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Benton Harbour | Maurice Carter | Detroit |
Daron Caldwell
"We
will not be satisfied until every loose end is tied up in this
matter," Detroit Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings pledged
after the shootings, just before the arrest of the man she says
is the Hart Plaza shooter. But in the rush to make a quick collar,
she and her investigators have ignored many "loose ends"
that strongly suggest they've arrested and locked up the wrong
man. -- from WXYZ website
Detroit
Police assistant chief resigns
BY BEN SCHMITT , Detroit
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER, October 6, 2004
Detroit Police Assistant Chief
Harold Cureton has resigned after serving 32 years on the job.
Cureton turned in his resignation
Tuesday, according to James Tate, a police spokesman.
Tate said Cureton cited health
issues, adding the resignation is not connected to the release
of Daron Caldwell, who spent three months in jail before prosecutors
dropped charges against him Monday in the Hart Plaza fireworks
shooting.
Cureton oversaw the investigative
portfolio of the police department that includes major crimes,
organized crime and internal affairs.
The resignation is effective
on Nov. 3. A replacement has not yet been named.
Cureton is expected to address
the media later today.
The police department has two
assistant chiefs under Chief Ella Bully-Cummings. Assistant Chief
Walter Shoulders holds the other post.
Contact Ben Schmitt at 313-223-4296
or schmitt@freepress.com.
Copyright © 2004 Detroit
Free Press Inc.
Charges Dropped in Detroit
Fireworks Shooting
By Kimberly Craig, Michael
Rosenfield and Ray Sayah
Web produced by Seth Myers and Christine Lasek
October 4, 2004
Daron Caldwell is now free.
Monday morning, Wayne County prosecutor, Kym Worthy, and Detroit's
chief of police, Ella Bully-Cummings, held a press conference
where they dropped all charges against the man previously accused
of June's Hart Plaza fireworks shootings.
Caldwell had been had been
charged with second-degree murder and six counts of assault with
intent to murder. He was held on a $100 million bond before his
release Monday afternoon.
Of the 9 people shot at the
Hart Plaza Freedom Festival fireworks, on June 23, 2004, one
died in August as a result of his injuries.
The 32-year-old Caldwell has
spent the past three months in jail. In that time, Action News
has repeatedly shown that some witnesses doubted Caldwell's role
as the shooter.
Doubt was also cast on the
investigation when a police report surfaced two months
into the investigation saying that Caldwell had shot a
gun on the night of the fireworks shooting.
The timing of that report raised
questions. So too did the fact that it was written by Derryck
Thomas, an officer known to have provided false information to
prosecutors in a previous case.
Worthy and Bully-Cummings cited
DNA evidence as a reason for dropping the charges against Daron
Caldwell. They said they learned late Friday that DNA found at
the scene did not match their suspect.
Because of the DNA discrepancy,
Worthy said it would be "irresponsible" to prosecute
Caldwell "at this time." The prosecutor and the police
chief did not rule out future charges against Daron Caldwell.
"This does not exclude
Mr. Calwdewll," said the chief of police. "It does
not preclude charges being made against Mr. Caldwell at a future
date," Ella Bully-Cummings said.
Citing the need to prove guilt
"beyond a reasonable doubt," Worthy said, "What
we think and what we can prove in court are two different things."
Monday, Caldwell's friends
and family were in court for a hearing when word came that charges
would be dropped. Over the past three months, they wore t-shirts
reading "not guilty" and bearing Daron Caldwell's image.
"It was wonderful after
spending months not eating, not sleeping," said Caldwell's
mother, Blanche Thomas, of Monday's news.
"He's ecstatic,"
said attorney Marlon Evans who gave word to his client Monday
morning.
"They made me look like
a menace to society," said Daron Caldwell, after his release.
"I have a family and kid."
Chief Bully-Cummings told press
that she was satisfied with the way in which her department handled
the fireworks shooting investigation. At Monday's press conference,
the chief and the prosecutor also noted that two different weapons
were used in the shooting.
