text: WEST BLOOMFIELD POLICE REPORT DATE: 9/15, Wednesday TIME: 1934 LOCATION OF INCIDENT: 2200 Lake Orchard Rd., Rear Entrance of School NAME &amp; ID NUMBER: Corporal Carrelson, 97-4 SUPERVISOR: Sargent Larry Clip OTHER OFFICERS PRESENT: Officer Berlawski PERSON(S) OF INTEREST: School Board President Dr. Michael Donavon Duncan IV VICTIM(S): Patrica Preston LIST OF WITNESSES: Security Officer Nathaniel Temple NATURE OF INCIDENT: Officer Berlawski and I were the first to respond to a call for an 808 at West Bloomfield Junior High School. We were first on the scene. We entered the school from the main entrance located on the east facing side of the building. From there we preceded northwest into the school’s cafeteria. A large crowd of roughly one hundred individuals were in an agitated state, all of which seemed to be emanating from a makeshift dais located in the middle of the school cafeteria. Security Officer Temple sat at the back of the crowd on a rather small table, seemingly unable to take control of situation. He debriefed us on the state of affairs up to that point. Apparently a school board meeting had become heated, escalating from a debate about the school’s choice in curriculum to what looked like a soon to be violent confrontation. I asked Security Officer Temple if he knew those most responsible for the escalation. He said he did not, only that disabled stay-at-home-mom Patricia Preston accused the School Board President Dr. Michael Donavon Duncan IV of “poisoning her children”. I asked Security Officer Temple if he thought any of the school board members had poisoned any of the children, or if disabled stay-at-home-mom Patricia Preston was speaking hyperbolically. “Hyperbolically? You mean exaggerated and shit? Na, I’d have heard about that if it was serious. House knows what’s up.” I asked Security Officer Temple to clarify who exactly who or what house he was referring to. That is when he informed me that he was in fact referring to himself. “Me. I’m big. A house is big. I’m House. People call me House.” I informed Security Officer Temple that I would not be calling him that and that it was his duty as a public servant to inform the proper authorities of any and all suspicious activity. As well as reminding him that the poisoning and/or endangerment of any child is of the highest priority for the West Bloomfield law enforcement. I asked Security Office Temple if I have made myself clear. “For sure.” He then offered me a fist bump, which I reciprocated. It was at this time that Officer Berlawski returned from his patrol car with a bullhorn. After several loops of the siren the crowd became quiet. It was then that Officer Berlawski asked me, as ranking officer, to address the crowd. I started by asking everyone to calm down, including the victim (disabled, stay-at-home mom Patricia Preston) who at the time was standing on very small lunch room table. This was a table I can only assume is used in the feeding of the younger elementary aged children; presumably grades K-2nd, or perhaps any under-developed 3rd or 4th graders. I advised disabled stay-at-home-mom Preston to move down from the table so that I might address the crowd further. She then informed me she was disabled because “I’ve got fibromyalgia real bad” and was in the middle of the approval process to receive disability from the state, a fact I later confirmed. Disabled stay-at-home-mom Patricia Preston agreed to calm down but not before issuing the following statement: “These people are teaching our children things we don’t believe in and do not condone. Kids shouldn’t be learning about sexuality and gender fluidity at this age. They are teaching our kids how to be gay and how to self-identify. No kids knows how to identify when they are that young. Hell when I was that young I’d have identified as a can of Diet Coke and a bag of hair if it meant I got some attention. Look, I don’t got no problem with the gays or the homosexuals or even the lesbians or whatever else there is, but I just don’t want state-sponsored curriculum exposing my kids to things they are not ready for. Hell I’m not ready for it so why do they expect them to be? Kids need to learn this stuff at home. Who knows my kids better than me? I should be the one that teaches my two boys, not the state. You ever been the post office? You seen how it is run? Why we letting the state decide anything? That’s what I told Dr. Pencil-neck over there and you know what he says to me? He says that actually the Post Office is very efficient and effective institution and that statistically you’re more likely to get run over by a car than loose something in the mail. So you know what I said, I asked him when the last time he’s been to post office. And he tells me he prints his own stamps. I don’t know what world this guy lives in.” With the attention of the crowd reestablished through the use of the bullhorn, I used a combination of low vocal tones and a slower speech patterns to return the crowd to their seats so the rest of the meeting might proceed. I assured them, as they found their seats, that any accusations of child poisoning would