Water Resistance Trial Underway in Detroit

[Judi Lynn]

November 20, 2015
Water Resistance Trial Underway in Detroit

by Bill Quigley

A jury trial is underway in Detroit for human rights activists arrested for blocking trucks which were going to cutoff water to low-income families.

On July 18, 2014, dozens of people successfully blocked the trucks of the Homrich Inc., a private wrecking company that the City of Detroit contracts with to carry out water shutoffs. The trucks were leaving to cutoff water for Detroiters who were more than $150 past due on payments. After an eight hour blockade nine people were arrested.

Those on trial said civil disobedience was their only option to address the grave public health crisis of mass water shutoffs, since the City of Detroit was under emergency management, which effectively strips all elected officials of decision-making power. One of the people on trial is Bill Wylie-Kellermann, pastor of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Detroit. He told The Detroit News “It was, at the time, the last vestige of democracy in the city.”

Defendant Marian Kramer of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and Highland Park Human Right Coalition highlighted what she sees as the irony of the City criminally charging and prosecuting defendants for nonviolent defense of Detroiters’ right to water. “The true crime is that thousands of people who are struggling to pay their water bills are being deprived of a basic necessity of life. Instead of implementing the Water Affordability Plan, which would tie water rates to income and which Detroit City Council supports, the Mayor chooses to shut off the water of thousands of Detroiters. Who is the real criminal?”

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/20/water-resistance-trial-underway-in-detroit/

[PatrickforO]

1. Clearly the real criminals here are the Republicans who are in control of Detroit.

Of course, Michigan doesn't really have democracy any more. It hasn't in some time.

[Demeter]

2. Detroit's been the state's whipping boy for decades--all the cities have suffered

Which is stupid, since cities were the economic engines of the state. Now, Michigan is slowly consuming the profits that the cities generated, supporting the corruption of a legislature which cannot pass a balanced budget, nor raise the taxes need to maintain infrastructure, nor provide education the children, nor any other of the useful functions of a political entity.