Detroit rapper: Our mayor's a murderer

... Gotta make her disappear dog, no exceptions,
find out where she lives and conceal the weapon.

~ Detroit rapper "The Virus," "Strawberry Letter 313/If I Did It"

Fox2News reporter Taryn Asher last week interviewed local Detroit rapper "The Virus" regarding his new (and no doubt double platinum) hit song about a taboo subject few feel brave enough to address – Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's role in the death of exotic dancer Tamara "Strawberry" Greene.

"The Virus wrote an entire rap song about Strawberry. In it, he piggybacks conspiracy theories; writing damaging verses, depicting mayor Kwame Kilpatrick as the mastermind behind her murder. With his creative license, The Virus claims the mayor took a liking toward her [Strawberry], got caught and organized a plot to make her disappear," said reporter Asher.

After hearing news coverage about the sex, lies and text messaging scandal and all the notorious revelations of double murder, perjury, criminal fraud, destroyed careers, whistleblower lawsuits, backroom secret deals and naked corruption reaching up to the highest levels in Detroit city government and beyond, The Virus was outraged.

But what sparked The Virus' creative energy most was the unsolved murder of Tamara Greene – this young, exotic dancer and aspiring lingerie boutique owner. After dancing for Kilpatrick at a secret party at the mayor's Manoogian mansion in late 2002, seven months later Tamara Greene was dead, viciously killed in a drive-by shooting in front of her home on the city's northwest side – literally around the block from where I grew up on Roselawn at Outer Dr. – on April 30, 2003.

This was also the very date Deputy Police Chief and head of internal affairs Gary Brown had completed his anticipated report implicating the mayor as indeed having had a party at the Manoogian mansion in addition to evidence of an affair with Christine Beatty, his chief of staff. Beatty was Kilpatrick's most trusted aide, whose services he was forced to terminate when the text messaging scandal broke last month.

What was officer Brown's reward for doing his job? His files were taken from his custody and he was forced from office, which caused Brown, along with officers Alvin Bowman, Harold Nelthrope and Walt Harris, to all be removed from duty for their part in the mayoral Manoogian party investigation. They subsequently filed whistleblower lawsuits against Kilpatrick and the city of Detroit. Collectively, they won over $9 million.

It has now been five years since Strawberry was consigned to a cold, desolate grave – her death unvindicated, her murder file gathering dust in Detroit homicide's cold case division. After three investigations, nothing. The first inquiry was by the Detroit police, which was quickly aborted by Kilpatrick's appointee, Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings. There was also an investigation into Greene's death by the Michigan State Police and by Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox (a Republican!) who strongly asserted that no party occurred at the Manoogian mansion and any evidence linking Tamara Greene to a party there was "an urban legend."

The Virus could take no more! In one hour of pure creative inspiration, he sat down at his keyboard and wrote the now greatly anticipated rap requiem in memory of Tamara Greene, titled "Strawberry 313/If I did it" – the CD to be released this week by Quincy Jones' own Universal Records music label. The video is presently being shot at all of the venues surrounding Strawberry's life, including the bars and clubs she frequented, City Hall and, of course, the mayor's Manoogian mansion.

The narrative began all so beautifully (at least from the mayor's perspective). The Virus sings, "Strawberry, Baby, all you need is direction, now let me be your Angel and I'll be your protection." But as in the Garden of Eden, or a better analogy – King David and Bathsheba – things got real crazy real quickly.

The Virus pulls no punches, for he realizes that his protagonist is an arrogant, pathological narcissist that will do anything to stay in power ... even murder? The Virus rhapsodizes:

I can't believe what I'm seeing, I'm watch'n the headlines, man these allegations go'n to get me some fed[eral] time.

I'm mad! I got to do someth'n quick [shotgun cock sound] or maybe I could tell the truth, then they know I ain't sh--!

Gotta make her disappear dog, no exceptions, find out where she lives and conceal the weapon ...

The interview of The Virus ends on a high note through his executive producer, Jerome Almon, with the following eloquent words in the street vernacular and a poignant promise: "He supposed to be the hip-hop mayor, well, he took it too literal and went gangsta on us, right? So we gonna cut that out because we more gangsta than he is and we lay'n down the truth."

Is Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick a murderer? While I don't believe he actually pulled the trigger that killed the exotic dancer, a growing number of people in Detroit, throughout America and around the world are beginning to believe that Kilpatrick and Bully-Cummings were part of a vast conspiracy reaching to the highest levels of Michigan government to keep that 2002 party at the Manoogian mansion a secret at all costs.

Why all the fuss over a stupid party? No party means no wife (Carlita Kilpatrick) crashing the party, perhaps even catching the mayor in the very act with Strawberry. This could have caused Mrs. Kilpatrick to give the "beatdown" that Strawberry suffered, causing the dancer to be hastily taken to the hospital by the mayor's bodyguards, where her medical records were soon mysteriously taken by one of the mayor's cronies. (Although computer copies of these medical records should exist.)

No party means no dancer, no beatdown, no medical records, allowing the mayor to distance himself from the crime scene, to protect his wife from embarrassing criminal battery charges possibly filed by the dancer and to intimidate or remove all other people who might testify that there was a party at the mayor's mansion in 2002.

Who could talk? Who would talk? Lt. Bowman testified that he told Police Chief Bully-Cummings of a connection between Greene's death and another dancer from Detroit killed in a similar fashion in Georgia.

Since this murder crossed state lines, where are the feds on this catastrophic case? Oh yeah, that's right, President George W. Bush's Justice Department is too busy making sure that the security fence isn't built on our southern border with Mexico; that our brave border agents like Ramos and Campean rot in a federal prison on the sole testimony of one sleazy Mexican drug dealer who shot at them. Why? Because these border agents shot back at this fleeing criminal, hitting him in the behind as he fled back to Mexico when his plans were thwarted for trying to bring in over $1 million in drugs into America. But I digress.

On Thursday, Feb. 14, Mayor Kilpatrick lost his second court challenge to prevent the release of over 14,000 text messages between the mayor and his former lover/ex-chief of staff, Christine Beatty (only four months worth of dialogue mind you!)

On Friday, Feb. 15, Kilpatrick appealed a third time to the Michigan Supreme Court, but his time is running out. I'm sure the high court won't overrule the two decisions from the lower courts; there are no legitimate legal grounds to do so.

What deep, dark, wicked secrets lay within the electronic lines of these text messages between Kilpatrick and his former lover? Perhaps murder? Stay tuned. I'll let you know next week.

Previous columns:

Another pathological black mayor

Detroit's demise is the triumph of liberalism

I Remember Detroit