Tales Of The New Crown: Duggan Does Not Want National Guard To Help The Children Because It Might Remind The People Of Conyers

Duggan does not want anyone to remember that which no one will #sayhisname.

Duggan was uber mean to my Sweetie.

The local food banks have shuttered due to the cooties.

The homeless walk the streets in search of food because there is no more hustle.

The children who do not want to go into CPS to Foster Care are holding on, with very little support or advocacy because the schools have no emergency preparedness planning.

Just sharing, but it is hard for these Youth In Transition, exiting Foster Care.

They were isolated their entire lives, with the only known support system of institutionalization and psychotropic medication.

The daily meal pick up from the schools was not ever going to happen.

That is gas and travel, when people are told not to travel.

So, the schools went to a weekly pick up, but Gleaner's food delivery trucks were always short.

So, then, the students are told they will receive $200 special state food card, which is not a BRIDGE SNAP card, that have yet to arrive.

The City was supposed to set up counsel district community center sites to pick up food, but that program is not going very well, because those who have never experienced poverty have better access, because they own vehicles, where the old, the young, the lost, are not able to navigate such a transportation logistic system of moving the food from point A to point B.

Yes, the children of Detroit are in desperate need for any kind of assistance that is being offered, and food would be a start as we live in a food desert.

TCF Center hospital gets visit from Commanding General of U.S. Army North

#maytheheavensfall

Mayor Duggan rejects National Guard offer to distribute food in Detroit

Detroit missed a major opportunity this week when a Michigan National Guard offer to help distribute food in the city was rejected by Mayor Mike Duggan, who voiced concern that their presence on city streets could tear open old wounds from the 1967 riot, a prominent city pastor said Friday.

The Rev. Charles E. Williams II, senior pastor at Historic King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit and chairman of the Michigan chapter of the National Action Network, said he accepted a state offer of National Guard assistance with food distribution — only to see the plan rejected by the mayor at the 11th hour.

“That memory of tanks rolling down the streets is something we need to reverse,” Williams told the Free Press Friday. “We need new pictures. We need people giving out food.

"People need food. Nobody is going to run from the food because you've got a uniform on."

Duggan rejected the offer, saying the National Guard members were not needed because employees of the Detroit Department of Public Works could do the work if city volunteers were not available, said Tiffany Brown, a spokeswoman for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

The Michigan National Guard is helping with food distribution in Grand Rapids, Flint and Pontiac and is doing other humanitarian work in other cities around the state.

More: Michigan National Guard expands food bank support to Royal Oak

More: Trump approves federal funding for Michigan National Guard during pandemic

"I think it is a lost opportunity to move Detroit forward," Williams said, stressing that he is grateful for and highly satisfied with help from city public works employees to distribute food.

"We have so many sacred cows that we have not kicked over in this city, and they're usually about race," he said.

At a news conference on Thursday, Duggan said the main issue was protocol.

"The National Guard comes into cities in a deliberative process between the governor and the mayor," Duggan said. "They don't come into a city because a church doesn't have enough volunteers," and "ministers don't call in the National Guard," he said.

At the same time, Duggan acknowledged that the National Guard has already been working in the city during the pandemic, helping the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers convert the TCF Center into a field hospital.

The mayor said he has "enormous respect" for the National Guard.

Having said that, "there are a lot of people in this community who have a memory of the 1960s that is still painful, and it's still stressful," Duggan added.

Then-Gov. George Romney ordered the National Guard mobilized to Detroit in July 1967 amid five days of civil unrest and looting that left 43 people dead. Though frequently referred to as a riot, the disturbance is also known to many as the Detroit rebellion or uprising.

A police raid on an illegal after-hours bar was the immediate spark for the civil disturbance, but the riot also marked the release of years of building tension related to abuses by a nearly all-white Detroit police force and racial discrimination in jobs and housing.

Duggan said he first heard about the National Guard helping with food distribution at 5 o'clock Wednesday night, when he got a call from the governor's office saying Williams needed help distributing food. Duggan said the governor's office offered to send the National Guard if city forces were not available, and Duggan said he told them the city had it covered.

Williams described a much more drawn-out process that he said was initiated by the state.