In speaking of evidence in
the crime, Bully-Cummings specifically noted a watch and articles
of clothing found at the Hart Plaza scene. She would not say
whether these items yielded DNA evidence that led the prosecutor's
office to drop the charges against Caldwell.
Copyright 2004, WXYZ. All
Rights Reserved.
Fireworks Shootings Follow-Up
By Steve Wilson, Web produced
by Jenny DiDomenico for WXYZ, Detroit 7, August 26, 2004
Government has virtually no
greater power than to lock up a citizen and deny him of his liberty.
Beyond the claims of eyewitnesses who say Daron Caldwell is not
the Hart Plaza shooter, 7 Action News chief investigative reporter
Steve Wilson uncovered some startling new information about how
police helped assure Caldwell's arrest and prosecution by producing
false reports-and then failing to follow-up on information that
may well exonerate him.
"We will not be satisfied
until every loose end is tied up in this matter," Detroit
Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings pledged after the shootings,
just before the arrest of the man she says is the Hart Plaza
shooter. But in the rush to make a quick collar, she and her
investigators have ignored many "loose ends" that strongly
suggest they've arrested and locked up the wrong man.
Chief Cummings told reporters
immediately after the arrest of 32-year-old Daron Caldwell, "Several
witnesses have identified this individual as the shooter."
Hold on - our own review of
the case shows that is just not true. Yes, there's Air Force
Academy graduate Christopher Thackaberry, who fingered Daron
Caldwell when police showed him photos of six black men, but
remember what he testified in court:
"I tell you I cannot be
100% sure, no."
Even immediately after the
shooting, when he talked to police that night he told them it
was dark and he couldn't really remember much about the shooter.
When he did identify Caldwell, did he point him out as the shooter,
or just maybe a face he saw in the crowd when pandemonium broke
out?
"They asked me to identify,
you know, who was the shooter and I said this person is definitely
somebody who I had seen that night when it happened," Thackaberry
said on the stand
And the police report that
says Doria Jackson observed the defendant shooting a handgun?
Wilson to Detroit Police Commander
Craig Schwartz: That woman never said that she could put the
gun in the hand of the individual.
Schwartz: That's correct.
Police say maybe such an outright
misrepresentation was an "oversight" or an "honest
mistake."
 Defense
attorney Marlon Evans says, "Sounds to me like a lie. My
position is why do you have to bolster your case if you're dealing
with the truth?"
Police claim Aaron Edmondson
is one of their "several witnesses" who saw the gun
in Caldwell's hands, but he says police weren't interested when
he and others showed up to say they're certain Daron Caldwell
is not the shooter.
And if the promise is to follow
every lead and tie up all loose ends, Brandon Patterson, who
was face-to-face with the gunman as he pumped two slugs into
his legs, wonders why the police haven't ever come by to hear
why he's so positive Caldwell is not the man who shot him.
Chief Cummings could not answer
a number of troubling questions like that when we sat down the
other day to discuss the high-profile case. After a few minutes
she walked out of the interview, unable to respond to some very
basic questions about gaping holes in the case against Daron
Caldwell.
Did the Mayor promote an atmosphere
where a quick arrest was expected to enhance the city's image?
Is the prosecutor alarmed at police providing false information
to her and the court? And another stunning admission from police
who claim this was an honest, ethical and thorough investigation.
Judge for yourself as our investigation continues.
Copyright 2004, WXYZ. All
Rights Reserved.
Daron Caldwell, set free
Monday, sits down to an interview with Frank Turner.
Exclusive
Interview: Daron Caldwell Speaks to 7
By Action News Team, October
4, 2004
"I swear to God and on
my children, I was not at the fireworks." Those were the
words of Daron Caldwell, set free Monday after months in jail,
charged as the man who shot 9 at Detroit's Freedom Festival fireworks.
Caldwell and his attorney,
Marlon Evans, sat down to an interview with Frank Turner on Monday
night. They credit 7 Action News with exposing conflicting witness
statements and questioning police work in the case.
