Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 12

12A DETROIT FREE PRESSWEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1993 A MAYOR LIKE NO OTHER MS vie Young was a user and target of pressure Apf "tot'- Left: Young protests at the South African Embassy in Washington, D.C., in 1986. Below: He defies the House Committee on Un- I American Activities at a 1952 hearing. 1 1990 in Los Angeles, which has twice as many officers as Detroit and a much worse reputation for brutality. By his fifth term, Young was denouncing any criticism of police as an attack on his affirmative-action program. But there was much to criticize.

Young continued to defend longtime Chief William Hart even after he was sentenced to prison for embezzling $2.3 million from the department's secret service fund. Sent to prison in the same caper was Kenneth Weiner, Young's business partner, who had been a civilian deputy chief. Another close friend, police pilot Gene (Moon) Mullins, went to jail for obstructing an FBI investigation into misuse of the department's jet. Mullins was only a police officer, but he ordered around deputy chiefs. "I do work for the boss," he boasted on one FBI recording, referring to Young.

Last November, the beating death of a black motorist, Malice Green, served as a tragic reminder that Young had failed to complete the task he began 19 years earlier. Three white officers are facing felony charges in the death. But in March, the mayor had something to celebrate. A federal appeals court ruled that that his program to promote blacks to sergeant was no longer needed. After 19 years and many battles, the number of black and white sergeants finally had reached parity.

Black pride Young launched his final campaign in 1989 at a community center near the spot where the riot began in 1967. The Rev. Robert Smith introduced him with a stemwinder of a speech, asking eager supporters: "You remember that July? police brutality packed in apartments tired of being the last hired and the first fired. You remember all those Julys "Until the July that God sent a man named Coleman Alexander Young. Coleman Young stood in the ashes of the riot and offered himself for leadership and all the responsibility and the anxiety About half of Detroit's population was black when Young was elected in 1973, and he was hailed as a symbol of black liberation and self-rule.

"Behold the man," intoned the Rev. Charles Butler at Young's inaugural, making a biblical reference to Christ. Blacks, though, were as poorly represented in the nonuniform work force as they were in the police and fire "iiu 1 LEGACY, from Page 11A ecutor John O'Hair, suburbanites and anyone else who dared to cross him." An exquisite dresser, Young also likes big cars. He traveled the city in a Cadillac limousine, almost always sitting alone in the back seat. When criticized for the seemingly regal lifestyle, he responded: "Every previous mayor drove around in limousines, and I don't remember any of them with their ass hanging out." Few big city mayors have bulletproof limos.

Young had two. Young's chief foe during his first campaign for mayor was the Police Department. White cops regarded him as Public Enemy No. 1. Having grown up in Detroit, Young knew that blacks had suffered under what he called the department's "blackjack rule" well before the formation of the sinister STRESS (Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets) decoy unit that killed 17 black men, many of them under suspicious circumstances, during a three-year period in the early 1970s.

"Cops used to shoot black kids for fun," Young once recalled, referring to his childhood. "Detroit has as many law violators who wear blue uniforms and badges as it has wearing knit shirts and Superfly outfits," he said in 1973. While black residents made up about 50 percent of the city in 1974, they composed only 15 percent of the force. Running against Police Commissioner John Nichols, a career cop, Young vowed to disband STRESS and create a user-friendly department that reflected the citizens it served. On a single day just weeks after taking office in 1974, Young abolished STRESS, announced his affirmative-action program and unveiled his plan for police mini-stations across the city.

The police establishment protested vociferously. Young received countless threats on his life, and was lampooned with racist humor across the city. Unions filed lawsuits to block the hiring plan. At least one suit, by the Detroit Police Officers Association, is still pending. In summer 1976, budget problems forced Young to lay off nearly 1,000 cops, whose colleagues responded with a "blue flu" wildcat strike.

That same summer, a crime wave and gang violence swept the city, and a federal probe of some police executives led Young to go on TV to reassure the city that it had not careened out of control. Crime remained a huge issue throughout Young's tenure, but everyone agreed that systematic, racist brutality by the police had become a thing of the past. But he failed to eliminate the use of excessive force. In 1990, the city's losses on lawsuits stemming from alleged police assaults had reached $12.1 million higher than the $9 million recorded in 'I 4 if it "CL. File photos Young ran the most secretive big-city government in the nation.

On two occasions, high-ranking aides spent time in jail because Young refused a court order to disclose public documents. At various times, Young himself acknowledged serious problems with trash removal, the law department, public housing, emergency medical service and surplus food for the poor. Bus service was "damn near a shambles," he once said. City officials, he said at another time, made "screw-ups almost beyond compare" in the: handling of the Magnum Oil contract in the early 1980s, in which the city loaned $1 million to a minority-owned firm without council approval and al- See LEGACY, Page 13A The new mayor speaks at a prayer breakfast for him on Jan. 2, 1974.

