DETROIT (WWJ) - Some Detroit public school parents are speaking out over what they say is a problem of overcrowded classrooms at their school.

The school is Bates Academy which is a longstanding magnate school for gifted and talented students.

Myowa Reynolds, a parent, says Bates has at least one class with more than 50 students.

Reynolds who has a sixth grade daughter at the school says, “we saw it on the first day and several parents brought it up to leadership that day. And they said they would handle it, but we don’t feel six weeks later is handling it.”

District spokesperson, Jennifer Mrozowski, denies the school has any overcrowding in the classrooms.

Angelique Peterson said her son’s eighth grade English class has over 55 students. She said, we were told teachers would be hired to reduce class sizes and that just has not happened.

Reynolds, Peterson and other parents say they plan to take their concerns to the school board and Emergency Manager, Roy Roberts.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/10/12/parents-say-classes-overcrowded-district-says-not-so/

DETROIT (97.1 The Ticket) During a media conference call Monday, Detroit Tigers Manager Jim Leyland answered a hot button question from the New York Post.

Who’s his closer?

Usual closer Jose Valverde was benched Sunday to work on slowing his delivery after giving up four ninth-inning runs in the first game of the series. But Leyland still has faith in his ability.

“I’m going to just play it out and see what happens, see what kind of match-up there is, but I do think, I still consider Valverde the closer, it’s just a matter of having a conversation with him tomorrow … see how he’s feeling,” Leyland said, adding, “We’ll just see how the game plays out and go from there, I certainly, other than Valverde, still the closer for the most part, I still don’t really have another set closer, I used Phil Coke last night, depending on who they got coming up, depending on what the match-up would be, I’ll go from there.

“I’m hoping Valverde in the very near future will be ready to take it back over because it’s pretty important that we have him.”

The Tigers came out strong in the first two games of the American League Championship Series against the new York Yankees, with game three coming up Tuesday night. The Tigers lead the best-of-seven game series two games to none.

The Yankees bats have been cold this series, and Leyland said the Tigers are hoping to keep them in a slump.

“You know the Yankees are going to break out here at some point, that’s just a matter of fact,” the coach said. “During the season I always talk about ‘it’s not so much who you’re playing as when you’re playing them.’ We’re just hoping we can keep the Yankees from swinging the bats too good in the next few days.”

From a broader perspective on Valverde’s situation,Leyland pointed out many closers have struggled in post-season ninth innings.

“The thing that always been misleading about a closer is everybody talks about a closer comes in, he gives up three lines drives, they’re all caught,” Leyland said. “The next day he comes in, he gives up two bloopers and a base hit, they say well, the one day he did a great job, the next day the bloopers beat him so he did a terrible job. So I think you’ve just got to weigh a lot of things.

“I just think there’s certainly a lot of pressure … There are some times during the season when somebody is beaten down a little bit and it doesn’t mean they’re not trying hard because they are … It’s amazing, but you’re right, several of the closers have struggled.”

As for Monday, Leyland said the team was relaxing and looking forward to Tuesday.

“We’re just kind of relaxing, finally getting the day off, you know we’ve had some tough travel lately,” Leyland said. “We know what’s in front of us yet, you don’t think about stuff that’s behind you, you think about what’s in front of you … It’s not going to be easy. We’re just really thinking about tomorrow’s game, but today everybody a little bit tired, today we’re just kind of hanging out, taking it easy.”

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/10/15/leyland-still-sees-valverde-as-closer/

DETROIT (WWJ) - Eight individuals were indicted by a federal grand jury in Detroit on charges relating to identity theft, United States Attorney Barbara L. McQuade announced Friday.

Charges in the indictment include use of counterfeit access devices, aggravated identity theft, theft of government money, and conspiracy to commit those offenses.

Indicted were: 24-year-old Kenneth Dixon, 24-year-old Carl Lesely, 27-year-old Shalace Washington, 24-year-old Rufus Washington, and 23-year-old Charles Durr, all from Detroit; as well as 24-year-old Nakita Washington, 27-year-old Darius Washington, and 22-year-old Jamela Washington, all from Warren.

The four count indictment charges that between October 2009 through April 2012, the defendants systematically engaged in a conspiracy to obtain the personal identification information of unsuspecting victims, and then used that information to submit fraudulent on-line claims for unemployment compensation benefits.

McQuade said over 100 individuals were victimized and over $400,000 was stolen.

“Technology makes it easier than ever to commit fraud, but technology also enables investigators to detect these schemes. Perpetrators of identity fraud should take note that they will be caught and prosecuted,” McQuade said in a release.

Unemployment Insurance Agency Director Steve Arwood said people who willfully commit unemployment insurance fraud should know that “the state of Michigan and the UIA are serious about detecting and preventing fraud.”

“Unemployment insurance fraud is a crime that affects everyone, by driving up taxes for businesses and threatening the integrity of the unemployment insurance system for those who really need it. We appreciate the great work of the U.S. Department Of Labor Inspector General in working with us to investigate and bring these cases to justice,” Arwood said in a statement.

