Metro Detroit residents weigh in on Detroit corruption trial

Detroit — From barber shops to bus stops and boardrooms, few Metro Detroiters were shocked by the convictions of former Detroit Kwame Kilpatrick and contractor Bobby Ferguson.

To some, the convictions were the culmination of a long persecution of the former mayor. To many others, though, the verdict was exactly what both deserved.

"The gangster mayor going to be with the gangsters," said an angry Sherman Foster who stood in a slow rain Monday waiting to board a bus outside the Rosa Parks Transportation Center in downtown Detroit. "I knew he was going to get some time."

The trial that began in September was at times racially charged. But the reaction didn't seem to break along racial lines in the city and suburbs. Many blacks as well as whites cheered the convictions.

Outside the federal courthouse downtown, Detroiter Craig Davis shouted at Ferguson as he made his way from the Penobscot Building to the federal courthouse to hear the verdict.

"That's what you get for cheating the people," Davis yelled.

Stacey Logan voted for Kilpatrick twice and said he never seemed sorry.

"He could have really taken the city places," Logan said.

Kilpatrick's supporters also didn't mince words. As the former mayor waited for a ride outside a federal courtroom Monday, Tony Weaver of Detroit shouted, "Keep your head up."

Detroit minister and activist Malik Shabazz said he's "in pain" and "hurt" for the Kilpatrick family, which he said he still loves and supports.

"It's very sad. I feel for the mayor and his family and all who love him," he said.

"I think lost in all of this is the great things that he was doing for the city. Nobody is talking about that. All of that is forgotten."

Kilpatrick's Facebook page was flooded with encouraging words from supporters. Many said they were praying for him. Others decried the government.

"Another lynching of a black brother! Can't believe this mess! Keep ur head up and I will keep u in ur family in my prayers!! This just madness.....," wrote Sandrena SimoneCazhmere Brown.

Residents split

Ronald Carter, 55, a city resident and real estate developer, said the verdict against Kilpatrick is troubling because he had so much potential.

"For someone to come up on Dexter Avenue and then got to go to Lansing and then get there and start his corruption there," Carter said. "He showed sheer arrogance. I was not shocked by the guilty verdicts. I'm not surprised."

Detroit filmmaker Ariel Payne cheered the verdicts.

"Woe that falls the shepherd that feeds himself and not his flock," said Payne, 24.

Shawn Duffy, a Grosse Pointe resident who works downtown, said he hopes the chapter is closed on a sad piece of the city's history.

"It's good to put this chapter behind us so hopefully the city can move on," Duffy said.

After the verdict Kilpatrick went to the home of his mother, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, on LaSalle Street, near West Grand Boulevard.

Two Detroit police squad cars stationed outside the home soon swelled to six after someone in the home complained about the crowd of media gathered in the street. Detroit Police spokeswoman Sgt. Eren Stephens said the squad cars were sent in response to two 911 calls.

Neighbor Gwen Christian tied two heart-shaped balloons that said "I Love You" to a tree outside the Kilpatricks' house.

"I'm just here to show my support for Kwame and let him know that I love him and his family," Christian said.

"I don't think he deserves 20 years. It should have been a verdict of not guilty."

Detroit resident Sanford Asalei Giles, a friend of the Kilpatrick family, said: "I don't want him to be guilty, but he is. I am not happy that he's guilty but I am happy that we found justice. It would have been a travesty if they had gotten away with this."

Geneva Young, 58, of Detroit, said Kilpatrick got too much power too fast. "I kind of liked the guy, but wrong is wrong," she said.

Local ministers were mixed in their reactions.

"I have a sense of how devastating it must be for him but especially his family," Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Gumbleton said. "I can't imagine what his children will go through. I feel bad but he is not a person lacking in intelligence. He knew what he was doing."

The verdict is sad for Kilpatrick, his family and his potential, said the Rev. V. Lonnie Peek, assistant pastor at Greater Christ Baptist Church in Detroit.

"It's like an anchor whose chain has broken," Peek said.

"Now that the trial is over with, Detroit can move forward to deal with the issues that are in front of it."

'Eye-opener'

In suburban Detroit the jury's verdict was a hot topic as well.

"The people in Detroit have suffered for a long time … finally they are doing something about it — finally," said Marie Newcomb of Ferndale.

Beth Anderson, 24, of Dearborn Heights watched the verdict on TV and called it "awesome."

"It's sad the state Detroit is in, and he had a lot to do with that," she said.

Delores Flagg, an artist from Southfield, called the verdict "an eye-opener" and a reflected Kilpatrick's departure from his duties as an elected official.

"Humility fell short and the ugly face of greed, the arrogance, took the forefront," she said. "The whole objective of working for the people of the city of Detroit… went out the window."

bwilliams@detroitnews.com

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Staff Writers Kim Kozlowski and Jennifer Chambers contributed