He said he has been involved in distributing donated meals to Detroit residents since March 13, with the help of church and other volunteers, including social work students from the University of Michigan. It's a way of keeping people in their homes and out of the grocery stores during the coronavirus pandemic, while also assisting with the large poverty problem in Detroit, he said.

About two weeks ago, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist raised the possibility of making members of the National Guard available in Detroit during a phone call with several prominent Detroit pastors, Williams said.

Brown, Whitmer's spokeswoman, confirmed Gilchrist had an April 3 phone call with pastors at which an offer of National Guard help for Detroit was offered and discussed.

Williams said he and the other pastors had some concerns, and wanted assurances the Guard members would not be carrying guns or wearing vests or helmets. They received those assurances, he said.

Not long after that phone call, Williams learned he would be receiving a truckload of 10,000 cold meals for distribution in Detroit through a National Action Network source, and that donated meals would increase to 20,000 next week and even more in the coming weeks.

"We were slammed," said Williams, who added that many of his regular younger volunteers are working from home and older volunteers face too much risk from coronavirus to do the work.

That made the offer from the National Guard even more attractive because of the numbers of workers it could offer and because of its experience in disaster relief and logistics, their adherence to social distancing guidelines, and their access to and use of personal protective equipment, Williams said.

He requested help from the Guard, and after a series of phone calls, an official told him the National Guard had a waiting list of members wanting to volunteer in Detroit, he said.

Several high-ranking officers from the National Guard visited his church on Wednesday, where they scoped out the work and moved meals from the recently arrived truck to another truck, he said. The officers said they would have a large contingent at the church Thursday morning, ready to help distribute the food through neighborhood walk-up pickups, drive-by pickups and home delivery.

"For me, that was kind of overwhelming," said Williams, who said he had not been invited to any city meeting or conference call about assisting with the pandemic and was not aware the city Department of Public Works might be available.

Williams said he received a phone call at 8 p.m. Wednesday from a National Guard colonel saying he regretted they would not be able to help after all on Thursday, though he could not say why.

Then he started getting calls from the city, saying workers from the Department of Public Works could do the needed work the next morning.

He was not about to turn away the help, but at that time the city employees had not had any orientation and did not even know what they were supposed to be doing for work that was supposed to start the next morning, Williams said.

Conversely, the National Guard had experience with such work. "This is what they train to do," he said. "We're in the middle of a pandemic."

Williams said he has not been close with Duggan and did not know whether the mayor felt slighted, did not want his project to proceed as planned because of his involvement or was worried about having the National Guard visible in Detroit.

"Remember, the National Guard was not the only culprit in the 1967 riots — it was also the Michigan State Police and the DPD (Detroit Police Department)," he said.

Williams said another big change since 1967 is that so many Detroit residents have gained military experience, including with the National Guard.

Capt. Andrew Layton, a spokesman for the Michigan National Guard, said more than 300 of its members live and work in Detroit. The Guard has helped out in Detroit on numerous occasions prior to the recent work on the TCF Center, including the Major League Baseball All-Star Game at Comerica Park in 2005 and the Super Bowl at Ford Field in 2006.

"The Michigan National Guard is always ready to serve," and "always proud to be part of the Detroit community," he said.

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Will The Ghost Of Patrick Duggan Haunt Mike Duggan For What He Did To Detroit?

Legacies are important and should never be bleachbitted.

Mike Duggan's father's decisions may set case precedent to hold those accountable for what was done to Detroit.

Retired senior judge Patrick J. Duggan, father of Detroit mayor, dies

Patrick Duggan

Retired senior U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Duggan, the father of Detroit's mayor, has died, the city announced Wednesday.

Duggan, 86, passed away at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday at Angela Hospice in Livonia following a lengthy illness. He was surrounded in his final days by his wife, four sons, daughter-in-law and 13 grandchildren, the family said.

Duggan, who was nominated in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan, retired as a federal judge in 2015 after three decades on the bench. His son, Mike Duggan, is serving his second term as Detroit's mayor.

The judge was known for his relentless pursuit of dispensing justice equally regardless of status and his strong value for family, son Tim Duggan told The Detroit News.

"I couldn't feel more blessed that I had him as an example as a dad," said Duggan, 53, of Ohio, Duggan's youngest son and his father's "stated favorite."