An indictment is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt. The defendants are entitled to a fair trial in which it will be the government’s burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/10/13/8-indicted-after-identity-theft-unemployment-benefits-scam-busted/#at_pco=cfd-1.0

(Photo Credit: WWJ Photo/Mike Campbell)

SOUTHFIELD (WWJ) - Firefighters in Southfield have contained a fire that broke out at an apartment complex Tuesday morning.

The fire started some time after 6 a.m. at the Pointe O’Woods apartments on 12 Mile Road, just west of Telegraph.

Reporting live from the scene, WWJ’s Mike Campbell said about two dozen residents clad in pajamas were standing in a grassy median near the street, watching as crews tried to save their homes from the flames.

Karen Lampkin lives in the two-story building that is burning.

“I don’t know, we just woke up from the smoke detectors going off and I woke my two daughters up and about the time we got to the front door, we couldn’t get out of the front door because the smoke, it was too black. We had to go out the bedroom windows, but we made it out,” she said.

Jameer Grey was awakened by other residents evacuating the building.

“I was asleep and I just heard somebody banging on the walls or something, and I woke up and smelled smoke and I ran outside,” he said.

Heavy smoke caused minor traffic issues on Telegraph, but those have since cleared up.

It was not immediately clear what caused the fire.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/10/16/fire-breaks-out-at-southfield-apartment-complex/

DETROIT — Wayne State University will celebrate the groundbreaking for the Multidisciplinary Biomedical Research Building at 1 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012 at 6187 Woodward Avenue.

The MBRB will be the university’s newest research facility and its largest-ever construction project. The building will encourage interdisciplinary work across a range of scientific areas with the goal of translating new discoveries to improve human health and society.

“The MBRB is about everything we want to be as a research university, with key strengths in the health sciences and a commitment to the community,” said Wayne State University President Allan Gilmour. “It’s about discovery, it’s about teaching, and it’s about economic growth.”

A $93 million project, the building will feature nearly 200,000 square feet of space for about 500 researchers and staff and 68 principal investigators. It will include wet and dry laboratories, faculty offices and common areas, as well as clinical space.

Faculty members from across the university will populate the MBRB. The School of Medicine, the College of Engineering, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the School of Social Work, and the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences will conduct research at the facility. Ninety-three percent of the structure will be occupied by Wayne State University, with the remaining 7 percent housing partners from the Henry Ford Health System, including its bone and joint research program and biomechanics motion laboratory.

It will be Wayne State’s first new biomedical research facility since the opening of the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences building in 2002 and the first since 1998 with accommodations for researchers from the School of Medicine.

Research in the MBRB will be arranged into thematic areas — cardiovascular disease; metabolic disorders such as diabetes, hypertension and obesity; systems biology; biomedical engineering; bioinformatics and computational biology; and translational behavioral science.

The development of the MBRB will include the reconstruction of the Dalgleish Cadillac building on Cass Avenue, a historic Detroit structure designed by renowned architect Albert Kahn. A new 70,000-square-foot addition facing Woodward Avenue will be a companion to the Kahn building.

Wayne State University has commissioned the architecture firm Harley Ellis Devereaux, which also designed the university’s A. Paul Schaap Chemistry Building. The contractor is Barton Malow.

To construct the MBRB, Wayne State University will employ a combination of state support, university funding and private investment. The state of Michigan will provide $30 million for the construction of the building as a part of its capital outlay for colleges and universities. Philanthropy will play an equally important role.

“Over the years, we are fortunate to have had alumni and friends who contributed to the university’s most ambitious projects,” Gilmour said. “As we build the MBRB, we will look to our supporters to embrace our vision for the future as a major research institution dedicated to improving human health through innovative scientific discovery.”

The new MBRB will redevelop 2.75 acres on Woodward Avenue that is currently vacant real estate. Revitalizing this section of Midtown will contribute to the growing strength of the neighborhood and the importance of Wayne State’s presence within the community. Once fully operational in early 2015, the MBRB will create both temporary and permanent jobs, and estimates show that it will result in about $40 million in new earnings annually in Michigan, 98 percent of which will be in metropolitan Detroit.

The site is near TechTown, Wayne State’s business incubator, strengthening the university’s ultimate vision for the MBRB, which is to move groundbreaking discoveries from the laboratory into practice.

The MBRB will be designed in accordance with the United States Green Building Council’s 2009 LEED Standards for New Construction and Major Renovations. The goal for the MBRB project is to receive a LEED silver rating.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/10/15/wayne-state-breaking-ground-on-93m-biotech-building/

NEW YORK, Oct 15 (Reuters) - The American Civil Liberties Union is filing what it says is the first lawsuit against an investment bank, Morgan Stanley, alleging discrimination for packaging subprime mortgage loans into securities.

The ACLU and other plaintiffs will file the case on behalf of five Detroit residents and its Michigan affiliate, claiming the investment bank encouraged a mortgage lender to make loans with justifiably high costs and a strong possibility of foreclosure to enrich its business of selling securities to institutional investors.

"With this lawsuit, real victims of the subprime lending scandal are stepping forward to hold investment banks like Morgan Stanley accountable for the devastation the banks wrought in their lives and in our economy," ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said in a prepared statement.

