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Unburied bodies tell the tale of Detroit — a city in despair
The Times ^ | 11/21/2009 | Tim Reid

Posted on 11/21/2009 12:37:15 AM PST by bruinbirdman

The abandoned corpses, in white body bags with number tags tied to each toe, lie one above the other on steel racks inside a giant freezer in Detroit’s central mortuary, like discarded shoes in the back of a wardrobe.

Some have lain here for years, but in recent months the number of unclaimed bodies has reached a record high. For in this city that once symbolised the American Dream many cannot even afford to bury their dead.

“I have not seen this many unclaimed bodies in 13 years on the job,” said Albert Samuels, chief investigator at the mortuary. “It started happening when the economy went south last year. I have never seen this many people struggling to give people their last resting place.”

Unburied bodies piling up in the city mortuary — it reached 70 earlier this year — is the latest and perhaps most appalling indignity to be heaped on the people of Detroit. The motor city that once boasted the highest median income and home ownership rate in the US is today in the midst of a long and agonising death spiral.

After years of gross mismanagement by the city’s leaders and the big three car manufacturers of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, who continued to make vehicles that Americans no longer wanted to buy, Detroit today has an unemployment rate of 28 per cent, higher even than the worst years of the Great Depression.

The murder rate is soaring. The school system is in receivership. The city treasury is $300 million (£182m) short of the funds needed to provide the most basic services such as rubbish collection. In its postwar heyday, when Detroit helped the US to dominate the world’s car market, it had 1.85 million people. Today, just over 900,000 remain. It was once America’s

(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events; US: Michigan
KEYWORDS: bluezones; detroit; failedstate; michigan; ratcorruption
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To: bruinbirdman

I just don’t understand a lot of things I suppose.

1. I thought Obama had brought us back from the brink.
2. Cant they bury them for the $250 burial money the Social security allows?
3.Philanthropists have donated $8,000 dolars to help bury the dead. Damn a funeral here costs over $10,000 dollars for just one.
4.It appears everyone who wanted a job in Detroit has left to go elsewhere to get one leaving the drones and entitlement crews behind, If this keeps up there wont be anyone left for the thieves to rob.
5. A city the size of Detroit with an annual budget of $21,000 to bury it’s dead, that certainly seems a bit extravagant, doesnt it? (Sarcasm)


21 posted on 11/21/2009 3:38:59 AM PST by Venturer
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To: bruinbirdman

Detroit doesn’t have a Potter’s Field?


22 posted on 11/21/2009 4:11:45 AM PST by R. Scott (Humanity i love you because when you're hard up you pawn your Intelligence to buy a drink)
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To: All

Dont you guys in the States have a local authority which cremates or bury’s unclaimed bodies? Surely it would be far more cost effective to do this rather than store the bodies?
I’m no expert in these matters but there used to be a thing call a paupers grave, whereby the local authority dealt with the corpse if the family couldnt afford a funeral or the body wasnt claimed.


23 posted on 11/21/2009 4:13:10 AM PST by Fairwaybuoy (Paupers Grave a solution?)
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To: bruinbirdman

How positvely......vibrant!

They say “diversity” is so wonderful because people with different backgrounds and cultures have different viewpoints and ways of doing things.

Evidently......


24 posted on 11/21/2009 4:28:47 AM PST by Mac from Cleveland ("See what you made me do?" Major Malik Hasan)
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To: garandgal
no solutions

Here is the solution.

Reroute the Detroit River around to the West of the City.
Retaining the river, in it's new path, as the international border.

Detroit, Ontario, Canada.

25 posted on 11/21/2009 4:28:52 AM PST by ASA Vet (Iran should have ceased to exist Nov 5, 1979, but we had no president then either.)
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To: bruinbirdman
"After years of gross mismanagement by the city’s leaders and the big three car manufacturers of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, who continued to make vehicles that Americans no longer wanted to buy, Detroit today has an unemployment rate of 28 per cent, higher even than the worst years of the Great Depression".

You see the commercials and articles during black history month (all 12 of them) bragging that blacks invented everything from the electric turd polisher to the western omlette. Where is the young black Bill Gates or Henry Ford in Detroit who can lift the city up by his technological brilliance?

