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Where lt Is-Our Super Calendar, pp. 17-21     

Serving Metropolitan Detroit and Greater Michigan

 

SUN

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THE DETROIT SUN

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Volume 5, Number 5

Published Every Friday

October8, 1976

 

 

Tannian, Blount Out-Hart To Head Police

By Albert Nickerson. Sun Staff Writer

 

In an effort to restore harmony to a severely split police department. Mayor Coleman Young will appoint Acting Executive Deputy Chief William Hart as Detroit's first black police chief.

This move marks the beginning of an extensive reorganisation of the high command of the Detroit Police Department long planned by the mayor.

According to news reports, Police Chief Philip G. Tannian is to be notified Tuesday of his dismissal.

Rumors of the impending shake-up of the police high command have been circulating for weeks. The rumors were verified last week when the mayor put Executive Deputy Police Chief Frank Blount on an indefinite educational leave with pay.

According to reports, the mayor decided to name Hart the new chief because he is easy-going and systematic. Young believes Hart can mend the wounds within the department.

According to the same reports, Young does not plan to name a new executive chief at this time. Hart will be in direct command of the department with five deputy chief positions under him.

The mayor's shuffling of the police high command is an attempt to patch up a badly divided police department. The department has been in turmoil since 1974, when the mayor took office.

One of Mayor Young's campaign promises was to make the police force representative of the city's 50% black populace. (continued on page 25)

 

(Continued from the cover) Tannian, Blount Hart To Head Police

Many rank-and-file police officers as well as-a number of higher-echelon department members resented the mayor's effort to promote and hire more black officers.

This resentment clearly surfaced last year in front of the Federal Building when white officers mounted a protest against police lay-offs. White officers attacked other black officers and black passers-by.

The feud between Tannian and Blount appears to be strictly a personal battle. Mayor Young decided to replace Tannian and Blount about two months ago when their personal and professional differences slowed his attempted reorganization of the department.

The mayor first attempted to remove Blount by placing him on sick leave last month. Blount was to use a backlog of sick days to get him out of the department by the end of the year. However, Blount remained on the job when he was charged with being the target of a federal drug probe the day after his leave was to start.

Representatives of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) raided Blount's home on September 20, claiming to be in search of evidence of narcotics trafficking. The federal agents, assisted by Tannian and other Detroit officers, seized records, diaries, letters, checks and other items carried in a box and a large file net. The probe has since widened to include other Detroit police officials, a police commissioner, and the entire 13th precinct.

Blount's attorneys said that federal investigators have found no evidence of wrong-doing on his part. Further, the lawyers claim that they will file a damage suit in Blount's behalf charging one to three top police officials with giving federal probers false information about Blount's activities in order to discredit him.

Indications are that one of the persons who will be named in the suit is out-going Chief Tannian.

Many top city officials believe that the current DEA investigation is a "smear campaign" to discredit the Young administration.

Young's biggest job now is to replace Tannian with an officer who can bring harmony to the police department.

The 52-year-old Hart, a native Detroiter, joined the force in 1952. The department he will head is 25% black.

Hart worked as a coal miner in Appalachia until 1949. He began his police career at the old Ninth (Bethune-John R) Precinct, where one of his first partners was Deputy Chief George Benett.

Bennett headed the police detail which probed into a 10th (Livernois) Precinct drug activity and eventually helped to bring nine police officers to trial for dealing in heroin. Ironically it was Philip Tannian, at that time an aide to then-Mayor Roman Gribbs, who was assigned to assist Bennett in his controversial and vastly unpopular investigation.

Hart spent most of his career working in the areas of vice and organized crime. In August 1974 he was named one of five Deputy Chiefs and given command of the Headquarters Bureau, which includes homicide, crimes against persons, narcotics and organized crime.

Hart has been responsible for both headquarters and patrol functions since replacing Blount last Wednesday. Blount's attorneys said that federal investigators have found no evidence of wrong-doing on the Deputy Chief's part.

 

Blount Investigation Meant To Smear Young

By Nadine Brown. Sun City Editor

The Detroit Sun Analysis

 

The confusing maneuvers by three law-enforcement agencies-from the sneaky raid on Executive Deputy Police Chief Frank Blount to the implied innuendos in a federal probe of a business once partly owned by Mayor Young-have reverberated throughout the community, and a lot of people are angry.

Despite the length of time spent on their investigations, the report now is that no evidence was found that linked Blount to any narcotics trafficking.

Nor is there any evidence linking Mayor Young to any illegal activities in or outside of Young's Barbeque and Lounge at 14925 Livernois.

The general consensus is that the entire caper is a fishing expedition to discredit the Mayor by smearing Blount, who had-until the "investigation"- been the heir-apparent to Police Chief Phillip Tannian. Tannian accompanied DEA agents to the scene of the Blount raid, as did TV cameras. 

The recent law-enforcement maneuvers have raised anew the charge that there really may be a national conspiracy to discredit black public officials, even among blacks who had doubted that such a scheme was underway. Syndicated columnist Cari Rowan cited this in Ebony last January , and it is now a major topic in just about every impromptu discussion in the black community.

