Article

Ernest Green, the homecoming Grand Marshall

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MSU homecoming Grand Marshall, Ernest Green, sat in on a special screening of the documentary The Road to Little Rock. The documentary tells the courageous story of one visionary judge and nine determined teenagers who are now known as The Little Rock Nine. Ernest Green, who was one of the nine students that were a part of this historic movement and subject of the film, talked about his groundbreaking time at Michigan State. “Any student coming here should see this as a lifetime opportunity and its more than going to classes, it’s getting to know people and building relationships,” said Green.

Government

Bill reducing penalties for underage drinking one step closer to becoming reality

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By CAITLIN DeLUCA
Capital News Service
LANSING — A bill to lessen penalties on minors caught with alcohol will get a hearing in the House Criminal Justice Committee next Tuesday. . The bill, which passed almost unanimously in the Senate this March, states that a Minor in Possession (MIP) charge would be reduced from a misdemeanor to a civil infraction on the first offense. Currently, people under 21 who are caught drinking are charged with a misdemeanor that can sometimes be expunged from their record if they complete probation. Probation includes random testing, substance abuse counseling, monthly reporting, a $100 fine, court and probation costs and costs for testing and treatment.

Diversity Issues

Dogowners can sue for emotional distress, judge rules

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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — The owners of a dog shot and seriously wounded by a Corrections Department investigator can sue the state for emotional distress and mental anguish damages under federal civil rights law, a judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Gershwin Drain rejected the state’s argument that the owners, Erica Moreno and Katti Putman, would be entitled only to economic damages if they prove that the investigator acted unconstitutionally. The investigator, Ronald Hughes, several state troopers and a Flint police officer on a multiagency team went to the wrong house in Flint while searching for a fugitive in June 2014, according to court documents. They had an arrest warrant for the fugitive. Hughes mistakenly went into the backyard of the fugitive’s next-door neighbors, where he saw 58-pound Clohe, a 15-year-old pit bull mix, coming out the door and shot her in the face, the decision said.

Business & Economy

State groups strengthen police, community ties

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By COLLIN KRIZMANICH
Capital News Service
LANSING — As communities across the country confront mistrust between police and citizens, organizations across Michigan are working to build relationships that officials hope can avoid unrest when something goes wrong. For two decades, parts of the state have formed trust-building initiatives to ensure lines of communication are open to address incidents such as police shootings in Ferguson, Missouri, or North Charleston, South Carolina. “It’s very important that these relationships are being built and maintained, because it’s very challenging to build a relationship in the midst of a crisis,” said Patrick Miles Jr., a U.S. attorney who serves as co-chair on the Grand Rapids Advocates and Leaders for Police and Community Trust. “It can be detrimental if no relationship is there.”

The group, one of five so-called ALPACTs across Michigan, includes law enforcement officials, prosecutors, local government officials, faith-based leaders, advocacy groups and individuals from the local community. Other regions with ALPACTs are Detroit, Saginaw, Flint and Benton Harbor.

Diversity Issues

No immediate action planned on sexual orientation bill

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By JORDAN BRADLEY
Capital News Service
LANSING—While leaders of the Republican majority in the Legislature say there will be no vote on the issue before the Nov. 3 election, Democrats have introduced a proposal to add sexual orientation and gender identity or expression to the state’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act. The law already applies to discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations based on race, religion, sex, age, marital status, height and weight. Sponsors of the Democrats’ bill include Sens. Rebekah Warren of Ann Arbor, Glenn Anderson of Westland, Steven Bieda of Warren, Virgil Smith of Detroit and Gretchen Whitmer of East Lansing.

Elections & Politics

Michigan underground newspapers fueled political activism before the Internet and social media

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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING – The Vietnam War, the drive for civil rights and demands on college campuses for student power all fueled a 1960s media revolution in which Michigan played a major role. Student unrest and dissent were beginning to spread across America, not only in liberal-leaning Detroit but even at politically conservative Michigan State University, according to a new memoir by underground press activist Michael Kindman. For example, that movement sparked East Lansing’s first underground newspaper, The Paper, in 1965. The Paper was born because of a philosophical split within the State News—at the time MSU’s official rather than independent student daily–as Kindman tells it in his posthumously published book, My Odyssey through the Underground Press (MSU Press, $39.95). After Kindman failed to become editor-in-chief of the Michigan State News, he devoted most of his time to working on The Paper.