June 19--For the second time in two months, a volunteer with a citizen crime-fighting organization in Detroit has been accused of wrongdoing.
On Monday, the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office said two Detroiters -- one of whom was a volunteer with the Detroit 300 -- were facing charges of impersonating police officers.
That follows a lawsuit filed in April by a mother and her daughter against the City of Detroit and Detroit 300, alleging they were held against their will when a police officer allowed members of the Detroit 300 to interrogate them for hours in a police precinct garage about the homicide of a child.
The organization previously was heralded by police for helping to solve some crimes, including the rape of a 90-year-old woman in August 2010.
But on Monday, the Prosecutor's Office announced that Ezra Westley Gray and Darnell Leslie McCrary, both in their 40s, were arraigned Sunday on the misdemeanor offenses of impersonating a public officer and brandishing a firearm in public.
According to a statement by the Detroit 300, only Gray was involved with the organization.
McCrary and Gray are accused of going to a home of a 38-year-old man on Muirland in Detroit about 11:45 a.m. Saturday and identifying themselves as police officers, the Prosecutor's Office said.
The Detroit 300 said Gray is a citizen volunteer, and all volunteers have to sign a registration form that "clearly states that volunteers must act in accordance with the laws of the State of Michigan and The Detroit 300 By-laws and resolutions...
"We ask people to come and help us walk neighborhoods to gather information that will lead to the arrest and conviction of people who commit violent crimes against seniors, women and children," the Detroit 300 statement says.
A volunteer registration form, which appears to have been signed by Gray in April, indicates he is a concealed pistol license holder.
Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed against the group by Jessica Brown and her mother, Stephanie Brown, says the women were falsely imprisoned and intentionally inflicted with emotional stress when they were questioned by members of the Detroit 300 in March about the February shooting death of 9-month-old Delric Waymon Miller IV, who was killed when someone fired an assault rifle into his home.
The women's attorney, Tracey Martin-Henry, said Monday that the case is working its way through the court system.
Copyright 2012 - Detroit Free Press