7 Action News found that the
fireworks shooting investigation was not done fairly. Frank Turner
explained this before asking directly whether Caldwell committed
the crime.
"I watched the fireworks
on the news, just like I watched the fireworks shooting on the
news," Caldwell said in the exclusive interview.
In the interview, Caldwell
maintained that he was at a motel during the shootings. He said
his mother never told police that she was with her son at the
time of the incident.
"I never told police that,"
Caldwell said in reference to a statement that he had fired a
pistol on the day of the fireworks.
Caldwell speculated that the
city rushed to name a suspect in the aftermath of the shooting.
"You had the Super Bowl people here," he said.
Daron Caldwell had been held
on a $100 million bond. Prosecutors now say they do not have
enough evidence to hold him. Now free, he said, "I'm just
going to take it a day at a time."
Copyright 2004, WXYZ. All
Rights Reserved.
Charges dropped against
suspect in fireworks shooting
October 4, 2004, 4:14 PM
DETROIT (AP) -- Charges were
dropped Monday against a man who was accused of shooting into
a crowd of people watching a fireworks display this summer.
Daron T. Caldwell was released
from jail after Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Mary Waterstone
dismissed the charges at the request of county Prosecutor Kym
Worthy.
Worthy said she decided to
drop the charges against Caldwell because DNA found on items
at the scene did not match his. She said she received the results
of the DNA analysis on Friday.
But Worthy said she still believes
Caldwell may have been involved in the shootings.
"We do not think we erred
in any way in charging Mr. Caldwell," Worthy said.
Worthy also said that forensic
evidence showed that more than one gun had been used in the shootings.
Caldwell, 32, had been charged
with second-degree murder and six counts of assault with intent
to murder. Police said he shot nine people in Hart Plaza in downtown
Detroit during the June 23 fireworks. One of the shooting victims,
Donald Murphy, died Aug. 2 of complications from his gunshot
wound.
"I said from day one that
I was an innocent man," the Detroit Free Press quoted Caldwell
as saying after he left the Wayne County jail. "For some
reason, they made me look like a menace to society."
During Caldwell's preliminary
examination in July, witnesses gave conflicting accounts of the
shooting, with some saying they were sure they saw a different
man pull the trigger. The one witness who testified he saw Caldwell
shooting said he was not 100 percent sure.
Caldwell's friends and supporters
have shown up at his court appearances wearing T-shirts with
slogans such as "Not Guilty" on them. His supporters
also have tried to raise money for his defense at street fairs
and other community events.
A smiling Caldwell mugged for
reporters before Monday's hearing, which came after Worthy had
announced her decision. After it ended, he hugged his lawyer
and waved to family and friends before being escorted out.
"I feel good for the first
time in three months," Blanche Thomas, Caldwell's mother,
said afterward.
"We're going to give God
the glory of this, all right? All the glory," defense lawyer
Marlon Blake Evans said, hugging a smiling Thomas outside the
courtroom.
Waterstone dismissed the charges
without prejudice, which means Caldwell again could be charged
in the future in the same case. Worthy said she didn't want to
risk an acquittal, which would preclude her from bringing charges
again if more evidence against him turns up.
Worthy said the items used
for the DNA comparison included clothing and a watch found at
the scene, as well as the weapons.
The shootings happened shortly
after the fireworks started. Crowds had packed into downtown
and the surrounding areas along the Detroit River that runs between
Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, to watch the display, which is
a summertime tradition.
A timeline
of Detroit fireworks shooting case
October 4, 2004, 6:46 PM
--June 23: Shooting in a crowd
of people watching a fireworks display in Detroit leaves nine
people wounded.
--June 24: Charges authorized
against Daron T. Caldwell in the shooting.
--July 7: Caldwell's preliminary
examination held. Witnesses gave conflicting accounts of the
shooting, with some saying they were sure they saw a different
man pull the trigger. A judge finds there's enough evidence for
the case to go to trial.
--Aug. 2: One of the shooting
victims, Donald Murphy, dies of complications from his gunshot
wound.
--Aug. 9: Wayne County medical
examiner rules Murphy's death a homicide, opening the door for
a second-degree murder charge.