26 posted on 11/21/2009 4:33:00 AM PST by Mac from Cleveland ("See what you made me do?" Major Malik Hasan)
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To: GeronL
is the latest and perhaps most appalling indignity to be heaped on the people of Detroit

You are correct. This sentence is very telling. The "people of Detroit" are victims. This has all "happened" to them.

27 posted on 11/21/2009 4:33:41 AM PST by johniegrad
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To: Fairwaybuoy
Dont you guys in the States have a local authority which cremates or bury’s unclaimed bodies?

Welcome to FR.

Which socialist empire do you reside in?

28 posted on 11/21/2009 4:36:45 AM PST by Glenn (Free Venezuela!)
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To: Renegade

Instead of standing in line for handouts, put the layabouts to work with a truly shovel ready project. Knock down some of these abandoned buildings, clear the lots and bury your dead!


29 posted on 11/21/2009 4:38:06 AM PST by RU88 (Bow to no man)
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To: bruinbirdman

Holy mackerel. It’s like a third world country.


30 posted on 11/21/2009 4:38:45 AM PST by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: SantosLHalper

“Tats aren’t much better.”

http://www.nonstick.com/sounds/Tweety/lttw_049.mp3


31 posted on 11/21/2009 4:40:41 AM PST by mazda77 (Rubio for US Senate)
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To: bruinbirdman

I stayed at a motel in Northern Michigan that happened to be holding a meeting for state DNR and DOT bureaucrats. The parking lot was filled with new SUVs and pickups, each costing, I’d guess, $30,000 or more.

Michigan’s top priority is to enrich crooked bureaucrats and thieving politicians. The people in MI are being robbed and the liberal voters are too stupid to see it.

Estimates are that 800,000 productive citizens have left the state. The state’s No. 1 export is young people - the future.


32 posted on 11/21/2009 4:41:24 AM PST by sergeantdave (obuma is the anti-Lincoln, trying to re-establish slavery)
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To: Renegade
Shovel ready jobs !!

Yep...

33 posted on 11/21/2009 4:42:05 AM PST by Sir Francis Dashwood (Arjuna, why have you have dropped your bow???)
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To: bruinbirdman

http://www.collinsreport.net/2009/10/02/liberal-cesspool-detroit-not-even-the-dead-can-escape-the-effects-of-50-years-of-democrat-control/


34 posted on 11/21/2009 4:49:04 AM PST by jmaroneps37 (Conservatism is truth. Liberalism is lies.)
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To: bruinbirdman

Gotta put some of that Obamamoney to good use. /satire button on

Detroit Denby , Class of 67


35 posted on 11/21/2009 4:51:46 AM PST by wetgundog (" Extremism in the Defense of Liberty is no Vice")
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To: bruinbirdman
plant them in potters field...
36 posted on 11/21/2009 4:53:21 AM PST by Chode (American Hedonist *DTOM* -ww- I AM JIM THOMPSON!)
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To: xtinct

I was thinking the same thing. Are these unclaimed bodies or are they actually claimed?

It also says some have been in the freezer for years? Why? It just doesn’t make any kind of sense really.

Pricing for cremation can range as low as $1100 around these parts.


37 posted on 11/21/2009 4:55:32 AM PST by EBH (it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government)
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To: Fairwaybuoy

First time some relative tries to claim dear old “Auntie Welfare” and finds that she’s been cremated there’d be a massive lawsuit joined by the the usual alphabet-soup groups that flock to these kinds of legal cases in search of a juicy settlement & publicity. Fear of a lawsuit explains a lot of this.


38 posted on 11/21/2009 4:59:57 AM PST by Tallguy ("The sh- t's chess, it ain't checkers!" -- Alonzo (Denzel Washington) in "Training Day")
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To: bruinbirdman

DEMOCRATS RUN this HELLHOLE and have for YEARS! This is what is happening in Other DEMOCRAT cities.


39 posted on 11/21/2009 5:12:15 AM PST by Ann Archy (Abortion,,,,,,the Human Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: Renegade

LOL! LITERALLY!!


40 posted on 11/21/2009 5:13:38 AM PST by Ann Archy (Abortion,,,,,,the Human Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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