be taken serious by law enforcement. As well as threats levied against any school board member(s). Failure to comply, I warned, would result in the immediate cancellation of the meeting and possible disturbing the peace citations. Security Officer Temple found and fixed the microphone standing at the front of the cafeteria, next to the school board dais. Officer Berlawski and myself then addressed each of the nine school members individually. We asked them if they were ok to continue the meeting. Each of them assured me that they were. We then proceeded to follow up on the accusations made by the crowd with every school board member confirming they had not poisoned any children. I conferred with Officer Berlawski about the possibility that the accusations of poisoning were more symbolic than literal. He concurred. School Board President Dr. Michael Donavon Duncan IV informed me that the meeting supposed to end at 8pm, which was roughly 47 and a half minutes away. I asked him to continue in as non-confrontational a manner as possible. He repeated to me that it was anyone on the school board, but members of the crowd, mostly disabled, stay-at-home-mom Patricia Preston, who was responsible for starting, and escalating the situation. “I don’t know how to convince these people that I know more about educating children than they do. I’m chair of the Collegiate Epistemological Society for God’s sake. I’ve spent the entirety of my adult life studying human pedagogy.” Seeking clarification, Security Officer Temple injected, “Pedagogy, you mean like learning and shit?” School Board President Dr. Michael Donavon Duncan IV concurred that he did in fact mean learning “and shit”. He went on to inform us that the goal of the society was to “promote honest and objective education in a way that honors both teacher and student.” He also divulged that he was also a parent of twelve year old boy named Carl Abraham who attends West Bloomfield Junior High. “I just don’t get it” said School Board President Dr. Michael Donavon Duncan IV, “I care about this school just as much as they do. I love my child and would never do anything to endanger anyone else’s child. I have way more education and experience than any of them do, and yet they look at me as if I’m the problem. As if somehow my expertise and experience are a bad thing.” Then he looked at me, “I mean, who here knows more about policing? You or them?” Immediately I begin to feel what can only be described as a great and terrible weight fall over me. There, in the cafeteria, just in front of the dais, it was as if the anger and anxiety of everyone at the meeting was laid across my back. The room became very dark, and I felt as though I was falling into a cave. My shoulders fell heavy and my vision blurred. I thought for a moment I might pass out. I asked School Board President Dr. Michael Donavon Duncan IV if he felt anything; he answered in the negative. Further I fell into the darkness, so far it occurred to me I might not ever return. I was lost and becoming more lost by the second. A thought then occurred to me that once a person is lost, they cannot become more lost. So I decided to let the darkness take me. Then, like an eagle taking flight, I was shot out the opposite end of the cave and I was transported to a tremendous height, several miles above my body. The heaviness lifted and I became lighter than air. It was as if all the light in the world went through my eyes and straight through to the back of my head. From this beautiful, lofty distance I could see everything. I could see the School Board meeting. I could see my patrol car. I could even see my neighborhood. From this height nothing seemed to matter very much. All arguments, including the one happening in the West Bloomfield cafeteria, seemed trivial. I saw conclusions and solutions fade away into a landscape of contemplation. Questions became a type of currency. Really good questions were treasured as gold. Respect and faith replaced fear and doubt. People and objects and issues are held in complete reverence, just as they are, without judgement or preconceived notions of what one ought to do. The other is simply held, like a child. From this gentle country, a secret and narrow path emerged, gathering all other smaller paths to it like a great river gathers streams. The path stretched into an endless horizon, and in that moment I possessed a deep and abiding hope. A hope so precious it might break with a breeze, yet somehow powerful enough to tear down empires. This hopefulness I saw as available to both School Board President Dr. Michael Donavon Duncan IV and disabled stay-at-home-mom Patricia Preston. I saw them take possession of this hope and one another. I saw them grow, both in stature and in beauty. Disabled stay-at-home-mom Patricia Preston quit complaining about her fibromyalgia. School Board President Dr. Michael Donavon Duncan IV called nesting birds. I saw them leading the rabble that was the once aggregated school board meeting into a community of believers, but not of any religion or dogma. They became a great cloud of witnesses whose faith was not for