STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Hermes

Detroit Mayor

Farrah · Marc Jacobs

We are hearing a lot about Kilpatrick here in Chicago, but it is in bits and pieces. Of course, we are so used to political corruption in Chicago it doesn't seem odd or shocking to me. It mostly seems like a total shame. As for the stripper murder thing, we haven't heard about that, but it sounds interesting. Care to elaborate?

Aurora · Marc Jacobs

I've seen bits and pieces on Yahoo news and the local Houston news but I honestly don't know too much about it. Guess I should go read a little bit to know what is going on :)

Hermes

Farrah wrote:

We are hearing a lot about Kilpatrick here in Chicago, but it is in bits and pieces. Of course, we are so used to political corruption in Chicago it doesn't seem odd or shocking to me. It mostly seems like a total shame. As for the stripper murder thing, we haven't heard about that, but it sounds interesting. Care to elaborate?

Yeah, I guess there's no way around corrupt government, unfortunately...

As far as the stripper murder, I'll give it to you as it went down. There was a party at the mayor's mansion in 2002. There was a stripper there named Tamara Green aka "Strawberry." Next, there is a cop that whistle blew the party, he was fired as well as a colleague, and that's the law suit in which Kwame and Christine Beatty purgered themselves by denying they were romantically involved, and which ultimately cost Detroit 8.2 million in a settlement with the fired officers.

During the trial, Strawberry was pummeled with bullets in broad daylight while she sat in her car talking to someone on a residential street. As I recall, it was a black suv with tinted windows, similar to all the vehicles in possession of the Kwame camp.

What has been pieced together so far is that Kwame's wife crashed that 2002 party, saw Strawberry on Kwame's lap, and punched her in the face. Strawberry went to the hospital, reported what happened at the hospital as well as with the police. Of course, the police records are missing, but the hospital records remain. Not sure who will be charged with what, but Kwame is a part of the investigation.

Quite the soap opera...

Farrah · Marc Jacobs

Wow, you just can't make that stuff up. Craziness. I am going to have to do some internet research...

BTW, I love that his wife "crashed" a party in her own house. That just adds to the bizarreness of the whole thing. Most of our corruption in Chicago has to do with unions and mafia type things. Kickbacks, no show jobs, etc, very Sopranos-esque type stuff.

-- Edited by Farrah at 13:35, 2008-09-04

-- Edited by Farrah at 13:35, 2008-09-04

relrel · Marc Jacobs

Well, my first thought was one of happiness because his story (and picture) knocked a smiling Palin off of the front page of my NYTimes homepage.

I've been sorta half-assed following this story. The whole time it's been going on and especially in the last couple of days, I've just been very confused why he was still in office. The last I read, before today with his resignation, was that the Governor was contemplating forcing him out of office (or some such garble, I wasn't reading it very closely).