That Tannian's imminent dismissal by Young is a foregone conclusion among most people does not ease their apprehension. The Sunday editions of both Detroit dailies announced and speculated that Deputy Chief William Hart would be named Chief of Police early this week due to the fact that Young named him to take Blount's post after Blount agreed

(continued on page 25)

 

(Continued from the cover)

to take an educational leave of absence last week.

We are not speculating here that Hart will assume that position. He is the one. But this does not calm the fears of the black community that the vendetta against Young will continue and that he will be charged in the media with trying to impose an all-black administration on the city.

The whole scheme of events has also sent black people back to re-reading Samuel F. Yette's controversial book, The Choice: The Issue of Black Survival in America (1971), which states unequivocally that "the Black man is obsolete in today's white America."

One section of Yette's book dealt with the "Chicago 8 conspiracy trial," pointing out that "the nation saw the spectacle of the black defendant, Bobby Seale, being bound and gagged in the courtroom to shut off his insistence on his constitutional right to defend himself in the illness and absence of his chosen lawyer.

"So fïlled was that season with threats to life and constitutional due process that black freshman Congressman William L. Clay of St. Louis wrote in his weekly column about the danger and existence both of concentration camps and concentration camp laws."

Congressman Clay did not try to hide or disguise his fears, Yette reported. "Citing the existence of the McCarran Act, Clay wrote: The implications of this detention provision for black people seem clear. The temper of our times and the posture of the present (Nixon) administration make it imperative that our efforts to repeal Title II succeed.

" 'No one can predict when this nation may see fit to seize upon a witch hunt. Those of us who are sensitive to the nature of protest and to the hasty and violent reactions to dissent feel warranted in our anxiety.' "

Congressman Clay certainly knows now how it feels to be the victim of intensive acts to discredit his integrity. He is one of the numerous black elected officials cited in Rowan's Ebony article earlier this year, titled "Is There a Conspiracy Against Black Leaders?"

Rowan wrote: "Congressman William L. Clay, the first black Missourian ever to hold so lofty a spot, beats off attempts to destroy him on charges of narcotics peddling, then fights off allegations of campaign fund violations -only to discover that he is charged with padding his payroll, and he is under criminal investigation by the Internal Revenue Service."

It is significant to note that most of the blacks under attack are very vocal in their advocacy of the rights of black people. Some are being swatted down like flies, but the strong and determined are putting up a battle.

Rowan quoted Ms. C. Delores Tucker, Secretary of State in Pennsylvania, who said she sees "a dangerous parallel between the purges of powerful blacks in the period from 1872 to 1877 and what is now taking place."

Rowan said Ms. Tucker told him that "I am convinced that there is a national conspiracy on the part of the political establishment to preserve the status quo."

Ms. Tucker was reappointed last January "but found herself the victim of press attacks and rumors about her use of state funds for travel and her income taxes. The Pennsylvania Senate spent seven months investigating her- primarily, she claims, because a white woman whom she had fired and the Philadelphia Inquirer were out to get her," according to the Rowan article.

"When all the charges proved baseless, she says, the Senate finally confirmed her, 47-0. Ms. Tucker is now campaigning nationally for massive black action to halt what she calls 'the double standard in the way the media deals with blacks.' "

Because of a smear campaign based on the existence of a patronage system that had been used by both Democrats and Republicans for many years before his time, Michigan Secretary of State Richard Austin, a black man, lost his bid for the Democratic Party nomination in the recent senatorial primary. Democrats have no black senators. Despite the fact that Austin had put machinery in motion to end the practice and was the odds-on favorite to win the primary election, he was slaughtered by his Democratic opponents.

The investigation of Blount for possible narcotics trafficking and the raid on his home were conducted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), assisted by Tannian and State Police.

Tannian obtained Blount's cooperation in turning over al! documents requested by federal officials and then saw to it that Blount remained in his office while the raid on his home was conducted.

But none of the items specified on the search warrant- particularly narcotics and narcotics paraphenalia- were among the items confiscated at the Blount residence on the city 's northwest side.

Yette cited in The Choice that "the failure of the United States to ratify the Genocide Convention has left an unsightly stain on the good name and the high pretensions of this nation, a leader in the long quest for international order and justice."

This failure, Yette pointed out occurred despite the fact that "it was in very large measure through the efforts and leadership of the United States that the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Genocide Convention in 1948."

Local news media, led by The Detroit News, have launched an attack on U.S. Senatorial candidate Don Riegle (D-Flint) based on a joint federal income-tax refund check which Riegle endorsed in his former wife's name back in 1971.

The incident, which has nothing to do witli Riegle's record as a member of the

(cuntinued on page 23)

 

 

 

Riegle Attacked By Local Media

(Continued from the cover)

House of Representatives nor his current campaign platform, was played up all week by both Detroit dailies generating a number of non-stories in the process.

