Tuesday, June 17, 2003

House burned, police vehicles vandalized during Benton Harbor riot

By TED HARTZELL / H-P Metro Editor and LYNN STEVENS / H-P Staff Writer

BENTON HARBOR -- Hundreds of people rioted late Monday night and early this morning along a four-block stretch of Empire Avenue in apparent anger over a police chase early Monday in which a Benton Harbor motorcyclist died.

Rioters burned a vacant house, damaged three Benton Harbor police vehicles and hit several police officers with bricks and bottles, police said.

[red]Police said some people also fired off shots, but police said they themselves did not shoot[/red].

The clusters of people dispersed peacefully around 2 a.m. after police using a loudspeaker urged people to go home or face being charged with felonies. Approximately 60 police had converged on the scene, with state police coming from as far away as the Battle Creek and White Pigeon posts.

The violence happened in the same area where Terrance Shurn, 28, was killed around 2 a.m. Monday when his motorcycle crashed into an abandoned house at Empire and Pavone Street. The quiet, impromptu vigils that had been kept at the site in Shurn's honor were replaced late at night by violence. The house that was torched, and which was reduced to only a charred skeleton, was across the street from the accident site.

Around 6:30 this morning, several hours after the riot ended, a fire engulfed an abandoned house at 765 Lavette St., the Benton Township Fire Department said. That fire is just blocks from Monday's fire at the abandoned house.

It was not immediately known if the later fire was tied in with the earlier violence.

The street violence, which began about 11 p.m., followed violent words earlier in the evening by some of about three dozen people who showed up at Benton Harbor City Hall for a City Commission meeting. Angry at Shurn's death, they protested high-speed police chases in general. Some made threatening remarks about Benton Harbor police.

When the rioting broke out, the Benton Harbor police were first on the scene. But Chief Samuel Harris pointed out that he typically has [red]only three officers on patrol at any one time[/red]. Anticipating trouble, he had held back his three day-shift patrol officers until late at night, but when no trouble developed, he let them go home.

But a short time later trouble did brew on the streets.

"They called me a little after 11" p.m., Harris said around 2 this morning as he stood at the police command center of Empire and Broadway amid a small army of police and their vehicles.

Harris said rioters were "throwing bottle and bricks and what-not at the police cars. Later they set a house on fire."

"They bricked us so bad" that firefighters and police couldn't get to the burning house, he said. The sheriff's department said several nearby homes were evacuated as a precaution because the fire department wasn't able to immediately get to the burning house.

Harris said officers did not have shields and other protective equipment at first, but they went and got them and returned.

"We charged in and cleared the street," said Harris, who as Benton Harbor police chief was in charge of all police on the scene.

In the aftermath, Empire Avenue was littered with broken glass and bricks.

Police turned out in force from surrounding departments to bolster the small Benton Harbor department. A SWAT team, a police dog and an armored vehicle - the Berrien County Sheriff's Department's Peacekeeper - were among the defenses police had as they massed at the intersection of Empire and Broadway, a block from the burning house and motorcycle accident site. Police departments that sent officers included St. Joseph Township, the city of St. Joseph and several posts of the state police. The sheriff's department sent a large force.

Many police cars were positioned in the intersection and in the parking lot of a party store.

A reporter arriving around 1:30 saw clusters of people gathered east of the intersection along Empire Avenue.

A few women expressed anger at what they said was a pattern of harassment by Benton Township police. It was a policeman from that department who pursued Shurn into Benton Harbor after a sheriff's deputy had earlier stopped pursuing him, state police said.

"[red]They harass us, they pull us over for nothing," Evette Taylor said of Benton Township police. "We fed up. When do you say 'Enough!' [/red]" [i][Mind you, there are only 3 cops on patrol at a time in this city. - FC][/i]

Taylor, who lives on Columbus Avenue, said she and other people had been putting flowers and other items at the motorcycle crash site and trying to grieve Shurn's death when police asked them to move.

"He was a sweet person, and he don't deserve to die this way," she said.

Anger in City Hall

More than three dozen angry people crowded the regular Monday night audience at the City Commission meeting and spilled into the hall. They came to protest all high-speed police chases in the wake of Shurn's death.

Ordinary Benton Harbor protocol requires people addressing the commission to state their names and addresses before speaking. Only a few of the protesters bothered. [red]They said they wanted to spend every second of their allotted time threatening Benton Harbor police - who were not involved in the chase[/red] - and demanding some kind of action from the commissioners.

A man who identified himself as Micah from Union Street embraced most of the crowd's complaints in his comments. He said, "All of you here heard and knew the chase was called off."

He said state police (actually the sheriff's deputies) called off the chase, but a Benton Township officer saw the motorcycle speed by and pursued Shurn into the city.

"How can somebody come into our city and chase somebody? What's going to be done?" he asked.

Mayor Charles Yarbrough called for order in the commission chambers so police Chief Harris could answer. But the crowd derided Harris and interrupted his explanations.

Harris said because the police chase was multi-jurisdictional, he turned it over to the state police to investigate. He told the crowd that Benton Harbor does not use the same radio frequency as do Benton Township, the sheriff's department, St. Joseph and surrounding departments, so the only way those departments can communicate with Benton Harbor is through police dispatch, and that takes a phone call instead of instant radio contact.

