MacArthur Boulevard: It was like the 'Wild West,' before crackdown, police say
Veloise Cook was shot by a reputed gang member in front of The Party Store on MacArthur Boulevard in Superior Township, authorities say.
She fell to the ground with gunshot wounds to her chest and hip and felt an excruciating burning sensation in her leg, she said.
“I told you I’m going to kill you,” she recalled the shooter saying as he pointed the gun at Cook’s face.
“It was like everything bad I had done in my life flashed before my eyes."
He pulled the trigger again, shooting Cook in the forearm as she shielded her face, she said. As the gunman and two fellow gang members ran, Cook was on the ground screaming and searching her pocket for her cell phone to dial 911.
“People walked past me and over me,” Cook said. “Nobody stopped to help me or nothing. They didn’t care.”
Washtenaw County Sheriff Jerry Clayton was fed up. Violence was becoming commonplace in the MacArthur Boulevard neighborhood, where calls to the sheriff’s department have nearly doubled during the summer months over the past five years.
Cook's shooting June 12 and other violence - including an incident in which a bullet was fired into an occupied patrol car weeks later at an apartment complex - prompted police to crack down.
The department has worked with the township, managers of the neighborhood’s two major apartment complexes and residents to:
- Obtain an emergency order from the state’s Liquor Control Commission to suspend the The Party Store’s liquor license.
- Establish the MacArthur Boulevard Neighborhood Policing Team.
- Jail people who violate trespass warnings.
- Tow cars of visitors who don’t park in designated areas.
- Launch youth sports programs.
"It had to be a collective effort," Clayton said.
In June, deputies responded to 174 calls in the neighborhood - mostly for fighting, loitering and other suspicious activity.
“Things were out of control,” said Sheriff’s Cmdr. Dieter Heren. “The good residents were scared to death. Shots were being fired on a daily basis. To some extent, it was looking like the Wild West out there.”
Suspending a liquor license
Central to their strategy, police say, was curbing criminal activity in and around The Party Store on MacArthur Boulevard.
The store has been a hotspot, according to deputies, who responded to 150 calls there in a 13-month span beginning in July 2008.
At night, there's a near constant flow of people to the store from Sycamore Meadow Apartments and Danbury Park Manor, the neighborhood’s two major low-income housing complexes.
Together, the complexes have about 1,000 residents. For many, the store is the only place in walking distance to buy milk and eggs.
But that’s not all the store’s selling, deputies said.
The county’s undercover narcotics team, LAWNET, executed a search warrant there July 31, looking for drugs. Undercover officers got the warrant after making four drug buys - two each of crack cocaine and marijuana - from employees inside the store in July, records show.
Officers seized an unregistered handgun behind the counter, crack cocaine paraphernalia and some bags of marijuana from an employee, state Liquor Control Commision records show.
Ziad Abuziad, the store’s owner, was behind the counter when he said a deputy he knows walked inside and ordered him to the floor at gunpoint that afternoon.
“He says, ‘On the ground, on the ground,'” Abuziad said. “He points a gun at my head for no reason. They know 100 percent I don’t have a gun.”
Abuziad told AnnArbor.com the gun seized doesn’t belong to him. Asked whether drugs were being sold out of the store, Abuziad said, “I don’t know.”
“I don’t drink,” he said. “I don’t smoke. I don’t do anything. If I sell drugs, why don’t they arrest me?”
The aggressive enforcement near the store is driving away customers, said employee KeAndre Graham, 18.
“People are just tired of the police posting up on here basically,” he said. “It’s just to the point now that don’t nobody want to come to the store.”
The emergency suspension order was issued Aug. 16 and was upheld six days later after a hearing, said Ken Wozniak, the Liquor Control Commission’s director of executive services.
Only two to three such orders are issued each year in the state because many communities fear lawsuits from licensees, officials said.
“It can wind up in very extensive litigation, and a lot of communities don’t want to spend the money and effort on the litigation,” Wozniak said.
Abuziad said deputies were determined to win the suspension, which is expected to result in a 40 percent loss of business at the store.
The sheriff’s department submitted documents to the commission that say shots were fired June 25 from the store’s parking lot in an “attempted murder of two sheriff’s deputies,” records show.