The civil liberties group will file the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in New York, and asked the court to certify it as a class action. It said as many as 6,000 black homeowners in the Detroit area may have suffered similar discrimination.

Until now, discrimination lawsuits have been brought directly against the original mortgage lenders rather than investment banks that packaged the loans into securities, the ACLU said.

The case, Beverly Adkins et al v Morgan Stanley, was also brought by the ACLU's Michigan affiliate, the National Consumer Law Center and Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, a San Francisco-based law firm.

A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman said the company had no immediate comment on the filing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/15/aclu-morgan-stanley_n_1966495.html?utm_hp_ref=detroit&ir=Detroit

DETROIT (WWJ) – Shuttered Detroit firehouses have become the latest targets for scrap metal thieves.

At least a half-dozen fire stations across the city from Southwest Detroit to the near east side of the city — including engine and ladder companies 33, 46 and 49 — are now closed. Executive Fire Commissioner Don Austin says thieves are breaking into the closed buildings and stripping them of what can be sold for scrap.

“That’s where the water heaters, the plumbing, electrical oftentimes is taken out of the building,” Austin said.

“We have stainless steel kitchen sinks; I mean I don’t really want to put the inventory what’s in there, cause I’m not trying to encourage people to come in those buildings, but we’re working with Detroit Police Department, General Services to get them boarded up and to get patrols by those stations that are vacated.”

Fire Department officials want to keep as much of the buildings intact, so they can resell them. They also want to help keep the property values up in the neighborhoods where the fire stations are located.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/10/15/thieves-targeting-closed-detroit-fire-stations/

Two officers of the Detroit Police Department were injured while on patrol. According to Detroit Police Sgt. Erin Stephens, a forty-seven year old woman with a suspended license drove through a stop sign on Lansdowne Street and hit the officer’s vehicle on Moross.

The officers were admitted to the hospital and are listed to be in temporary serious condition after last night’s accident. The victim and police officers names have not yet been released. The woman driving the other vehicle was arrested and may face other charges.

Jeff Gaglio (pictured), a Detroit paramedic, says he is being punished for giving a cold man blanket, Fox 2 News reports.

As ridiculous as it sounds, the department is bringing him up on charges of giving away department-owned property without permission–even though the blankets were donated to the EMS!

The incredible story began two weeks ago when an old man with a physical disability was burned out of his home. The man was in his underwear when Gaglio brought him out of the house. The poor guy was obviously cold and shaking.

Doing the right thing, Gaglio gave the man the donated blanket. But, on Tuesday, he said he received a notification letter saying he is being brought up on EMS-departmental charges.

“I’m being punished,” Gaglio said. “I’m being punished for giving a man a blanket, something that would seem like a common, every day courtesy. Something that any man or woman would do in the City of Detroit, give a freezing man a blanket. I’m being punished for it.”

When the president of the group who donated the blankets to the EMS heard of Gaglio’s case, he seemed dumbfounded. Matt Cahillane, president of Firefighter Support Services, doesn’t mind that the people for whom they were intended actually get to keep them.

“I think that’s what they’re for,” Cahillane said.

When Fox 2 reached the chief of EMS, Jerald James, he had this to say: “We can’t have an employee who feels that they have a right to give away state property, be it donated, be it a blanket, be it a tire off a vehicle, without getting prior approval from somebody or notifying the proper authority. This is what he did.”

Though Gaglio finds the chief’s explanation pointless.

“These are the important issues. Donated blankets are the important issue, not the broken-down ambulances, not the bad response time, not the people dying that can’t get an ambulance, not the closing of EMS units in the city, blankets,” Gaglio told Fox 2.

http://newsone.com/2058221/jeff-gaglio-detroit-paramedic-punished-for-giving-cold-man-blanket/

Ndamukong Suh has had his problems on the road.

He crashed a muscle car during December in Portland, Ore., and is now being sued for more than $1 million by a woman who claims she was injured in the accident. In March, he was cited for cruising 91 mph in a 55 mph zone in Portland.

And now, Suh has been accused of sideswiping a man as he drove to the Detroit Lions’ practice facility Thursday morning in Allen Park, Mich. Suh is also accused of leaving the scene of an accident and berating the man whose car he hit. Dearborn Police are investigating the matter.

My Fox Detroit has the complete story, including an interview with Steve Vines, who says Suh, in a black Range Rover, sideswiped the Ford Escort he was driving as they merged onto a ramp.

“I look over at him and he started yelling at me, 'Trying to cut me off. Get out of the way.' And I just said, 'Really?'” Vines told Fox. "He just started yelling about getting the hell out of his way and cutting him off."

Vines called 911 and watched as the driver of the vehicle went into the Lions facility. At that point, Suh laid into Vines some more.

“That's when he said, 'I advise you to leave, now,’” Vines told Fox. “And I said, 'I'm not going anywhere. I talked to the police.' (He said), 'I don't care what they said. You need to get out of here.' And then he said, 'I'm advising you to leave, now.'"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/12/ndamukong-suh-hit-and-run-sideswipe-car_n_1960937.html