People's Investigation Continues

"Chief Krasny said an autopsy revealed that death was caused by large amounts of LSD which the Fisher youth had taken."

This and other lies quoted from the Ann Arbor News of Dec. 21, 1971 concerning the death of young artist Dirk Fisher are a matter of great concern to all people, and especially to members of the rainbow colony in Ann Arbor. The effect newspaper reports have on people is tremendous. Newspapers are where we are supposed to get our information about what's going on; we know people can only act on the information made available to us. That the facts be represented in newspapers becomes a priority to everyone, in this case especially concerning drugs since so much misinformation has only perpetrated the vastness of the problem. So the A2 Tribal Council set out to settle the contradictions between the A2 News, Chief Krasny, and the community.

In the first place, at the time Chief Krasny quoted the alleged autopsy, there hadn't even been one. It would seem that our police chief was making up his own autopsy report. The question now has expanded though to whether or not the mistake was made originally or perhaps equally by the reporter and editor of the Ann Arbor News, who allowed such an article to be printed without full investigation.

The Tribal Council's first step in tracking down the origin of the lies was to try and set up a meeting with Chief Krasny. Instead, Lt. Klinge from the Police-Community Relations Dept. of the A2 PD agreed to meet with us. Gail Johnson from Drug Help and Sam Smith from the Rainbow People's Party talked with him and he pleaded ignorance of the facts from the start. It is his job to release news and although he isn't in total control it seemed strange that he knew nothing of these lies at all. He smiled and was very agreeable without saying anything substantial; when we left he said he would check it out and call us back- cool. But he didn't call us back. So we called him. He explained nothing and suggested we talk to Bill Tremí (the reporter for the story, the police reporter for the A2 News), or Mr. Romaker who is city editor of the News and Treml's boss.

Since Treml wrote the story, we first tried to make an appointment to see him. He was out of town because of a death in his family, so we arranged to see Romaker, and were joined by Nancy Lessin from the Free People's Clinic to add to the discussion.

The job of city editor is to edit city news. Needless to say, when Mr. Romaker didn't have any knowledge of the misinformation in question, we were surprised. It seems that many articles get written that he doesn't even read at all. By giving some of his news reporters his unquestioning trust, he is apparently not doing his job as well as is necessary. He did say, however, that he would investigate and print a retraction of the statements if he found that to be in order.

But in further talking with Mr. Romaker, we discovered that he was barely aware of the real drug problem on the streets, the downer and heroin related deaths. This we found in keeping with the way most cities relate to drug problems and there is no excuse for this ignorance. The city editor of the Ann Arbor News asking "What heroin problem?" In 1972? Incredible.

It is the duty of the newspaper to be among the people and get the news. That is the priority-news/facts. That they might print in one paragraph hidden on page 24 that one or two or ten of our people died this week from heroin or other drugs is almost irrelevant when faced with the problems we have to deal with in this area. We can see the same type of thing happening in the legal area, where police and courts spend valuable time and money tracking down and prosecuting marijuana and LSD users. It s only after great efforts by the people to bring out the truth that we can see the drug laws beginning to change and the police just starting to think about dealing with the heroin plague. Marijuana and LSD are not the problem.

The co-operation we received from Mr. Romaker was at least encouraging. When we informed him of the heroin deaths and talked to him about real community drug problems, he seemed interested. We gave him information specifically concerning community drug problems and together we agreed a story should appear in the Ann Arbor News about them. Right on. It is encouraging when people like Mr. Romaker show concern and co-operation. Our position on the drug problem is to get true information to the people as a start.

We are still working on setting up a meeting with all parties concerned, including Krasny, Klinge, Treml and/or Romaker, the examiner who performed the autopsy, and members of the Tribal Council. If we don't continue to pursue this issue, and talk to Krasny and the police as well as Romaker, nothing will change. We have to criticize and stand up for the truth. City editors and reporters who go unchecked are among the people's main communications problem, and have an incredibly dangerous effect on our culture, not to mention the effect of a police force disseminating blatantly false information.

We now see three main problems that have been accented by our brother's death: Krasny's statement attributing the death to LSD, indicative of his thinking and his relationship to the community; the Ann Arbor News printing reports without full investigation; and, most important, the subsequent continuing confusion and misinformation about drugs in our community.

Don't be hesitant to speak out. We must not let ourselves be def ined by people who don't understand us because they don't even bother to investigate reality. Only as we ourselves continue to define our new life-style as we develop it ourselves will the conditions in which we live become better.

LIFE TO THE LIFE CULTURE!
-Ann Arbor Tribal Council