The shooting actually occurred June 26 in a parking lot at Danbury Park Manor down the street, according to Derrick Jackson, the sheriff’s department’s director of community engagement.
Jackson said the report was a mistake, and deputies were investigating a different shooting at the party store.
Abuziad’s attorney, Jeffrey Lance Abood, who plans to fight the suspension, said he doesn't know whether it was a mistake.
“With a police investigation, they should have the date and location correct,” he said. “This is someone’s livelihood at stake.”
Superior Township Supervisor Bill McFarlane is confident the suspension will reduce loitering at the store, which neighbors a daycare center and is near an Ypsilanti District Library branch.
“We do not want to see the liquor license going back there,” McFarlane said. “It aggravated the situation.”
Stepping up enforcement
The sheriff’s department has beefed up enforcement in the neighborhood, including establishing the MacArthur Boulevard Neighborhood Policing Team.
Deputies patrol in cars and on foot with no regular route or fixed schedule, aiming to catch criminals by surprise.
Four homicides have occurred in the area since 2004 - none recently - but deputies weren’t going to wait for a fifth.
"You have to be a realist that you're not gonna stop crime," said Deputy Eugene Rush, who used to patrol the area alone. "You're not gonna stop people from doing bad things. You try to make a little bit of a difference. That's the most important thing to me."
Rush patrolled on a recent August night from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. He was on the lookout for a green van being used by the neighborhood’s "Duffle Bag" gang.
Members of the gang - at least a dozen total - were forcing their way into homes while residents were inside to steal items, Rush said.
While many adults and children greeted Rush by name, the turf has not always been friendly to deputies.
Two other deputies were in a patrol car leaving Danbury Park Manor early June 26 after responding to a disturbance involving 15 people when at least four shots were fired.
Deputies searched the area and found nothing. Hours later, they noticed the rear bumper of the patrol car had been hit by bullet.
"I was really, really upset about it because the rumors going around were they were trying to shoot at me," Rush said.
While prosecutors have charged a man with shooting Cook in front of the store, no one has been charged in the patrol car shooting.
Many of the people causing problems in the neighborhood don't live in the area, said deputies, who have been given power of attorney by the complexes to issue trespass warnings.
Rush and other deputies stopped a car at 6:45 p.m. that night being driven by a 20-year-old man they knew had never obtained a driver's license.
The man was issued a trespass warning a week earlier, forbidding him from returning to Danbury Park Manor for 365 days.
“Who’s car is this?” deputies asked him.
“It’s my grandaddy’s car,” he said.
This time, the man was taken to jail.
Deputies twice responded to back up tow truck drivers. If visitors don't park in designated areas, it costs $250 to pick up a car from the towing company and $170 for the company to drop it as it's being towed.
Karley Bodis, 20, was visiting her boyfriend at Danbury Park Manor and started crying as her car was being towed at about 11:15 p.m.
“How am I supposed to get home?” she pleaded with one of the tow truck company’s employees. “You're leaving with the car. Oh my God, this is awful.”
Deputy Kevin Hause attempted to keep things calm and later gave her a ride to pick up her car.
“I feel for you,” he said. “I’m sorry it happened to you, but we really have nothing to do with it.”
While enforcing the rules has brought growing pains, township officials like Treasurer Brenda McKinney say residents deserve a decent quality of life.
“They have the right to live there in peace and safety and harmony and not be bullied and not have their lives endangered,” she said. “People have a right to walk down the street go to bed at night and be safe.”
Making a difference
The campaign against crime has made life better in the neighborhood, according to about 20 residents interviewed at random by AnnArbor.com.
Charletta Bibbins, 28, a mother of two who has lived in Sycamore Meadow Apartments for 11 years, got a concealed weapons permit and carried a pistol all summer.
She needed one for protection when she walked to The Party Store at night, she said. Bibbins doesn’t carry the gun anymore.
“Since the police out here, I don’t have to,” she said. “Every time I walk, I see a deputy around the corner.”
Amelia Chaney, 49, who has lived in Sycamore Meadow Apartments for more than 15 years, was afraid to go to sleep during the spring, fearing someone would kick in the door.
“It was off the chain,” she said. “You had a whole lot of people out here drugging, selling, kicking in doors…It wasn’t safe to walk. It wasn’t safe to lie down. You didn’t know which way a bullet would come.”