Riegle's opponent, U.S. Representative Marvin Esch (R-Ann Arbor), has so far demonstrated enough good taste not to raise the so-called issue in the heated Senate campaign, although both dailies attempted to make their non-story the focus of a Riegle Esch debate at the Economic Club of Detroit last week.

The media controversy centers on a copyrighted story in The News which claimed that Riegle signed his former wife's name to a tax-refund check made out in both their names and then pocketed the entire $4,525 refund himself.

Riegle maintains that he kept the entire proceeds of the check because he and his wife had separated and all their financial matters were in the process of being settled at the time.

Nancy Riegle did not learn of the check until 1972, The News story claimed. Riegle reports that he settled the matter in November 1972 by giving $2000 to the former Mrs. Riegle, who made no objection to the transaction.

Observers say the matter came up at this time only because the former Mrs. Riegle harbors bitter feelings toward the senatorial candidate and gave vent to them at a time when they could be used by her estranged husband's political enemies.

Riegle himself has charged The News with bias, telling reporters that the paper is "absolutely dedicated to the proposition that I'm not to be elected senator."

The News in fact endorsed Richard Austin, Mr. Riegle's opponent, in the Democratic senatorial primary last August.

The Detroit Free Press, the News' rival and the more "liberal' of the two 600,000-plus circular The Detroit Sun circulation dailies, carried the ball a few steps further with a front-page non-story the next day headlined "Disputed Tax Check Treated Gingerly By Esch and Riegle". The Free Press also gave its readers the impression that there is little difference between the platforms of Riegle and Esch in a series of editorial -page surveys.

Esch, the author of an antibusing amendment named for him, is running on the Ford-Dole ticket. Riegle, a vocal opponent of continued American involvement in the war in Vietnam and an early denouncer of the crimes of Richard Nixon- which led him to switch his party affiliation from Republican to Democratie- has a reputation as a hard-hitting reformer within Democratic Party circles.

Michigan Secretary of State Richard Austin, whose own campaign in the senatorial primary was derailed by media charges of political scandal (Sun, July 29), had little sympathy to offer his former opponent when questioned by The Sun about Riegle's current problems with the press.

"I personally will not comment on Mr. Riegle's problems with his wife," Austin told The Sun. "It doesn't affect my support. I'm supporting the Democratic ticket."

Austin's bid for the Democratic nomination to fill retiring Senator Phil Hart 's seat fell short after he was charged by the Detroit dailies with accepting political kickbacks from the Secretary of State's branch managers.

The system of branch managers' support for the party to which the Secretary of State happens to belong has been long established in Michigan politics, and Austin in fact has been phasing out the program during his term in office.

Yet the non-issue received enough attention to seriously undercut Austin's support. Austin was particularly vulnerable to charges of political corruption- however ill-founded-as a black candidate bidding to become the first black Democratic U.S. Senator in American history.

When contacted last Thursday for his response to Riegle's present plight, Austin preceded his remarks with an ironie chuckle and concluded his comments, "I have not given any recent consideration to this development."

 

The Detroit Sun CAMPAIGN '76

 

He signed for wjfe, kept refund, record shows Riegle tax case revealed by SETH KANTOR

Warunning for the US Senate on Feb.10 1971. The check until 1972, several months later their divorce had become final on 1971and then she discovered it by accident. whit the potential threat for a charge. Riegle met with his ex wife. In a session, Lewis Hall Griffith agreed to settle the tax refund matter with immediate payment to her according by the News.

 

Signing Tax Check for Wife Wasn't Illegal, Riegle Says

Donald Riegle, who said he is confident people "are going to make a decision on the issues in November."

 

Disputed Tax Check Treated Gingerly by Esch and Riegle By Billy Bowles Free Press Staff Writer

In a joint appearance before the Economic Club of Detroit Monday night. US Senate opponents Donald Riegle 

and Marvin Esch invited top business leaders to compare their respective records, but both avoided mention of the controversy over Riegle's handling of a 1971 income tax rebate to himself and his estranged wife. 

However, prior to the speech, the candidates appeared at a press conference at which Esch alluded to a possibility that Riegle forged his wife's name to the $4.525 rebate check.

Esch, a Republican congressman from Ann Arbor, had been asked by a newsman whether he felt Riegle's handling of the tax matter was " in any way improper."

"I'm not in any way going to raise the question in the campaign." Esch replied, "and I'm not going to contment on the question of whether Mr. Riegle did or did not forge a check."

Riegle, a Democratic congressman from Flint, said he did nothing dishonest and doesn't think the issue will "have measurable bearing on the campaign. "Please turn to Page 2A. Col. 1

 

The Hit Man

Motown's Eddie Kedricks is profiled by Steve Holsey...[Kulchur, p. 9]

 

Sexpionage

The strage story of Judy Campbell Exner. JFK & the Mob.....[p.6]

 

WSU strike  

Wayne State employees agree to new contract [p. 3]

 

Film Groups

Independent film - lovers put together their own shows...[Kulchir,p. 11]

 

GeT Your Phone Deposit Back - p.3