In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

1 Introduction Labor Day in America Labor day, September 4, 1995, came and went much as it had in previous years in Sterling Heights, Michigan, a predominantly white, middle-class suburb in Macomb County, exactly six miles north of Detroit. Clouds billowed in from over the Great Lakes to fill the late summer sky, while the sun kept temperatures seasonably warm. Local residents took advantage of the long weekend to go fishing or sailing or just stay at home and watch sports on television. In quiet neighborhoods of orderly streets and cul-desacs , families and friends gathered around dinner tables or backyard barbecues . In the evening hours, as the holiday weekend wound down, people gradually prepared themselves for the return of the regular working week. Across town, however, a very different scene was taking place. Along its commercial highways and boulevards, Sterling Heights was also home to several large industrial employers: the Ford Motor Company, Chrysler Corporation, and other big firms had major facilities within the town’s borders. Near the intersection of Mound Road and 16 Mile Road (Metropolitan Parkway) stood the giant North Plant of the Detroit Newspaper Agency (DNA), a sprawling, forty-two-acre complex of integrated pressroom , mailroom, loading dock, warehouse, and truck maintenance facilities , with its own railroad spur to bring boxcar loads of newsprint directly into the plant. There, on the center island of Mound Road across from the plant’s main south gate, more than one hundred police officers from Sterling Heights and other nearby towns stood ready in full riot gear, while squads of private, high-security guards patrolled inside the chain-link fence circling the property. In between, as many as three hundred striking newspaper workers and their supporters gathered in and around the driveway onto Mound Road. The strikers, members of the local Newspaper Guild, Teamsters, and printing craft unions, chanted slogans and carried signs on a picket line, joined by supporters from the United Auto 2 The Broken Table Workers (UAW) and other area unions as well as more radical splinter groups. Since the start of the strike nearly eight weeks earlier, protesters and police had enacted a daily ritual. At designated times, police would stop traffic on Mound Road, line up in a V-formation, and march across the street toward the gate, parting the crowd to clear the driveway for vehicles entering and exiting the plant. On this night, however, the crowd refused to give way. Rows of helmeted police officers wielding shields, batons, and pepper spray drove into the picket line, only to be pushed back by the throng of picketers holding each other in linked arms, while others swung picket signs and hurled rocks, sticks, and other objects. The police fired canisters of pepper gas at the demonstrators, who defiantly picked them up and threw them back. Before long, a dense plume of gas hung in the air, choking protesters, police, and news reporters alike. The officers brought out large industrial fans to keep the fumes in front of the strikers, and amid the fog a lone picketer held an American flag aloft in the middle of the street. Mound Road quickly filled with debris, and at one point individuals in the crowd began throwing five-inch steel rods, lifted from the refuse of a nearby machine shop, at the police and at the guards inside the plant. The guards then threw them back over the fence into the crowd, and a CBS news camera operator was struck in the head. Again and again the two sides clashed, resulting in at least half a dozen injuries to police and an unknown number of injuries to strikers. Surveying the scene, Sterling Heights police lieutenant Frank Mowinski did not like what he saw.Athirteen-year veteran of the Sterling Heights Police Department (SHPD), Mowinski was the official SHPD coordinator for the strike and had devised the department’s plan for handling it. He had arrived at the North Plant late Monday afternoon and was the officer in charge at the Mound Road gate, during which time the crowd swelled from perhaps fifty marchers to more than two hundred. At approximately 9:40 PM, and again at 10:08 PM, Mowinski declared the picket line an unlawful assembly and ordered the strikers to disperse. But each time the officers failed to remove the crowd and were forced to pull back to the median. At 11:45 PM, after several hours of tense confrontation, Mowinski gave the order again...

Share