Charles Sanders, 41, who recently moved to Danbury Park Manor with his fiancé and two young children, said his apartment was burglarized in May. His 60-inch flat-screen television was stolen.
“It’s getting better out here,” he said. “They police out here enough now. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Elaine Lindsey, 56, who recently moved to Danbury Park Manor, forbid her 4-year-old nephew from going to a nearby playground two months ago. Adults used to fight almost constantly in the street, she said. Now, she lets her nephew go out and play.
“It has calmed down a lot,” Lindsey said. “There was shooting out here and you just don’t see that anymore. There’s too many kids out here for that foolishness.”
Lee Higgins covers crime and courts for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at leehiggins@annarbor.com or 734-623-2527.
Comments
ronn oneal
Tue, Aug 3, 2010 : 5:16 p.m.
@reporter I witness this Val Cook in action for the past two nights causing problems with a Lil girl where the lil girl went to police about her assulting her. Said that to I understand a little why this so call gang member shot her multiple times. She's a bully, pull the police record and then her innocent victim profile gets sort of tarnished. Just my opion and observation. Sure to be blocked after reading myself but take my chance to speak the truth from the street point of view and not the reporter thats gettin it watered down before they water the story down some more.
Jay
Thu, Oct 1, 2009 : 8:56 p.m.
I live on MacArthur Blvd and I am not trouble. I go to Eastern and have one semester left before I have a B.A in Criminal Justice. While the area is bad the cops still have to understand that the criminals they are trying to put behind bars should sometimes be themselves. On two separate occasions I feel like my civil rights have been violated by the same cop. I can just stand by myself outside of my house on the phone ( no reception) and this cop came and stretched me out. Made me lay down and searched me only to find nothing. Ironically The day before this happened the same cop pulled me over for a broken license plate light which we determined was operational only to search my car. Once again uncovering nothing. He treated me like trash and let me go because i am not a felon unlike what he assumed. The first thing he said was "where is the drugs". I had my work shirt on yet he still made me get out and manhandled me. When this cop came to my house the next day and stretched me out on the ground he asked where is my license. I told him it was in my house which was literally about 5 feet from us. He said I shouldnt be outside without my ID and he could take me in. I told him you just ran my license yesterday do you think I committed a crime between then and now. He drove off but continued to ride pass. Now this sheriff has become the criminal in this instance and he probably wont suffer any backlash because of it. I am a clean looking person who is very well spoken I don't even give off a bad vibe. These incidents have made me truly reconsider my major. I wouldn't want to be a part of any governing body that will profile their suspects. I have the officers name and badge number and have debated whether or not I will report this officer for fear of backlash. The sheriff's should not be allowed to treat people this way under any circumstances.
RhondaM
Tue, Sep 29, 2009 : 1:07 p.m.
I hope they can get some of the crime to end there. My friend had no choice but to live there 10 yrs ago, after taking herself and her daughters to Safe House. Sycamore Meadows was the only place she could move into right away that worked with your income. She stayed for about a year, until she got into a safer apartment. It was really sad because her daughters were only 4yrs and 10yrs old, and they didn't feel safe playing outside. The townhouse itself was really nice on the inside. It would be a great place for lower income families if the crime wasn't so bad.
laurie in ypsi
Tue, Sep 29, 2009 : 11:59 a.m.
Wow! I dont live very far from this neighborhood! I never knew a thing about the bad reputation until the lady got her door kicked in on MacArthur and I read it here. Then I started doing some more digging into what kind of neighborhood I really live in. Shocking...disturbing. Kind of wish I knew before I bought my condo...ah well;(
bunnyabbot
Mon, Sep 28, 2009 : 10:59 p.m.
while not everyone who lives there is it is an overall bad area. So it does effect everyone. All it takes is a stray bullet or being awoke at 2 am listing to screeching tires or yelling, that is no way to raise a child or live as an adult. Some regular not in trouble person still has to live among those who are of bad element. and boohoo to the shop owner, it's a raid, everyone is held at gun point. and I LOVE how those that "don't drink or smoke" still sell the crap for an easy buck.
YpsiReader
Mon, Sep 28, 2009 : 6:34 p.m.