--Oct 1: Report given to the
Wayne County prosecutor's office shows DNA found on items at
the scene did not match Caldwell.
--Oct. 4: Circuit Court Judge
Mary Waterstone dismisses charges against Caldwell at the request
of county Prosecutor Kym Worthy. Caldwell is released.
Source: Wayne County prosecutor's
office
Fireworks Shootings:
What Do the Witnesses Say?
By Ray Sayah, Web produced
by Jenny DiDomenico, August 26, 2004
Two days after the fireworks
shootings at Hart Plaza, Aaron Edmondson was certain about two
things. He was certain that he was lucky to survive two gunshots,
and he was certain the man who shot him was not Daron Caldwell,
the man police had in custody.
"I watched the news and
as they had him in handcuffs and everything, I looked like that's
not the guy," Edmondson said.
Aaron Edmondson's startling
revelation to Action News is among a host of statements that
raise this question: Why are police and prosecutors so sure Daron
Caldwell is the Hart Plaza gunman when so many witnesses and
victims are not?
At Daron Caldwell's preliminary
hearing, nine witnesses took the stand. Only one witness, Chris
Thackaberry, testified that on the night after the shooting he
picked Daron Caldwell out of a photo line-up, but Thackaberry
also testified he is not certain Caldwell was the shooter.
Three other witnesses at the
hearing said they saw a gunman. Sherita Echoles said she didn't
get a good look at the gunman's face
"I really didn't see the
face of person," were her exact words.
Dominic Kennedy and Brandon
Patterson testified they did see the gunman's face, and they're
certain it was not Daron Caldwell.
"I swear on my kids that's
not the guy," Kennedy testified.
Doria Jackson was another prosecution
witness whose testimony only added to the confusion.
In a police report obtained
by Action News, police list Doria Jackson as a witness who observed
the defendant Daron Caldwell shooting a handgun at the scene.
But at the preliminary hearing,
Jackson testified she never told police she saw a shooter pointing
a gun at the crowd.
"I didn't see the guy
shoot a gun," Jackson said in court.
Jackson did testify that after
she heard gunshots, she saw Daron Caldwell get up from the ground.
When he got up, Doria Jackson says she saw a gun on the ground,
but she couldn't say who the gun belonged to.
Defense attorney: When you
saw him get up and walk away did you notice something?
Jackson: There was a gun on
the blanket.
Defense attorney: You don't
know what relationship that man had to the gun correct?
Jackson: Correct.
The description of the shooter
also raises questions. Some witnesses described him as dark skinned,
while others said he was light skinned.
Three witnesses testified the
shooter wore a black t-shirt, but Chris Thackaberry said he wore
a white t-shirt.
Some witnesses testified the
shooter was involved in a fight over sunglasses, but others testified
they never saw the shooter fighting with anyone.
Despite conflicting statements,
police reports that don't match witness testimony and not a single
witness who is 100 percent sure who fired the gun on the night
of the fireworks, police and prosecutors are somehow certain
Daron Caldwell is the Hart Plaza gunman.
Fireworks Shootings Follow-Up
Part 2
By Steve Wilson, Web produced
by Jenny DiDomenico, August 27, 2004
Is a Detroit man being railroaded
into a conviction as the one who opened fire and shot nine people
in Hart Plaza during the Freedom Festival fireworks display back
in June? Chief investigative reporter Steve Wilson has led our
own investigation that is raising some troubling questions.
Police have certainly not followed
every lead and tied up every loose end as Chief Ella Bully-Cummings
promised, and what's worse, their official report is laced with
false and misleading information, while police and prosecutors
keep insisting the right man is in jail awaiting trial.
Repeated flashes from the barrel
of a semi-automatic handgun brought an abrupt halt to the fireworks
fun. Nine festival-goers were shot one of them recently died.
As the shooting made news around
the world, Detroit's mayor was quick with this message:
"Public safety in the
city of Detroit is at a level that we haven't seen. I mean a
positive and productive level that we haven't seen, I believe,
ever."
