Sarah Cwiek

The Detroit Police Department is launching a major re-organization to put more officers on the street.

On Wednesday, Detroit mayor Dave Bing and police officials finally unveiled the plan that’s been in the works for awhile.

An Ohio woman who was arrested and strip searched at Detroit Metro Airport says her constitutional rights were violated.

The Michigan ACLU has now filed a federal lawsuit on Shoshanna Hebshi’s behalf.

Flying from California to Detroit on September 11, 2011, Hebshi says she was seated next to two men she didn’t know or speak to during the flight.

Those men were accused of behaving suspiciously during the flight. When they landed at Metro, Hebshi and the two men were arrested.

“I can only gather that I was targeted and forced at gunpoint off that
plane, handcuffed, and taken into custody for hours because of my ethnic name, and an arbitrary seat assignment,” said Hebshi, who is of
mixed Saudi Arabian and Eastern European-Jewish descent.

Hebshi and the ACLU are now suing federal agencies, airport officials
and Frontier Airlines. They allege her story is an example of
unconstitutional racial discrimination leading to false arrest and
imprisonment.

“I’m extremely concerned about my children growing up in a country
where your skin color and name can put your rights at risk,” Hebshi
said.

ACLU attorney Sarah Mehta says there have been a number of lawsuits
alleging racial discrimination against airlines since the September
11th, 2001 attacks.

“Generally, though, those claims have been about people being pulled off of planes for suspicious activity,” Mehta said. “What is unique about our client is that there are no allegations whatsoever about her involvement in anything suspicious.”

Hebshi is seeking monetary damages, and the court’s declaration that
her constitutional rights were violated.

Events in Washington Monday honored President Obama’s inauguration, and the Martin Luther King Day holiday.

The two events also meshed at Detroit’s Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, where a few dozen people came to the Wright Museum to watch a live broadcast of President Obama’s second inauguration.

Detroit Public Schools worked to draw district alumni back to their
old schools for this Martin Luther King Day.

Thirty schools across the city are participating in the national day
of service, and former students are invited to join in.

Spokesman Steve Wasko said the district was searching for a way to
draw DPS alumni back to their former schools.

Metro Detroit’s “Big Four” met up for their annual public conversation at Cobo Hall in Detroit Thursday.

The group is made up of the Wayne county executive Robert Ficano, Oakland county executive L. Brooks Patterson, and Macomb county executive Mark Hackel, plus Detroit mayor Dave Bing.

The event usually stresses regional cooperation and all-around good feelings between the four leaders.

A gaming company run by Detroit billionaire Dan Gilbert has announced plans to move into the city’s casino business.

Quicken Loans founder Gilbert owns Rock Gaming, which already owns
several gambling sites in Ohio.

Now, one of the group’s subsidiaries has announced it will buy a
majority stake of the company that runs Detroit’s Greektown
Casino-Hotel.

Gilbert says in a statement they envision a “significant investment”
in the Greektown casino, “as well as the enhancement and growth of the
existing entertainment district.”

The Michigan Gaming Board will need to sign off on the deal.

They hope to grow that area as well, building on what Gilbert calls
“the positive momentum” now going in downtown Detroit.

Gilbert himself is partly responsible for that momentum.

He’s been buying up much of the major commercial real estate in
downtown Detroit in pursuit of a vision he’s dubbed “Detroit 2.0.”

The vision is a vibrant downtown district to “live, work, and play,”
centered around tech start-ups along Woodward Avenue, which Gilbert
calls “Webward” Avenue.

A Wayne county man is facing criminal charges for allegedly defrauding federal real estate giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Samer Salami, a real estate agent and broker for Fannie and Freddie,
is accused of obtaining properties they owned through Trademark
Assets--a shell company he secretly controlled--for an artificially
low price.

Salami would then turn around and sell the property to an actual,
higher bidder—pocketing the difference between the two sales, plus a
double commission.

Overall, it’s alleged Salami bilked the mortgage giants out of about
$488,000, through 22 such illegal housing sales in Wayne county.

Cadillac is hoping to make waves in the electric car market with its new Cadillac ELR.

The car is described as a “luxury sport coupe” powered by the same technology as the Chevrolet Volt.

That’s an electric vehicle with a small gas engine for extended range back-up.

