Os Cangaceiros
23rd January 2012, 02:56
STRESS (edit: a corrupt undercover police unit in Detroit) burst back into the headlines on December 4, 1972, when four STRESS men were involved in a shoot-out with three armed blacks: Mark Bethune, John Percy Boyd, and Hayward Brown. The three young men had been waging a private war against big-time heroin dealers in their neighborhoods. STRESS had staked out one of the dope houses that the three vigilantes attacked. Instead of pursuing the dope dealers, STRESS chased Bethune, Boyd and Brown. A shoot-out followed which resulted in the four STRESS officers being wounded, while their prey escaped. Three weeks later, in a second shoot-out with the vigilantes, STRESS officer Robert Bradford was slain and another officer wounded. The vigilantes escaped once more, and Commissioner Nichols went on television describing them as "mad-dog killers".
In the weeks that followed, STRESS put the black neighborhoods under martial law in the most massive and ruthless police manhunt in Detroit history. Hundreds of black families had their doors literally broken down and their lives threatened by groups of white men in plain clothes who had no search warrants and often did not bother to identify themselves as police. Eventually, 56 fully documented cases of illegal procedure were brought against the department. One totally innocent man, Durwood Forshee, could make no complaint because he was dead. This 57-year-old unemployed security guard was killed when he fired his shotgun at STRESS invaders whom he believed to be a gang of robbers. On January 12, 1973, Hayward Brown was finally captured. Bethune and Boyd, disguised as a priest and a nun, got out of the city safely but were killed a month and a half later in a shoot-out with Atlanta police.
^From the book "Detroit: I Do Mind Dying" (which is about the "Detroit Revolutionary Union Movement" aka DRUM). I just thought this excerpt was interesting, it's a goddamn tragedy that Boyd and Bethune were killed lol. Hayward Brown was successfully defended by Kenneth Cockrel, who was a lawyer involved in DRUM circles and had also defended James Johnson, a black union worker who snapped and opened fire at the Chrysler factory he worked at, killing three people. Detroit around that time period was a pretty turbulent place, with a number of wildcat strikes and of course the famous Detroit riot.
In the weeks that followed, STRESS put the black neighborhoods under martial law in the most massive and ruthless police manhunt in Detroit history. Hundreds of black families had their doors literally broken down and their lives threatened by groups of white men in plain clothes who had no search warrants and often did not bother to identify themselves as police. Eventually, 56 fully documented cases of illegal procedure were brought against the department. One totally innocent man, Durwood Forshee, could make no complaint because he was dead. This 57-year-old unemployed security guard was killed when he fired his shotgun at STRESS invaders whom he believed to be a gang of robbers. On January 12, 1973, Hayward Brown was finally captured. Bethune and Boyd, disguised as a priest and a nun, got out of the city safely but were killed a month and a half later in a shoot-out with Atlanta police.
^From the book "Detroit: I Do Mind Dying" (which is about the "Detroit Revolutionary Union Movement" aka DRUM). I just thought this excerpt was interesting, it's a goddamn tragedy that Boyd and Bethune were killed lol. Hayward Brown was successfully defended by Kenneth Cockrel, who was a lawyer involved in DRUM circles and had also defended James Johnson, a black union worker who snapped and opened fire at the Chrysler factory he worked at, killing three people. Detroit around that time period was a pretty turbulent place, with a number of wildcat strikes and of course the famous Detroit riot.