Miller’s place two blocks away,
was almost entirely empty.
A curious, rather bookish kid according to his mother, Aaron had gone to Brush Park to explore, as boys could and should be
able to do. But someone had killed him, and now Aaron’s curiosity was stilled. Gerald Diaz walked towards the Cobo Center
slowly and in a decidedly unenthusiastic mood. In spite of real strides towards community engagement, with involvement around
organisations like the Luther Bell Food Patch, and with cannabis use for medical purposes legal in the state of Michigan,
the old police orthodoxy was still there. Don’t talk, arrest with Zero Tolerance as the ultimate Holy Grail. But that, to
Gerald’s way of thinking, was one of the things that was perpetuating the gang/drug lifestyle. Popping up elsewhere when the
heat got too strong was becoming a game with some of the gangs. To take back the inner city, everyone needed to be on board,
and that included the gangs, the crack dealers and the junkies. It was the only way to prevent ‘godfathers’ of drug supply
from rising to prominence as they had done in the past; as they continued to do.
Engaging with local people, even users and gang thugs, was possible. Martha Bell had her own way, and it worked. Or rather,
it could work. Gerald pulled his Lucky out of the corner of his mouth and breathed out smoke into the frozen air. Inside the
Cobo, Leonard Crosby had just taken a session preaching his gospel of Zero Tolerance. All the foreign officers would be talking
about it. From a policing point of view, it was easier than doing it Gerald’s way, Martha’s way.
Gerald walked up the steps towards the glass and concrete building and saw that Crosby’s session had already ended. A big
group of officers were braving the sub-zero temperatures to have a smoke. They were all talking and laughing, most of them
swinging their arms around or stamping their feet in an attempt to keep themselves warm. Over to one side, alone except for
his compatriot, was the Turk, Inspector İkmen. Gerald was wondering why he and his colleague were set apart from the others
when he saw that they were not actually on their own at all. Ezekiel Goins was with them, and he was speaking very earnestly.
‘Grant T. Miller was a foreman on the line,’ the old man said. ‘In actual fact he was
the
foreman on the line. Him and his boys, they called theirselves; they was like to the Ku Klux Klan. You know who they are,
son?’
İkmen did, but he had to explain it to Süleyman. ‘The Klan were . . . well, they saw themselves as sort of white Christian knights,’
he said. ‘They intimidated and killed black people in the south of America.’
‘Here they called theirselves the Black Legion. They didn’t like the Jews neither, nor the Hispanics nor us,’ Ezekiel Goins
said. ‘If anybody tells you that all stopped back in the 1930s here in Detroit, then they’re lying. Miller, in spite of having
a Jewish pa, was at the base of it. The blue-eyed boy whose daddy made suits for Henry Ford. Imagine! A Jew making clothes
for that Jew-hater! Everyone turned a blind eye, everyone. Them riots in ’67, they was about that kind of stuff. People’d
had enough.’
It was all very interesting in terms of Detroit history, but because İkmen knew that it was leading up to a request to find
out who had killed his son back in the seventies, Ezekiel Goins’ story was rather anxiety-provoking. The old man was clearly
obsessed, for obvious reasons: his son had been killed. But that didn’t make the Turkish side of it any easier for the two
officers. Ezekiel Goins had approached them with ‘You Turks, you kin, you gonna make it all right now.’
‘But then after ’67 and into the seventies, Miller went easy on the blacks. He had to. Mayor Young was black hisself and not
any understanding of white folk. No one was playing the white game, Miller’s game, no more, you understand?’
was almost entirely empty.
A curious, rather bookish kid according to his mother, Aaron had gone to Brush Park to explore, as boys could and should be
able to do. But someone had killed him, and now Aaron’s curiosity was stilled. Gerald Diaz walked towards the Cobo Center
slowly and in a decidedly unenthusiastic mood. In spite of real strides towards community engagement, with involvement around
organisations like the Luther Bell Food Patch, and with cannabis use for medical purposes legal in the state of Michigan,
the old police orthodoxy was still there. Don’t talk, arrest with Zero Tolerance as the ultimate Holy Grail. But that, to
Gerald’s way of thinking, was one of the things that was perpetuating the gang/drug lifestyle. Popping up elsewhere when the
heat got too strong was becoming a game with some of the gangs. To take back the inner city, everyone needed to be on board,
and that included the gangs, the crack dealers and the junkies. It was the only way to prevent ‘godfathers’ of drug supply
from rising to prominence as they had done in the past; as they continued to do.
Engaging with local people, even users and gang thugs, was possible. Martha Bell had her own way, and it worked. Or rather,
it could work. Gerald pulled his Lucky out of the corner of his mouth and breathed out smoke into the frozen air. Inside the
Cobo, Leonard Crosby had just taken a session preaching his gospel of Zero Tolerance. All the foreign officers would be talking
about it. From a policing point of view, it was easier than doing it Gerald’s way, Martha’s way.
Gerald walked up the steps towards the glass and concrete building and saw that Crosby’s session had already ended. A big
group of officers were braving the sub-zero temperatures to have a smoke. They were all talking and laughing, most of them
swinging their arms around or stamping their feet in an attempt to keep themselves warm. Over to one side, alone except for
his compatriot, was the Turk, Inspector İkmen. Gerald was wondering why he and his colleague were set apart from the others
when he saw that they were not actually on their own at all. Ezekiel Goins was with them, and he was speaking very earnestly.
‘Grant T. Miller was a foreman on the line,’ the old man said. ‘In actual fact he was
the
foreman on the line. Him and his boys, they called theirselves; they was like to the Ku Klux Klan. You know who they are,
son?’
İkmen did, but he had to explain it to Süleyman. ‘The Klan were . . . well, they saw themselves as sort of white Christian knights,’
he said. ‘They intimidated and killed black people in the south of America.’
‘Here they called theirselves the Black Legion. They didn’t like the Jews neither, nor the Hispanics nor us,’ Ezekiel Goins
said. ‘If anybody tells you that all stopped back in the 1930s here in Detroit, then they’re lying. Miller, in spite of having
a Jewish pa, was at the base of it. The blue-eyed boy whose daddy made suits for Henry Ford. Imagine! A Jew making clothes
for that Jew-hater! Everyone turned a blind eye, everyone. Them riots in ’67, they was about that kind of stuff. People’d
had enough.’
It was all very interesting in terms of Detroit history, but because İkmen knew that it was leading up to a request to find
out who had killed his son back in the seventies, Ezekiel Goins’ story was rather anxiety-provoking. The old man was clearly
obsessed, for obvious reasons: his son had been killed. But that didn’t make the Turkish side of it any easier for the two
officers. Ezekiel Goins had approached them with ‘You Turks, you kin, you gonna make it all right now.’
‘But then after ’67 and into the seventies, Miller went easy on the blacks. He had to. Mayor Young was black hisself and not
any understanding of white folk. No one was playing the white game, Miller’s game, no more, you understand?’
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