If you haven't been following the sordid tale of the City of Detroit's mayor, it is a wonderful thing to watch. An arrogant, powerful Democrat whose parents are also arrogant, powerful Democrats, Kwame Kilpatrick swept into office as the nation's first "hip hop mayor".
Turns out that his earring and partying weren't the only things about him that were "hip hop." He brought an entire host of thug buddies, many of whom he'd been hanging out with since high school, along with him in his entourage.
You've probably already heard about the text messages scandal, in which it was revealed that he and his mistress perjured themselves on the stand during a whistleblower lawsuit this past summer. Turns out that the mayor ordered the $8 million case settled after he found out that the text messages betwixt him and his illicit lover (who was his chief of staff) showed there had been a conspiracy to fire the police officers when on the stand they claimed that a.) there had been no such conspiracy and b.) the two of them weren't romantically involved. Whoops.
Well, the reason why this particular pair of cops were fired was that they started getting close to the source of something else the mayor has apparently been covering up: a legendary party in the mayoral mansion around the time he was first sworn into office involving strippers, drunken appointees crashing city owned vehicles, and a violent showdown between the mayor's wife and one of the strippers who, um, was apparently "extra friendly" with hizzoner during the show...
...you know, the stripper who mysteriously wound up dead in a gangland style drive-by shooting a few short months after the incident. An incident in which the stripper was about to press charges against the mayor's wife for assault with a wooden object. Incidentally, this was the same mayor's wife who somehow came into possession of a "Detroit Police vehicle" which turned out to be a leased Lincoln Navigator (which had to be returned to the dealership...one that I used to work at. How many car dealers do you know of that have a returns policy?)
Of course, the police disclaim any knowledge that this stripper's complaint ever existed, and an "official" investigation by the state's attorney general found the rumor of the party itself to be "an urban legend."
And also, of course, the police seemed to have other things to do when it came time to investigate just exactly why somebody would want to fill the stripper's Buick full of lead as she was driving on a city street. The rumor is that this is because one of the mayor's crooked cop buddies did the hit for him.
Well, those same text messages revealed a few days ago that the mayor was steering insider information on city construction contracts to one of his thug buddies who owns a construction company. (Yeah, this guy has poured concrete for free for the mayor's mistress, and yeah, his most recent brush with the law involved pistol whipping an employee.)
If you listen closely and cock your ear in the general direction of downtown Detroit...yep, that's the sound of a very large house of cards collapsing.
And now, it seems, somebody connected with the police department at the time of the stripper's supposed complaint who has since retired, suddenly remembers something about that complaint's existence before it went to the shredder. And has signed an affidavit to this effect.
Last night, when the affidavit became public, the Chief of Police suddenly called a press conference for shortly after the 6PM news.
And then failed to show up.
Oh, yeah, said Chief of Police is one of the mayor's appointees, who, curiously enough, is *another* appointee who happens to be an attractive black woman about the same age as the mayor. Hmmm.
Now I wonder why she would call a press conference and then within an hour or so decide not to show up? The entire news media in southeast Michigan is now wondering the same thing.
I can't wait to see Kwame "hip hop" his way off to the Jackson maximum security correctional facility, along with a bunch of his buddies. I will probably go downtown with a lawn chair, umbrella and a cooler full of fruity alcoholic beverages to watch them haul his ass off to the slam when it finally comes to an end.
