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Blount Investigation Meant To Smear Young

Blount Investigation Meant To Smear Young image Blount Investigation Meant To Smear Young image
Parent Issue
Day
1
Month
October
Year
1976
OCR Text

 

 

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

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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 1 872 to 1 877 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."