The pressure to polish Detroit's
image, tarnished again by more senseless gun violence, was a
mayoral priority the morning after because among the crowd were
visitors from New York who rate and sell the city's bonds, and
NFL officials here to size up the city in advance of the super
bowl Detroit is hosting 17 months from now.
"Talking to the NFL last
night and this morning, with their reps that are in town, they
want to see how we respond to this," Kilpatrick announced
that morning. "This is not who we are. This is who he is,
the person we're looking for, and we'll get him. And we'll make
sure that he understands and the community understands at the
same time that this is not the Detroit that we're going to be
and we're turning the page and we're moving forward."
Then, not 24 hours after the
shooting, police grabbed up the suspected shooter-32-year-old
Daron Caldwell, who was not even wearing handcuffs when they
brought him in. When he came out he was cuffed, wearing a bullet-proof
vest, and denying any guilt.
"I didn't shoot nobody,"
Caldwell told reporters that day. "I'm positive."
At another news conference,
the mayor praised his police chief and her investigators for
the quick arrest. He called it "a defining moment"
for the city, a moment he no doubt hoped would impress the visiting
V-I-P's.
"They saw a mature Detroit
that not only stepped up to the challenge but handled it with
dignity, grace, and a lot of commitment and focus on getting
the job done," Kilpatrick announced.
"So we do have one individual
that we have several witness identifications that puts him as
being the shooter," Detroit Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings
has said.
But as we first reported here
earlier, police have never released any evidence that supports
such a claim. The truth is only one eyewitness under oath has
identified Caldwell as being the shooter, and immediately after
the shooting, what did this star witness tell police that night?
"I said, you know, I mean
it was dark I didn't get, you know, I was looking straight at
him, but when I make the police report that night I couldn't
really remember too much about him or anything that night,"
witness Christopher Thakaberry said he told police.
And when he did pick Caldwell
out of array of photos of six black men saying if any of them
was there at the scene, was he recalling the face of the shooter,
or just a face he'd seen in the crowd when pandemonium broke
out?
"They asked me to identify,
you know, who was the shooter and I said this person is definitely
somebody who I had seen that night when it happened," were
Thackaberry's words.
But when Caldwell's defense
lawyer asked the simple and obvious question, the prosecutor's
star witness faded considerably.
Defense: You can't sit here
today and say that's the person that you saw shooting, can you?
Thackaberry: I tell you, I
cannot be 100% sure, no.
Is that why the police bolstered
their case against Caldwell with the false claim in their official
report that another witness could testify to being there and
"observing the defendant shooting a handgun at the scene?"
because witness Doria Jackson says now, under oath:
Defense: You didn't see this
guy shoot a gun, did you?
Jackson: I didn't see the guy
shoot a gun.
Defense: You never saw this
guy point a gun into the crowd, did you?
Jackson No.
Defense: And you never told
the police that you saw anybody point a gun at a crowd of people,
did you?
Jackson: No.
Defense: Because you didn't
see that. Is that correct?
Jackson: I didn't see that.
When Action News asked Detroit
Police Department Criminal Investigations Cmdr. Craig Schwartz
if Jackson never said that she could put the gun in the hand
of the individual, he answered:
"No. That's correct."
And just how seriously does
the top command take such apparent misconduct? More than a week
later when we asked the Detroit Chief of Police:
Wilson: Anybody ever tell you
those officers didn't report truthfully on the report?
Cummings: No. This is the first
I'm hearing of it and you telling me what a commander told you
is hearsay to me and so I need to talk to my commander.
The mayor says he knew nothing
about any bogus claims by police.
"I brought them into my
office asked them to over the information with me," Kilpatrick
said. "I have a lot of confidence in the investigation that
they put together and we'll see how this process works itself
out."
Commander Schwartz: What you're
attempting to do is try this case in the media and that is unethical.
Wilson: Okay, well let's talk
about ethics for a minute. You tell me why it's ethical for one
of your police officers to put into an investigative report something
that is so far and away apart from the truth that it bears no
resemblance to the truth.
