Okay, so your Mayor is about to head upstate for Textual Healin'. Unemployment is rampant. Burned out vacant houses sit on every corner. Dropout rates are high. You have a sorry excuse for an NFL football team called the Lions. Needless to say, times aren't sweet for the fine people of Detroit.
Just when you thought things couldn't get any more depressing, or odd for the Motor City, here's another blast of extremely poor PR, courtesy of City Councilwoman Monica Conyers. I so wish I was making this up, but even my imagination isn't that vivid.
Long story short, Conyers was caught on video in an argument with the City Council President. In a show of supreme adulthood, when her point failed to get across, Conyers repeatedly belittled the President by referring to him as Shrek. Yeah, that Shrek.
The Detroit News later taped a group of schoolchildren bought to the Council for a tour, who confronted Conyers about her juvenile act. Hilarity ensues. Or not.
Shortly thereafter, Conyers gave a followup interview with the Detroit News further explaining her actions. Sorry, but they wouldn't let me embed that one, so watch it later. No, your eyes and ears to not deceive you, this is a real life elected official, channelling Deborah Wilson.[1]
I've watched these videos about a dozen times now, and I'm still not 100% convinced that this isn't some belated April Fool's Joke or a bad Cedric The Entertainer Presents outtake. One indisputable fact is that Conyers is indeed a real, living, breathing, and duly elected Detroit City Councilwoman, so no trickery there. And it turns out this little outburst ain't the even first, or the worst of her indiscretions. Peep this incident, from February.
An aide to Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick filed a police report Thursday claiming Monica Conyers, the short-tempered City Council president pro tem threatened to get a gun and shoot him at a city pension board meeting.And hey, since I'm piling on, here's another one from a couple of years back just for good measure. Turns out this chick doesn't just make hollow threats, she will take off her earrings and whoop a chick's ass over a Rum and Coke if so inclined. She's just extra gully like that.
But a spokesman for Conyers says she was the real victim in the hubbub.
According to the police report filed Thursday by DeDan Milton, an assistant to Kilpatrick, Conyers "threatened to shoot (Milton) with her gun" and made "several aggressive movements" toward Milton "in a threatening manner."
Milton also reported to police that Conyers said she would "have my brothers (mess) you up."
David Clark, chair of Detroit's General Retirement System, backed up Milton's account.
"She ran at him," Clark told The Detroit News. "She told him she would get a gun if she had to and that she has four brothers and they would whup his a-- if she asked them."
In his police report, Milton said members of Conyers' staff, and others at the meeting, had to restrain her. But Sam Riddle, Conyers' chief of staff, said Milton was the one who had to be restrained. Riddle, who said he witnessed the squabble, said Milton started it by telling Conyers to shut up -- and used an expletive.
Monica Conyers who will take a seat on the Detroit City Council next month -- got into a fight with another woman at a bar, police sources told the Free Press on Thursday.Seriously folks, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.
The councilwoman-elect's spokesman, Sam Riddle, confirmed the confrontation but claimed Monica Conyers was randomly attacked by a drunken woman at a party and was forced to defend herself.
Conyers, 41, who was elected to the City Council in November, filed a police report on Wednesday, accusing the other woman -- identified by police as Rebecca Mews of Walled Lake -- of attacking her early Tuesday morning at Crossroads Lounge on Livernois in Detroit.
According to one police source, Mews alleged Conyers arrived at a party at the bar and began asking patrons to buy her a drink.
When no one did, she approached a man at the bar and said, "I know you're going to buy me a drink," the source said, citing Mews' police report.
Mews, who was with the man at the bar, wasn't pleased, and the two women began to fight, the report said. The women each say the other struck first.
And just in case you were wondering... "hmmmm, Conyers... Michigan... could that be...."
Yup, Monica Conyers is the wife of US Congressman John Conyers.
Jesus help us all. For the love of all things precious Monica, please H.S.D.
Michelle Obama is crying inside.
Question: Is this the most ignant elected official you've ever heard of or is it just me? How do folks like Conyers and Kwame Kilpatrick (family names aside) get elected in the first place? If you live in Detroit, why the hell haven't you sold your rapidly depreciating home and moved to Windsor yet?
Conyers answers to her conduct [Detroit Free Press]
Report says Monica Conyers made threat [Detroit News]
Monica Conyers in Fight At Bar [Detroit Free Press]
[1] Name that TV show.
