposed to navigate this?
@CityofDetroit
please weigh in here.
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Karen McDonald, asked "how is this child allowed to go back to class" after his shooting drawings were found just before attack: "i'm not going to give you a political answer and i'm not going to cover for anybody. i'm just going to say what i think: of course he shouldn't have"
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literally every smart millennial i know who has not aligned themselves with a purpose is in the throes of an existential crisis ... it's too bad most available jobs involve selling ppl stuff they don't need and that my gen has leaned hard into sobriety and now has to face this
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I obtained the list of homes slated for preservation under Prop N and actually looked at some of them. Under the plan, Detroit appears poised to spend tens of millions trying to save abandoned houses worth less than the cost of repair.
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Austin Harm, 19, came to the vote count site in Detroit with a caravan of Hillsdale College students who were warned of fraud by an email blast from a campus organization.
Says, falsely, that w/ mail-in voting “you can just fabricate ballots ... or
... find some laying around”
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sure wish I had anything to say when ppl ask me what’s new
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american culture gets me every time. right down to the goosebumps font inviting ppl back in to dine w/ the super contagion in our midst
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