Many wonderful families live in the homes on MacArthur Blvd; people who want nothing more than a chance to raise their families in a safe environment. I am glad that there is now a greater police presence. Economic conditions in Michigan are deplorable and many families do not have choices about where they can afford to live. I, for one, do not feel that policing this area is a waste of my tax money.
preachlady
Mon, Sep 28, 2009 : 2:01 p.m.
As a single parent in the late 70's early 80's, my son & I lived in the "green". It was pleasant, safe and peaceful then...prayer meetings were even held in the homes back then!!! my eviction from the "green" was a blessing in disguise and I was forced to move. We were able to move to a "better location". I raised my son in an area of the "green" that watched out for each other, we could leave our doors & windows open on hot summer nights and taking walks were safe. My male/child is a college grad with a (BA & MA degrees in education/business-EMU). Yes we left in time but I have family & friends still in the area that want to move but the $ is tight. I've since returned to the area of Ypsi.Twp/Superior Twp.and have no regrets..this is home! Pray for our neighbor(hoods)! (West Willow is on the other side of town...not even walking distance, there is no comparison to the two neighborhoods!)
YongeC
Mon, Sep 28, 2009 : 12:35 p.m.
first of all some of these comments are very offensive. first off not everybody who lives here is bad. yes I LIVE IN THE GREEN right on the strip where the liquor store is. yes there is bad stuff that happens in here but bad happens everywhere, an as long as u arent looking to start trouble no one will mess with you. just like EVERYWHERE. people dont just look at u in the neighborhood and say "hey lets kill that guy or beat him up!". ive lived here for a year with my girlfriend and my 9 month old daughter and i have never been messed with ONCE...and to all the people who stereotype people who live there...IM WHITE! crime as gone down here though a great deal. the only think there doing wrong here is the parking situation. there are only two visitor parking space per 15-25 parking spaces and you have to have insurance on your car in order to have an apartment resident sticker on it, so people in the neighborhood who dont have insurance are taking those spots; thus, making it impossible to have visitors. i dont see these people getting punished, all i see is nazi tow truck coming through our neighborhood and scooping up our babsitter's car or my mothers truck because other people are taking advantage of the situation and instead of letting all the residents have ONE visitor hang tag and let it be that. they've told all us good folks to kiss their butts. its a surprise they didnt mention that in more detail in this news article.
jb82
Sun, Sep 27, 2009 : 7:05 p.m.
The low-income housing projects in Ypsi are destroying the community. There are some fairly nice subdivisions very close to MacArthur where property values have probably gone right into the tank. The project on the 900 block of Michigan Ave is no picnic either. Don't ever go to these places at night.
dawhood
Sun, Sep 27, 2009 : 6:35 p.m.
I have to say that any community can become like the Green; it is so sad to see how sorry our society has become. We can't blame the souls that live in the Green only,all of us in America has taken the attitude that it's all right leave it in their neighborhood. let me tell you this; What you see happing at the green is going to be the "norm" all over america!! Watch ZEITGEIST the movie on Yahoo or on Google
eyeonthenews
Sun, Sep 27, 2009 : 1:39 p.m.
I've lived in Ypsilanti my whole life. When Danbury Green on Mac Arthur Blvd. first opened up it was a nice townhouse community and the houses in that area were pretty nice also. I had several friends that lived there when it first opened but sadly it didn't take long before it was turned into a ghetto. Then they changed the name to Sycamore Meadows like a name change could rid them of their bad reputation. The police and ghetto rats call it the Green. This was one of the newer communities that went the way of ghetto some 20-30 years ago. West Willow also has slowly been making it's way to the same state of affairs, again. The Feds had to come in and clean up the neighborhood back in the early 90s when the crack houses and open street dealing was at a high (no pun intended) because the police were either too lazy or afraid to do their jobs and for a short time after the Feds came in and busted a lot of dealers the neighborhood seemed to rebound until the section 8s started moving in and running the good neighbors out. There are still some good people in West Willow but few and far between. Now it's an anything go attitude in the Willow as it's now called. Maybe not quite to the point as the Green but it's escalating to that point. Where do you think these people are moving to when they're run out of the Green, Paradise Manor or some other HUD housing project? The slum landlords that have bought up property, as the good folks desperately flee their homes, don't care who they rent to as long as they have their houses filled and money coming into their pockets. They could care lass if these people have jobs or sell drugs. As for Superior township the same is happening there and from what I've heard the cancer has started to spill over into other more affluent Ypsi township neighborhoods as well. I'd really like to see a zero tolerance from the Sheriff's dept but I won't be holding me breath. If Sheriff Menzey had done his job and had deputies really do their job, including deal with what they considered pety crimes, while on his watch it would never have got to this level. The old saying of... give a person an inch and he'll take a mile is so true in this situation. Still an optimist, I'm hoping to see Sheriff Clayton clean up the township.