He tried to explain further, but the crowd shouted him down.

"The chief ain't from here," one man yelled. "He don't know nothin.'"

[red]"We don't need no chief," another said. "We can chief ourselves."[/red]

Harris spoke a little louder. "We can't respond if you don't allow me to respond." The yelling and rumblings continued for a minute, then the crowd quieted.

"I understand the emotion here, but as chief of police there are laws I have to follow," Harris said.

He explained that state and federal laws allow police to cross into other jurisdictions if they are in hot pursuit of a suspect. He said he was called about 2:30 a.m. Monday, about a half hour after the cycle crashed, and only learned of the incident then. Harris said that because he had not heard the chase itself, he did not know any more than they did why Shurn was pursued. But he explained, "In this county, you can go anywhere in Berrien County and make an arrest."

"Because we do not have an accident reconstructionist, I asked the state police to investigate," Harris continued. The noise level in the commission chamber rose, and a woman near the door yelled repeatedly, "What was his (Shurn's) crime?"

Police: Chase exceeded 100 mph

By KAY DOWNER / H-P Staff Writer

BENTON HARBOR -- A high-speed police chase that sparked a riot in Benton Harbor Monday night ended when a 28-year-old Benton Harbor man lost control of his motorcycle and it crashed into an abandoned house.

The driver was identified as Terrance Shurn of 635 Columbus Ave. State police said he was pronounced dead at the scene.

The crash occurred about 2 a.m. on Pavone Street near Empire Avenue after what state police said was an interrupted chase involving patrol officers from the Berrien County Sheriff's Department and Benton Township Police Department.

The chase began on U.S. 31 in the Scottdale area of Royalton Township when Berrien County Deputy Mark Lundin saw two high-performance motorcycles traveling north toward Benton Harbor [red]faster than 100 mph[/red], state police said.

Shurn was presumably driving one of these motorcycles, said Lt. Joseph Zangaro of the state police's Bridgman post.

Lundin briefly pursued the motorcycles north on 31 but broke off the chase because of the cycles' high speed, Zangaro said.

[red]A short time later, Benton Township Patrolman Wes Koza saw one of the cycles speeding near the intersection of Starlite Drive and Union Street and ignoring stop signs. He began pursuing it.[/red]

Koza followed the fast-moving motorcycle onto Broadway and into the city of Benton Harbor, watching as it [red]crossed residential yards and came back on the street and continued to run through stop signs[/red], state police said.

Koza was [red]several blocks behind Shurn when the cycle crashed into the abandoned house[/red], Zangaro said.

An autopsy was scheduled for Monday afternoon. Zangaro said it will take 10 days to two weeks before the [red]toxicology results[/red] are in to determine what Shurn might have had in his system.

State police said it was not immediately known why Shurn was speeding when first observed by police. Sgt. Jim Campbell of the state police Accident Reconstruction Unit in Paw Paw is in charge of the investigation.

Copyright 2003 The Herald-Palladium

Michigan did not escape the the middle 1960s as they turned hot and violent in many U.S. cities. Street violence erupted in Benton Harbor on August 30, 1966 and Governor George Romney ordered out 1,790 Guardsmen to quell the riot. By September 5th, Benton Harbor was quieted and the Guardsmen returned to their armories.

Quoted:
So, what was his crime?

Tom

Quoted:
Interesing that the race of those involved was not mentioned.  Sad that it is always afactor in this nonsense.

Quoted:
House burned, police vehicles vandalized during Benton Harbor riot

"The chief ain't from here," one man yelled. "He don't know nothin.'"

[red]"We don't need no chief," another said. "We can chief ourselves."[/red]

Quoted:


Looks like speeding in excess of 100 mph, running from the police, and trespassing.

Oh, and I forgot, vandalism to the vacant house.  And littering.

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Looks like speeding in excess of 100 mph, running from the police, and trespassing.

Oh, and I forgot, vandalism to the vacant house.  And littering.

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Maybe he should have stopped for the cop instead of crashing into the house.  Sorry if that seems too simple a solution... it's just the first thing that popped into my head.

[%|]

Quoted:


Benton Harbor Michigan Demographics

Race:
White = 5.48%
Black or African American = 92.4%

Median Age: 25.4

(Thanks to The_Macallan [;)] )

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Yes that is Benton Harlem. ..
The sad thing is they burn their own town down. Not that there ismuch there to burn down. A few [b]wig shops[/b] ,a liquor store and a few take joints.

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LOL. Nice job OP. Running from the cops is dangerous for all involved. Luckily, he only killed himself. Sounds like a mob full of idiots. Nothing worse than a stupid mob.

Oh, you Trolls and all your silly riots. Send those a--holes across the bridge and we'll take care of the rest.

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Fireguy, you might just get your wish.  Some of them may be heading for Kinross.

Granholm said she hoped to avoid using National Guard troops to restore law and order in the city, something that has not been done in Michigan since race riots in the mid-1960s.

"You don't want to overreact because that may cause other unintended consequences," Granholm told reporters.

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Fireguy, you might just get your wish.  Some of them may be heading for Kinross.

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no justiz no pece!!! ya now wat i sain?

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Funny how this kind of stuff never happens in my neighborhood full of farmers.  [:O]

Keving67

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I don't carry a gun when I go out of Indiana but after this little trip I will.