Charges in Detroit Police Beating of Motorist Expected Next Week

Police officers believed responsible for beating a black motorist to death are expected to be charged next week, Wayne County Prosecutor John O’Hair said Friday.

O’Hair, responding to increasing community frustration with his investigation of the beating, said at a news conference that charges may be filed late next week.

Seven Detroit officers were suspended without pay after Malice Wayne Green, 35, was beaten to death with flashlights and fists on Nov. 5 after police stopped his car on the city’s west side.

None of those suspended, who included white and black officers, have been arrested.

“Those officers who have committed criminal acts will be charged, they will be arrested and they will be prosecuted with vigor,” O’Hair said. But he added that charges still depend upon “crucial information” that he hoped would be provided by certain witnesses. “I believe we have their cooperation.”

Initial news of the beating caused no outward signs of public disturbance, but frustration among Detroit’s black community appears to be growing. On Thursday night, after Green’s funeral, which was attended by more than 2,000 people, city residents gathered at the site of the beating and shouted: “No justice, no peace,” a familiar refrain from the Los Angeles riots.

Arthur Johnson, president of the Detroit chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, called for faster action on the investigation to reassure the community.

“I really don’t believe they are dragging their feet,” he said of O’Hair and the Detroit Police Department. “There has to be a sense of urgency in this matter. It can’t be allowed to drag on.”

The case has evoked comparisons to the videotaped beating in March, 1991, of black motorist Rodney G. King by white officers in Los Angeles. Not-guilty verdicts for the four officers on most of the state charges April 29 provoked the deadly rioting.