Kent2525
Sun, Sep 27, 2009 : 1:17 p.m.
It will return to being the wild west as soon as the cops leave. Nothing is going to change there no matter how many cops you pull out of the nice neighborhoods. All that happend is the bad guys went on vacation for a few months and will be back in force. Not to mention, they just started robbing people from different areas. Knowing that all the cops are at MacArthur. I never see the Police in my neighborhood anymore, and crime and drugs are up in my side of town because of what the Washtenaw county sheriffs are up to... Its the people that live there, their the problem. They let this stuff go, not call the cops, or their part of the problem. People in the macArthur let their kids do what ever they want, they let friends visit from Detroit and other bad areas. So you have trouble makers living there, they call their trouble maker friends to do crimes in the area when its too hot for them at home in Detroit or flint. If someone is wanted in Detroit, they call the gang in MacArthur and ask if they can chill for a wile, until things cool down in their own town. Pull the cops out of MacArtur, let the area tare its self apart. Put a fence around the entire area and let Criminals kill each other off. At least it will keep them from ruining the good areas. I had to work in that area delivering beer to that hell hole of a party store, the old owner had to come out with a shotgun to protect me when I did my deliveries. If you tare the area down, all you will get is a bad neighbor moving in to a good neighborhood, and then there goes your good neighborhood.
D
Sun, Sep 27, 2009 : 12:04 p.m.
You know I went to school with kids from the "green" and not all of the people there are "trash" so were there because they could not get decent housing because of credit or something stupid they did in there youth, so please do not think everybody who lives in the "ghetto" is horrid, and also please stop dogging the willow it was a nice place mostly only a few blocks had/have the bad elements I have aunts and uncles who have lived over there for 50 years. So it could not have been that horrid. And also if you do not live in Ypsilanti twp. Ypsilanti city, or Superior Twp. please do not dog these areas as you have no right to, we do not go to the posts and dog Ann Arbor because you people are snobs do we. Just my opinion.
Paul
Sun, Sep 27, 2009 : 9:38 a.m.
MacArthur Boulevard has been a haven for criminal activity for several decades. Superior Township residents are tired of their taxes paying to babysit the residents of this area. The rest of the township is a nice community, with this very small area being a black eye on the entire township. Unfortunately, the people of Superior Township who pay most of the taxes receive very little in terms of law enforcement services. Ypsilanti Township residents are also being drained of resources when Deputies assigned to their township are constantly sent to MacArthur to help the Deputies on patrol in Superior Township. Washtenaw County residents have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on policing this area over the years, instead of policing other areas of the county where citizens are paying taxes and expect a higher level of police services. This drain on resources has proven to be of little value. MacArthur Boulevard is still a haven for criminals. The Sheriff's Department has been proactive in their approach to policing this community, but the people there are responsible for the crime. The behavior of the people is the problem. If the people would behave in a lawful manner, there wouldn't be drug dealing, shootings, and the crime. The party store has been intertwined in the crime of this community for decades. The management of the housing complexes dont help the situation. They need strict rules governing who can live in their properties. Instead of accepting the bottom feeders of society, they could improve the community by enforcing standards of decency and morality. Displacing criminals might make liberal special interest groups whine, but it would solve the issue. Other than that, the best thing that could happen is for the housing projects in the MacArthur Boulevard area to be bulldozed.
ownrdgd
Sun, Sep 27, 2009 : 8:36 a.m.
I used to plow snow in the 70's/80's in sycamore meadows for a ann arbor based plow service and I dreaded going in there at night.You never new what to expect from that ghetto.I see its gotten tons worse. Glad to see the sheriff cracking down.Just another west willow slum.