By the time the gray BMW came to a rest in an abandoned lot along Gratiot, two people were fighting for their lives and the passenger was running with a gun this afternoon.
Cars left in parking lots were broken into. Wind-blown red cups drifted onto exit ramps. Shards of glass were scattered across busy streets and sidewalks.
Detroit is besieged by 5,000 annual arsons and deep budget cuts. As a result, insurance rates are rising, property values are plummeting and people are fleeing.
Feds went undercover to investigate protests over the emergency manager, wages for teachers and city workers, inadequate transportation and rising poverty. No violence ever broke out.
“The controversy got us banned from distributing the full 25,000 copies – only 15,000 made it out” at the airport, publisher Anthony Brancaleone told me.
Saying some Detroit officials are “black on the outside, but white on the inside,” Minister Malik Shabazz and more than a dozen protesters tried to hand-deliver Oreo cookies to city hall offices in the latest protest against an emergency manager in Detroit.