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Fittingly, the man they call Cush says it wasn’t about the weed.
In apologizing to the Detroit City Council on Friday for his run-in with police officers, Councilman George Cushingberry repeated his assertion that the cops who pulled him over late Tuesday night basically nabbed him because he was “driving while black.”
“I wanted to say to my colleagues, if any of you were embarrassed by the driving while black incident that happened to me, please forgive me,” he said at the council table. “It’s unfortunate we still have these types of incidents in our city.”
That he had an empty bottle of rum and marijuana in the car were apparently beside the point to the councilman.
Of course, the cops say that that was kind of a big point of the stop, which they contend happened after Cushingberry almost hit a police car and then led the cops on a stop-and-go chase through the streets.
Cushingberry says he didn’t almost hit the cops, that there was no chase and that he was neither drunk nor high when the police pulled him over. While the cops say they smelled weed that had been smoked, Cush say it was really just a bag of that loud medical bud that his friend, a card-carrying patient, had on his possession. And besides, in Detroit even small amounts of recreational weed are legal.
So we’re all good then, yes?
Nah, not so much.
Cushingberry, who was let off with a citation for failing to use his turn signal, asserts that he did nothing wrong. Maybe. Maybe not.
But, even if you discount the cops’ claims, Cushingberry still clearly did something stupid.
Cushingberry, who was once the youngest person to serve in the state House of Representatives, has been in politics in Detroit since the mid-1970s. He’s a lawyer. He’s a legislator. He was elected last November to represent Council District 2 and was just chosen Monday as council president pro tem.
Is it really too much to think that a veteran politician expected to help lead even a disempowered City Council should know better than to ride around with empties like some witless college freshman?
The council was just sworn in days ago. Is it too much to ask that the man at least leave an ass print in his office chair before he goes about embarrassing the Council and touching off yet another round of “here we go agains” from frustrated Detroiters desperate for leaders with ideas, integrity and common sense?
Polarizing Politician
If you listen to political talk around town, you know that Cushingberry has long been the source of deeply divided opinions. Some praise him for having fire and expertise. Others see him as a hack who has overstayed his welcome and undeservedly rode into council on the basis of name recognition.
I figure that, as with a lot of political lifers, there’s probably some truth to both characterizations.
But the thing is, Detroit can’t afford both. Not after Conyers and Reeves and Pugh. Not after watching a former mayor go to jail and the current one quietly vanish like David Blaine playing the Mirage. Not with Rick Snyder and his cohorts in Lansing assaulting everything from anti-poverty efforts to women’s reproductive rights. Not while Kevyn Orr gives tens of millions of public dollars to his old law firm. Not with a raft of corporate buccaneers gorging on the bones of a city that swears in court that it can’t pay its pensioners.
We can’t afford any more additions to a growing mis-leadership class that manipulates language that is intended to describe legitimate oppression and state-sponsored terror. “Driving While Black” incidents too often end with black men dead. City Council identification cards typically don’t factor into the equation.
And neither do minor citations handed out even though the cops say probably should have arrested you.
A police supervisor was called to the scene, apparently as part of some “directive” that even the police chief says doesn’t exists. Cushingberry sat in his car for 45 minutes or so and was let go. He wasn’t even issued a sobriety test.
Skunking It Up
I’ve heard some suggest that Cushingberry might have been stopped as political retaliation for the recent council presidency vote. He’s a strong black man and “they” are out to get him, I’m told.
OK, but riddle a brother this: What kind of political get-back ends with the target driving away in the night with only a turn-signal ticket — even though there was, at the very least, the pretext for an arrest for weed and an open container of alcohol?
Who needs skunkworks when you’re stinking it up on your own?
And how is it that Cushingberry himself — who earlier Tuesday told the Detroit News to “go straight to hell” and admitted that he angers some people because he “stirs things up” — doesn't think that after more than three decades in public office, he should be more careful about how he gets down in public? You tell me there’s a blizzard outside, but then I see you out there romping around butt naked like you’re in the Snow Challenge? Not a good look.
I’m not saying the councilman needs to go down for this. Whether it’s because DPD screwed up or Cushingberry really didn’t deserve arrest, Craig has already said he won’t investigate Cushingberry any further. That’s fine.
But Cushingberry has raised some grave misgivings and given fuel to everyone who considers him and much of Detroit’s political leadership a joke.
With all the serious issues facing the city, the last thing it can afford is another elected laughingstock.
