A couple of stories from my hometown #Detroit

Dude Detroit got two years time for stealing a girl’s car on their first date:

PONTIAC, Mich. — A Detroit man has been sentenced to at least two years in prison for stealing a woman’s car after skipping out on the check during their first date.

Twenty-four-year-old Terrance McCoy was sentenced Friday in Oakland County Circuit Court to two to 10 years in prison.

McCoy pleaded no contest Sept. 18 to unlawfully driving away a vehicle. A no-contest plea is not an admission of guilt but is treated as a conviction at sentencing

Police say McCoy dined with the 27-year-old Southfield woman on April 24 at a restaurant in Ferndale. The woman told investigators McCoy said he forgot his wallet in her car and asked for the keys. Police say McCoy then took off in the car.

Preachers in Detroit packing serious heat:

DETROIT — The Rev. Lawrence Adams teaches his flock at the Westside Bible Church to turn the other cheek. Just in case, though, the 54-year-old retired police lieutenant also wears a handgun under his robe.

Adams is one of several Detroit clergymen who have taken to packing heat in the pulpit. They have committed their lives to a man who preached nonviolence and told followers to love their enemies. But they also say it’s up to them to protect their parishioners in church.

“As a pastor, I’m referred to as a shepherd,” Adams said. “Shepherds have the responsibility of watching over their flock. Do I want to hurt somebody? Absolutely not!”

Responding to a break-in at his church Sunday evening, Adams surprised a burglar carrying out a bag of loot and shot the man in the abdomen after the man swung the bag at him.

The burglar survived — for which Adams is grateful — but the reverend said he could have been hurt or killed if he had not been armed.

Detroit had the nation’s highest homicide rate last year among cities of at least 500,000 residents. The city has been losing manufacturing jobs for decades, and these days about one in four working-age residents is without a job.

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Far from a Fortune: Detroit man says stress led to bank robberies

Only in Detroit would a bank robber have the last name Fortune. This one’s for the 211 Guy:

DETROIT — A Detroit man who said he started robbing banks to pay for his mother’s plumbing was sentenced Tuesday to two years in prison, a lenient term from a judge who said the defendant had been an “outstanding citizen” before his crime spree.

Prosecutors wanted U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman to stick with federal sentencing guidelines, which would have given Jimmie Lee Fortune five years to six years in prison for stealing nearly $14,000 from five Michigan banks. Fortune, 29, had pleaded guilty in March, with prosecutors agreeing not to charge him with three more robberies.

Fortune had told investigators that he robbed the first bank in April 2008 to fix his mother’s plumbing and get his driver’s license reinstated. After that, he just kept going.

“I was so stressed and depressed,” he told U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman on Tuesday. “I found it difficult to separate life from fiction.”

He entered banks demanding money and yelling threats such as, “Large bills or I’ll start shooting,” according to the FBI. Fortune was not armed during the robberies.

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Recession forces strip club to rethink prices*

Things are pretty bad in Detroit, bad enough to hurt business at Jon Jon’s, a topless club in Warren, Mi. near GM’s huge campus. Table dance prices have been cut in half, and drink prices reduced. The owner has even cut back operating hours.

From the Detroit Free Press:

Jon Jon’s has lowered prices on drinks, but business is still down 50% from a year ago, Sander said. She now opens the club at 6 p.m. instead of 11 a.m.

“People can’t afford to go out and have fun the way they used to,” said Sander, whose club on Mound Road is roughly halfway between GM’s Technical Center and the GM Powertrain and Chrysler pickup truck assembly plants. “Of course it has to do with the economy.”

*Check out this 52-week stock chart for RICK, a strip club conglomerate:

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Letters from Motown

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On Thanksgiving, I took my hometown to task for turning into an American Baghdad or Beiruit.

The idea came from the arrogance of the Big Three heads seeking bailout money from the U.S. Government while being completely tone deaf about taking corporate jets to their hearing.

While the possibility of a bailout remains up in the air, more bad news flowed out of Detroit this week. The town’s two daily newspapers, the Free Press and the News announced they would scale back deliveries to three days a week.

Regardless of the bad news, for the most part Detroiters continue to defend their city against perceived attacks. And, it’s true there’s nothing worse than getting kicked when you are down.

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