Woman's land bank home robbed, another viral clip on Detroit's freeways, Man sentenced for targeting couple
Grandmother's Land Bank house broken into with $20K in building materials stolen
Michelle Danner bought a blighted Detroit property on Taylor Street from the Land Bank Authority in April of 2020. She is currently renting a residence in Warren, she hoped to create a permanent home for her and her four young grandchildren.
WEDNESDAY NEWS HIT - For Michelle Danner, 2021 was going to be the year she moved into a freshly rehabbed and renovated home that she had spent years working toward so she could house her four young grandchildren.
Instead, more than $20,000 worth of materials were stolen from the Detroit Land Bank house, leaving Danner with nothing to show for her years of work.
"This year I was really ready to go in and get it done and then this happened," she said. "This was so devastating."
Danner purchased the blighted Detroit property on Taylor Street from the Land Bank Authority in April of 2020. But last week, just as the remodel was going to see some major progress, thieves broke in and took the hinges off the doors, countertops, cabinets, drywall, a generator, toilet, sink, floor tiles, and even a bathtub.
"I am not rich, I work hard for what I have, and it's unfortunate someone would just take it without any regard," said Danner.
This isn't the first land bank property to get robbed this month. Detroit police, who have already received a report from Danner, are also investigating the theft of materials out of another home on Parker Street in East Indian Village. At that property, Porsche Richards said she bought the house for $1,000 and started working on it the day she closed in June 2020.
But for Danner, the real heartbreak she feels is for her grandkids who will have to wait much longer to call their house a home.
"What I've been looking forward to the most, is having a nice quiet day and just feeling like it is home," said Skylar Danner.
"It makes me feel sad mad because they just broke into a house my grandma put a lot of money for stuff, took it and left," said Grace Gates.
"We work hard for things and people just take it away from you," said Michelle.
>>There is a GoFundMe set up to help the grandmother. CLICK HERE to donate.
The Land Bank does provide discounted security to those renovating properties - HERE.
Warren man gets 4-10 years for targeting Black couple
After nearly a year of worry and fear for their lives, the Hall family can settle in peacefully to their Warren home. The man that had terrorized them for their display of a Black Lives Matter sign amid a tumultuous election season has been sentenced to multiple years in prison.
A Macomb County Circuit Court judge gave Michael Frederick Jr. a four to 10-year sentence this week after the 25-year-old slashed their tires, wrote derogatory graffiti on their pickup truck, and shot a gun into their house. Frederick Jr. said he did it because of the couple's BLM support.
"You should respect people for who they are and just go on," Eddie Hall said. "Ok, You got your viewpoint, I got my viewpoint. Let’s agree to disagree."
Black Warren couple says they forgive man who racially targeted them
The 25-year-old shot at the Hall family's home, slashed tires on one of their cars and wrote racist graffiti on their pickup truck last September. He told the judge he did it all because he was incensed over the Halls' Black Lives Matter sign.
Frederick's father was also charged as an accessory to the crime and evidence tampering and cut a deal with the prosecutors to avoid serious jail time. He will instead pay $3,000 in restitution. "What was meant for our harm, God turned it for our good," Candace Hall said. "And I say that because neighbors came out of their houses, ones we didn’t see before and we were able to meet the people.
New Baltimore water supply nearly poisoned by mislabeled acid
While preparing to add fluoride into the city's water supply, New Baltimore officials said they very nearly added sulfuric acid to the system instead after a labeling error by the manufacturer. The water treatment plant employees caught the issue before it could turn catastrophic.
"There are some mistakes that are not allowed to happen and this is a mistake they are not allowed to make," said Chris Hiltunen, superintendent of the water treatment plant that supplies about 14,000 people with water.
Detroit-based business PVS Chemicals has supplied chemicals for mixing to New Baltimore for years. Typically, it arrives in blue 55-gallon drums. At the treatment plant, the fluoride is mixed into a day tank being fed into the water supply. That was supposed to happen in July. But as soon as the pump turned on, "a pretty substantial reaction" occurred.