Cadillac spokesman David Caldwell says the car is a “first of its kind”: a primarily electric luxury vehicle.

“So we think this is perfectly well-suited for us," Caldwell said. "But more importantly, an interesting new offer for luxury consumers who are interested in the latest technology.”

U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and UAW President Bob King jointly toured the Detroit auto show today.

Both say the auto industry’s resurgence shows the benefits of strong labor-management relationships.

Solis praised the American-made products she saw on the show floor. She also praised the sense of “empowerment” and “trust” she sensed among the workers showing them off.

Details of the so-called “Detroit Future City” plan are out in the open, and people are weighing in on its detailed, long-term vision for the city.

The plan stems from the two-year-long Detroit Works Project. It started as an effort to deal with Detroit’s vacant land problem. But it evolved into a highly-detailed, 50-year vision for a future city.

Kurt Metzger, head of the group Data Driven Detroit, calls the plan a “great, comprehensive framework” for the future.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette continues his effort to remove some Detroit school board members.

A Wayne County judge heard oral arguments Thursday about Schuette’s lawsuit to throw out seven board members elected by district.

Schuette says state law only allows so-called “first class” school districts to elect board members that way. He says Detroit hasn’t met that threshold since 2008.

School board attorney George Washington insists his clients followed the law "as the legislature wrote it."

Washington also noted the lawsuit was only filed in 2012, after Michigan’s emergency manager law was suspended.

“They were happy with the way the school board was elected, until they thought they might not have a financial manager," Washington said. "And then they said, ‘Well, we gotta get rid of the board. No matter what the law says, or what we’ve allowed to happen.'"

A long-awaited—and controversial-- long-term vision for Detroit’s future emerged Wednesday.

“Detroit Future City” is the result of a two-year effort called The Detroit Works Project, one of Mayor Dave Bing’s signature initiatives.

It comes after two years of community meetings, fact-finding, and exhaustive planning—“the broadest, deepest, and most comprehensive look at Detroit that’s ever been done,” according to its creators.

Doctors at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit are looking into how well stem cells can repair damaged hearts.

It’s part of a national study looking into potential new treatments for people who have suffered severe heart attacks.

“We extract the patient’s stem cells directly from them themselves. And then select for a specific population of stem cells,” said Dr. Gerald Koenig, a Henry Ford cardiologist. “And then re-inject them into the heart, by way of the heart blood vessels.”

Multiple reports indicate a major shake-up is in the works for the Detroit Police Department.

The move would reportedly disband several units within the department, in order to redeploy more officers to street patrol.

That’s the type of plan some in law enforcement circles have advocated for some time.

Homicides are trending up in Detroit for the second year in a row.

The city recorded a total of 411 homicides in 2012, up about 9% from the previous year. That total includes killings deemed “justifiable” by police.

Detroit mayor Dave Bing says police can only do so much combat pervasive gun violence and a lack of “respect for life.”

Bing says he’s not sure adding even “1000 more police officers” to Detroit’s ranks would help.

“There are things happening in homes, and families, in the communities, and the neighborhoods, that whether a cop is there or not, it’s not gonna stop the crime.”

Detroit’s interim police chief, Chester Logan, agrees that the lack of police presence isn’t the root problem.

“America has a problem with guns, but the epicenter seems to be here in Detroit,” said Logan, adding that taking a stand against gun violence should be “the new civil rights issue.”

More than 85% percent of Detroit’s homicides were committed with guns. There were also 1263 reported non-fatal shootings in 2012.

Both Bing and Logan note that the city’s police ranks have thinned considerably in recent years, due largely to attrition. The department had about 2700 sworn officers in 2011.

Logan declined to release current manpower numbers, saying only: “We certainly don’t want to frighten anybody, but it’s sufficient.”

Police say the uptick in homicides belies a decline in some other major crimes, including a nearly 13% drop in burglaries, and a slight decrease in aggravated assaults.

According to department  numbers, “overall city-wide crime is down 2.63% in the aggregate compared to 2011.”

Bing also vowed to hold “regular press briefings” on public safety issues in the coming year.

“Future briefings will focus on a comprehensive analysis of homicide trends in the city, case closure rates, and crime reduction strategies in the Detroit Police Department,” the mayor said.