"The Long Hot 'Gay' Summer... Part 2"

A scene from the 1958 film, 'The Long Hot Summer'

Unfortunately, even as the summer winds down, more nonsense out of Detroit...

Man Arrested In Palmer Park Shooting Death

George Hunter
August 29, 2014


Detroit — Police have arrested a man who allegedly shot his partner, burned down their house to hide the evidence, and then shot two transgender women near Palmer Park.

The suspect, identified by police as Edwardo Ross, allegedly shot his 42-year-old partner, James Foxhall, in their Detroit home on Aug. 15, Assistant Detroit Police Chief Steve Dolunt said.

“He dumped the body in Palmer Park, then torched the house to hide the evidence,” Dolunt said.

Within the next few days, two transgender women were shot in the same area. The shootings occurred late at night, and both women survived.

Police chased Ross after the most recent shooting, Dolunt said. “He flipped his car and ran away. We found his gun in the car.”

The man checked into a hospital for treatment, and later checked into a mental hospital in Macomb County, where he was arrested, Dolunt said.

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Detroit's Palmer Park was once the city's most notorious cruising ground for gay men.  In recent years the area has seen rapidly increasing property values as revitalized interest from new Detroiters moving into the beautiful apartment buildings that surround the park and which are part of the Palmer Park Historic Apartment District has brought new residents of all kinds to the area.  Palmer Park is the site of Detroit's annual black gay pride, "Hotter Than July".

And then there is this story from earlier this week:

Detroit Couple Believes Mail Carrier Won't Deliver Because They Are Gay

Aug 27, 2014

DETROIT (WJBK) - Prevost Street in Detroit is usually a dumping ground for trash, stripped cars and tossed tires has now been cleaned.

James Lawson and his husband Theodore Washington say the mayor's office has been helpful in removing more than 40 loads of trash, putting up new street lights and cleaning the streets.

But the two say, despite their efforts to clean up the city they love, their mail carrier refuses to deliver to their residence because they have the only house on the street. They say they haven't received mail in three weeks after they received a notice their mail was suspended permanently.

Not receiving the mail is dangerous for Lawson because he has cancer and is not always getting his medication and is beginning to miss doctor appointments.

They say when their street was covered in garbage they still received their mail, and say that the mail still gets delivered everywhere but their home.

A notice from the post office states the tires blocking one entrance of the street that the couple uses to block illegal dumpers also dumps the mail carrier's regular route. But the couple says dump trucks, nurses and doctors never have a problem getting through. The couple says they even removed the tires for two weeks but still didn't receive mail.

The couple says when they called the post office they were asked "to move."

The couple says the moment their mail carrier discovered they were gay, the mail stopped coming. They say the mail carrier has also made derogatory comments to their neighbors.

U.S. Postal Service says alleged comments like that will not be tolerated. It has launched an investigation and promised to come out and take another look at the street.

Here is the story as reported on Detroit television:




Fox 2 News Headlines

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I'm not at all surprised by this story, Detroit is often a very homophobic community to live in.

The excuse of 'the state of the street' is terribly convenient, but I suspect this couple has it right when they say they've been targeted because they are a gay couple.  Sadly, Detroit has hundreds if not thousands of situations like James and Theodore's, and yet the post office manages to deliver to them with no problem.  

A view from the air of a depopulated section of Detroit
(click to enlarge)

Famously, the neighborhood situation described here is not at all unusual (read more about it here). Detroiters euphemistically refer to the countless de-populated blocks in the city with only one or two occupied homes as "The Little Houses On The Prairie".  And since you don't find Laura Ingalls on them, they don't get much response from requests for basic city services like trash collection, police protection or even street lighting.  That James and Theodore had to take matters into their own hands to try to thwart illegal dumping on their block is a pretty common response of many residents of blighted and beleaguered neighborhoods like theirs.

The Long Hot 'Gay' Summer Continues

"Fear Eats the Soul"