The tanks, which were labeled fluoride, actually contained 93% sulfuric acid - a substance that destroys skin, lungs, and teeth, and is known to be corrosive. PVS says it was an isolated incident and found no other barrels that were mislabeled. However, the state ordered New Baltimore to "secure chemicals from alternative suppliers."
Video catches man joyriding while chained to top of SUV on Detroit freeways
A lot happens on the highways in the Motor City, in fact, the term "Only in Detroit" was coined for some of them. But the latest incident is at another level, entirely. Video of a man chained to the top of a car, appearing to joyride on the Lodge freeway caught fire online. Lonnie Webster, a barber on Detroit’s west side saw it happen Monday night.
"I've been seeing a lot of crazy things but that one right there is top five," said Webster who witnessed it. "There is a guy on top of the car and I'm like, 'No.'" He said he thought it was a mummy. It was no mummy, it was a man in chains and ropes strapped to the top of an Escalade SUV.
"He was doing about 85 because I was playing catch-up," Webster said. "It looked like he was locked in, in case he fell off or something like that." The man on top was ducking and dodging overpasses from I-94 to the Davison. "I saw him duck a couple of times and then I was praying I didn't (get his) brains on my windshield," Webster said.
Lonnie’s got some theories why someone would pull off this stunt, thinking it has something to do with topping the "We on the Lodge with it" joyriding viral video. Since then, there have been escalating dangerous driving antics that Lonnie says have been done for Instagram clout or for other social media. From what we understand there is no police investigation yet. Police say the driver will probably pop up again pulling another stunt.
Detroit police shut down another business after quadruple shooting
Detroit police have shut down a southwest-based bar after a fatal shooting at the business happened Monday morning, well after it should have closed up for the night. Red's Park-Inn Bar on Central was the scene of a quadruple shooting that injured three in addition to killing a 23-year-old man.
Interim police chief James White was at the bar Tuesday afternoon to make an example of the establishment, which has had 42 calls to the location since 2016. According to police, an altercation between a group around 2 a.m. escalated into a later incident when two suspects traveling through an alley open-fired on a crowd at the business.
An investigation into the shooting is ongoing and Detroit police believe they have identified the suspects. But the added measures from shutting down the bar are part of a new string of follow-up investigations by Detroit police hoping to root out the conditions that allow crime to occur.
Earlier this month, a gas station was shut down for being unlicensed. Last month, a banquet hall was shut down for also not having a license. Shootings at both of these places preceded the follow-up investigation.
What else we're watching
- Jack Morris, a former pitcher and game analyst for the Detroit Tigers apologized during a baseball game against the Los Angeles Angels for making an apparent racist joke about Shohei Ohtani.
- Governor Gretchen Whitmer is expected to sign a bill she previously pocket vetoed that concerned legalizing a path for one-time drunken drivers to set aside their conviction. According to the bill, the offender's incident must not have injured or killed someone.
- Officials are reviewing Mackinac Bridge security measures following a bomb threat at the structure earlier this summer. They are considering upping penalties in the wake of bomb threats.
- A Gold Star family of a soldier killed in Afghanistan don't believe the U.S.'s withdrawal from the sliding country was in vain, even as the world watches the Taliban regain control and revert years of progress in a matter of weeks.
- For 15-year-old Denzel Lane, it's past time he got back in the classroom. But before school starts, he decided it was time to get the shot. "I'm glad that I took the vaccine," he says. Read why here.
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Daily Forecast
It's going to be a warm and muggy Wednesday with a chance of storms due to the remnants of hurricane Fred passing over Ohio today. However, those storms will be spotty at best. Temperatures will be in the mid-80s today as well.
Alabama runs out of ICU beds as southern states slammed with COVID-19 cases
Multiple southern states are grappling with a shortage of ICU beds and hospital capacity as COVID-19 cases continue to spike across the U.S.
The country is seeing the coronavirus storming back, driven by a combination of the highly contagious delta variant and lagging vaccination rates, especially in the South and other rural and conservative parts of the country. New cases nationwide are averaging about 123,000 per day, a level last seen in early February, and deaths are running at over 500 a day, turning the clock back to May.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said hospitalizations continue to rise with more than 2.5 million new admissions between Aug. 1 and Aug. 15.