any religion or dogma, but one another. The loftiness of their ideals was matched only with their willingness to sacrifice, giving where any had need. This they did with out worry or regret, all of their faces beaming like the sun. The generous spirit of the meeting began to then spill out of the cafeteria and into the surrounding homes and neighborhoods. Soon all of West Bloomfield, then all of Metro Detroit became covered in a kind of golden haze that instead of falling downward, brought everything up several hundred feet. Soon the entire city sat as if on a beautiful hill, like it had been there for centuries. Traffic ran efficiently and without incident. Factories once again open and productive. The old Art Deco buildings downtown returned to their Ford era glory. Years of green patina fell off in great flakes of rust. The top of Book Tower glowed like a copper diamond. Below it hummed the buzz of midwestern commerce. Cars and steel and industry flowed from our center. Workers and markets were flush with cash as living wages fell like manna from heaven. I saw abandoned lots all over the city move from a light hue of grey and brown into a deep and abiding green. Acres of farm and forest reclaimed any unoccupied house or block. Saplings, corn and spruces grew up through concrete just as easily as they could grow through virgin soil. I saw walls of graffiti and vines. Great flocks of Canadian Geese nested all the way from 5 to 10 Mile Road. There were packs of wolves, hordes of field mice and even a Great White Western Moose. I saw Lions, not the animal, but the football team, playing in the Super Bowl. The band Journey performed at halftime, and when Steve Perry sang, “Born and raised in South Detroit” the noise of the fans singing cracked the roof at Ford Field so completely the game had to be postponed. However no one seemed to care as both players and fans became lost in other pursuits. Neighbors talked to one another for hours. Sinners went to church. Overworked middle managers went home early. Everyone said hello. No one locked their doors. I even saw former disgraced Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick offer a deep and heartfelt apology. He cried as his former constituents forgave him without hesitation, for everyone seemed to have lost the ability to hold onto a reliable record of wrongdoing. I so badly wanted to return so I could tell Michael, Patricia and House everything I saw. As if hearing my request, I was magically bound back to earth and into normal state of mind. But in coming back I lost clarity I had only moments ago possessed. I asked School Board President Dr. Michael Donavon Duncan IV and disabled stay-at-home-mom Patricia Preston to join me outside the cafeteria was I could tell them what I’d seen in confidence. I asked Security Guard Temple to accompany us in order to act as witness and and impartial observer. We exited the building out a side door on the north facing wall. In the teachers’ parking lot I tried explaining to both of them what I had just learned to be true. I informed them of their ability to transcend and include, of their capacity to transform their differences into a catalyst for deep and meaningful change, not only for themselves, but for West Bloomfield Junior High School, for our town, for all of southeast Michigan. But my words were frustrated and flat. I couldn’t make them match my vision. After a couple of failed attempts I asked School Board President Dr. Michael Donavon Duncan IV if he would at least be willing to consider that parents really do know what is best for their children. He said he would be willing to consider such a position. Then turning to disabled stay-at-home-mom Patricia Preston I if she would be willing to consider the possibility that the school board, and more specifically, that School Board President Dr. Michael Donavon Duncan IV knows more about education than she does. She was quiet for several seconds, possibly fifteen, before responding “No.” Security Guard Temple then said, “You a cold ass bitch.” It was at this point she called him the N-word, to which School Board President Dr. Michael Donavon Duncan IV responded by punching her directly in her jaw, knocking her so far backwards she hit the back of her head on the front bumper of Vice Principle Nancy Hill’s Kia Sorrento. ACTION(S) TAKEN: School Board President Dr. Michael Donavon Duncan IV was taken in under suspicion of 1 count of aggravated assault against disabled stay-at-home-mom Patricia Preston. He has yet to be charged. Disabled stay-at-home-mom Patricia Preston’s representative is seeking the maximum sentence of 1 year in jail and a $1k fine. She and her husband are also suing School Board President Dr. Michael Donavon Duncan IV and West Bloomfield Junior High School for mental and physical distress. It is my understanding School Board President Dr. Michael Donavon Duncan IV is counter-suing for an undisclosed amount due to mental and emotional damages. SUMMARY: There is nothing further to report. Both parties are pursing legal settlements against one another, and the Lions are going to missing the playoffs.