Schwartz: People make mistakes
all the time Mr. Wilson, and I suspect that on occasion, even
you have.
Wilson: Even I have, yes sir.
But I don't claim somebody did something that they never did.
I don't go on the air and report something that isn't true. Mr.
Caldwell is facing charges because the evidence is there to support
him being charged.
And then in the midst of our
Action News investigation at police headquarters, a double blockbuster.
Commander Craig Schwartz says they have four more witnesses who
say they saw the shooter that night in Hart Plaza.
Cmdr Schwartz: These four can
place the gun in the hand of the shooter. The shooter has been
identified as Mr. Caldwell.
Not by any of the four he just
said could place the gun in the hand of the shooter, because
astonishingly, he says police have never even asked them if Caldwell
was the man they saw shooting.
Wilson to Schwartz: Wouldn't
it make sense out of basic fairness to go to these four and say,
"Here's the guy we think was doing the shooting. Was he
the guy?" Wouldn't that then be a big benefit, certainly
to Mr. Caldwell, and to everyone else out of fairness?
Schwartz: We've conducted a
thorough investigation. Mr. Caldwell has been identified as the
perpetrator of this crime. He's facing the charges.
Are police afraid they'll hear
what shooting victim Brandon Patterson has said about the man
collared for the crime?
Defense attorney to witness
Brandon Patterson: As you sit here today, this is not the man
you saw, is it?
Patterson: Nope.
Eyewitness Dominic Kennedy,
who doesn't know Caldwell either, is even more certain police
caught the wrong man.
Defense Attorney to witness
Dominic Kennedy: This is not the shooter?
Kennedy: No, I swear to God,
I swear on my kids that's not the guy.
Amber Adamik may be one of
the four new witnesses police are relying on. Action News showed
her video of Caldwell and asked the question the police have
avoided: Is he the one?
Amber Adamik: I really don't
- that's not what I remember seeing right there.
And as for the physical evidence
in this troublesome case?
Cmdr Schwartz: We have another
witness that saw him leave the gun at the crime scene.
Wilson: You can't connect the
gun to him.
Again, police are stretching.
Doria Jackson says only she saw a gun on the ground near a man
she thinks is Caldwell, but she has no idea whose gun it was.
Police recovered the weapon
but no fingerprints, not on the gun and not on any of the seven
shells they found at the scene. Testing Caldwell for gunpowder
residue was not possible by the time he was arrested, and even
raising the filed-off serial number only told the Chief and her
officers who bought it 10 years ago in Ohio.
Wilson to Chief Cummings: Have
you connected the weapon in any other way to Mr. Caldwell?
Chief: I, I, that's some information
that I don't have Steve.
Apparently, there is no physical
evidence that connects Daron Caldwell to the shooting
Wilson to Marlon Blake Evans,
Defense Attorney: You know what I keep hearing from them? You
don't know everything we have? Evans: Well then, to me that's
a travesty of justice if I don't know everything that they have.
I think it's a waste of the taxpayers' money. It's a travesty
that we have a community where we're not safe and we have the
prosecution investigating the crime in which they're convinced
that they have the right person but yet and still it appears
that the real culprit might be at large.
Action News talked to Mayor
Kilpatrick.
Mayor: I think that there was
a natural thing that was going on in the community that said
'let's get the perpetrator of this crime,' I don't believe that
it led to anything bad.
Wilson: Could it have led to
'let's get somebody, quickly?'.
Mayor: I don't think it did.
Larry Dubin, a professor at
the Detroit School of Law, has been watching the case with interest.
His bottom line?
Dubin: It certainly seems that
there is going to be reasonable doubt presented to the jury.
The prosecution had sufficient evidence to meet the burden of
the preliminary exam. They may offer sufficient evidence to be
able to get the case to the jury and then it's the function of
the jury, the voice of the community in being fair an impartial
and analyzing this, and if they don't feel that the prosecution's
case meets that beyond a reasonable doubt threshold, it's their
obligation to find the defendant not guilty.
|
Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