The banner read: "Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me." TONY SPINA Detroit Free Press outsiders. "You know, if you believe you are nothing, then you're nothing," he shouted during a speech in his early days in office. "If you believe that you and your city are somebody, then we are somebody!" Slippery task Watts, Young's late friend and public works chief, once compared the mayor's early efforts to control the city bureaucracy to trying to catch a greased pig. "The minute ou catch it, it's gone," Watts said. i The mayor has tried to catch that greased pig for 20 years with mixed results.

Even loyal Young supporters complained often about the quality of city services. And citizens trying to obtain information were in for a fight: departments. The disparity became a major issue. "Blacks get the lowest end of the stick, the lowest jobs. We've been screwed in this town for years," charged Department of Public Works head Jimmie Watts.

Young vowed to place blacks Highlights DECEMBER: Sees his first biography, "Coleman Young and Detroit Politics: From Social Activist to Power Broker," a book partly financed by the Coleman A. Young Foundation. 19 8 9 JANUARY: Denies that he is the father of Joel Loving after a former appointee, Annivory Calvert, files paternity lawsuit. MARCH: Reverses policy and buys bulletproof vests for police officers. APRIL Misses Tigers Opening Day for the first time.

HAY: Accepts results of blood tests that report a probability of 99.99 percent that he fathered Joel Loving. Later, he agrees to pay $225-a-week child support and set up a $150,000 educational trust fund for his son. Applauds black students for their "heroic" takeover of the administration building to protest racism at Wayne State University. I Calls news anchor Bill Bonds "Mort" during TV chat, prompting Bonds to address the mayor as "Mr. Barrow." JULY: Invites reporters into the executive lavatory at City Hall to watch him produce a urine sample to start mandatory drug testing for police.

Sidesteps Bill Bonds' televised challenge to fight: "Just because he's sick doesn't mean I'm crazy." SEPTEMBER: Climbs into his limo after completing two blocks of the 1.2-mile-long Labor Day parade. NOVEMBER: Defeats Tom Barrow, 56 percent to 44 percent. DECEMBER: Defends his decision to acquire a police jet: "When you say no other city has a jet, that means no other city is coming to the 20th Century." Blasts reporters for participating in the "crucifixion" of Police Chief William Hart, who is under investigation with former civilian deputy chief Kenneth Weiner for looting an undercover operations fund. 19 9 0 JANUARY: Stonewalls questions about the private consulting firm he ran with Weiner, and orders bodyguards to remove reporters from the Fox Theatre when they persist in asking him about it. Drops an ominous hint at his swearing-in ceremony: "We're running short of money.

Smiles as Southwest Airlines Chairman Herb Kelleher compares him to Winston Churchill. FEBRUARY: Mourns the loss of the police jet, which crashed during a landing at City Airport three days after the City Council ordered the Young administration to sell it. MARCH: Denies he had trafficked in Krugerrands in an investment scheme with Weiner and accuses the FBI of giving Weiner "a license to steal" from the city by using Weiner as an informant. APRIL Agrees to add pollution controls to the incinerator after state shuts it down. years throughout city government, saying: means more at the top for blacks, for there ain't no shortage of blacks out there behind them garbage trucks." The mayor instituted an affirmative action program, hired blacks and wom-jen for top jobs and began working to see that minority-run firms received city business.

After 15 years, $132 million in city contracts was going to minority companies, more than in any city in the nation. In Detroit, the law firm handling city bonds was run by blacks, the cable television system was headed by a black man, some of the best developments involved black entrepreneurs. Young often preached to citizens that they must take control of their own destiny and never cede it to HE SAID IT On his philosophy of life: "I don't take myself seriously and can see humor in almost any situation, and perhaps smile more, and it seems like it's a wisecrack-type of attitude. But frankly, that's the way I view life. I'm smiling all the time.

You can find humor in almost any situation you can find. When you start taking yourself seriously I think you're a phony, really." On 1977 mayoral challenger Ernest Browne's self-description as a religious family man who was a former Boy Scout: "Well, shit, man, I was a Boy Scout And I suspect a higher ranking scout than he, because I was a junior assistant scoutmaster in my troop. Well, shit I'm a man now. I don't go around talking about all that shit I think I know as much about churches as he does. Here again, I'm very suspicious of some son- of-a-bitch who wears his religion on his sleeve." On looking out for No.

1: "What I've done is in my own self-interest It serves to validate my own personal sense of worth and dignity as a black person, as a poor person, a person of working class origin." On cussing: "Swearing is an art form. You can express yourself much more directly, much more exactly, much more succinctly, with properly used curse words.".