"Honestly, I don't know how he did it. He managed to be at home at dinner every night and coach Little League team when doing all the other things he was doing," he added. "As important as his legal career was, nothing ever came before the family."

Mike Duggan, the city said Wednesday, had spent the last few weeks splitting his time between work and Livonia, spending time with his father and other relatives, in some cases multiple times per day.

Patrick Duggan was a Wayne County judge for 10 years prior to moving to U.S. District Court beginning in 1977, following an appointment to the position in 1976 by Gov. William Milliken.

He was officially appointed to the U.S. District Court in October 1986 and assumed judicial service in January 1987, according to the court's website.

Prior to his federal appointment and time on the bench in Wayne County, he'd been a senior partner at Brashear, Brashear, Mies and Duggan, a private law firm in Livonia.

Duggan was born Sept. 28, 1933. His father, Patrick J. Duggan Sr., left the family farm in Kilkenny, Ireland, at the age of 18 to come to Detroit.  His mother, Mabel Kelly, was the daughter of Irish and German immigrants who also made Detroit their home, according to an obituary prepared by the family.

Duggan grew up on Detroit's east side and attended St. Clare de Montefalco Elementary School, then De LaSalle High School.


In 1951, he left to earn an undergraduate degree at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. He worked his way through school, first as a loader at a nearby dairy and then for the U.S. Postal Service, his family said. He graduated in 1955 with a bachelor's degree in economics.

He then returned to Detroit and completed his juris doctorate at the University of Detroit School of Law.

Among his federal cases, Duggan sent former Detroit Red Wings player Bob Probert and ex-Detroit Tiger pitching great Denny McClain to prison.

The judge in 1997 handed down a sentence of more than eight years to McLain for raiding raiding the pension fund of his former company and putting it out of business.

In deciding the sentence, Duggan had agreed with prosecutors that McLain should be held to a higher "public trust" standard.

As an owner of Peet Packing Co., McLain misused pension funds, driving the company into bankruptcy. He spent the pension money to pay personal debts and luxuries for himself that included a motorcycle and condominium in Puerto Rico."It was this abuse of trust that significantly facilitated the crime," Duggan said during McLain's sentencing.

Other cases he's known for, family noted, include a ruling against the Oakland University after a student with intellectual disabilities was denied the right to live in a student dorm there. The decision "allowed Mikah Fialka-Feldman his rightful place – in school and in society," the family said.

A 2000 ruling in favor of the University of Michigan’s use of affirmative action in its admissions process made its way to the United States Supreme Court.  Duggan ruled that diversity could be considered a compelling government interest — a principle that the Supreme Court eventually affirmed.

Senior U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn first met Patrick Duggan while he was city attorney for Livonia and Cohn was practicing law.

“We developed a friendship that continued through his service on the Wayne County Circuit Court and his appointment as a judge of this court," Cohn said in a statement provided by the court. "He was always calm, thoughtful and fair minded. Absent from his makeup was any prejudice or bias. We will all miss him.”

Chief U.S. District Judge Denise Page Hood added Duggan was "fair minded and respected the law."

"He had a good sense of judges as a group and I valued his opinion on issues facing our court and judges," she said. "He saw many changes in the law and society during his judicial tenure."

Hewas a past president of the Livonia Bar Association, a trustee of the board for Madonna University in Livonia and a teacher in its paralegal program. Earlier on, he held roles as a past president of the Michigan Jaycees and a chairman of the Livonia Family YMCA.

In retirement, Duggan enjoyed more time with family, as well as Joan, his wife of 63 years, whom he called "my best friend, my supporter through all things, and the most important person in my life.”

Duggan will be buried at Parkview Memorial Cemetery in Livonia in a private family service. A public memorial celebration of his life will be held later this year when the health risks associated with the coronavirus have eased, the city added in a statement.

He was preceded in death by parents Patrick and Mabel Duggan; sisters Margaret Duggan, Mary Cassabon and Kay Murray; and son Robert Duggan. He is survived by his wife Joan; son Michael; son Daniel and his spouse Sharlene; son James and his spouse Stephanie; and son Timothy and his spouse Albina; thirteen grandchildren; three great grandchildren.

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