Greene slaying given to task force Evans says elite unit has top investigators
Detroit Police Chief Warren Evans has reassigned the investigation into the death of Tamara Greene to the multi-jurisdictional Violent Crimes Task Force.
Evans said he considers the task force, made up of Detroit police, FBI, Wayne County Sheriff and State Police investigators, to be an elite unit.
“People have an expectation that cases should be thoroughly investigated,” Evans said. “Whether this was or wasn’t, people don’t believe it was. The task force has great cops who are great investigators.”
Greene, an exotic dancer nicknamed Strawberry, was killed in a Detroit drive-by shooting on April 30, 2003. No one has been arrested in connection with her death.
Greene’s slaying has drawn attention because of a never-proven party some say former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick held at the Manoogian Mansion, then the city’s mayoral residence. Some say Greene danced at the fall 2002 party and was later assaulted by Kilpatrick’s wife.
Coincidentally, a former Detroit police investigator from the task force claims in a lawsuit that he was transferred for looking into other allegations about Kilpatrick.
Ira Todd said he was transferred from the task force after he turned up an allegation linking Kilpatrick to a reputed upper-level drug dealer.
Todd said in the lawsuit filed last year that he established a possible link between Vincent Smothers, suspected of being a hit man, and a reputed drug dealer in Lexington, Ky., who claimed to have personal and professional connections to Kilpatrick. Todd said he was transferred after telling his superiors about the drug dealer’s claims.
Evans said he read depositions this week given by some of Todd’s colleagues, including a sheriff’s employee whom Evans trusts.
“These depositions jarred my mind about the Tamara Greene case, because it’s another case that doesn’t have closure,” Evans said.
Attorney Norman Yatooma, who is representing Greene’s family members in a federal lawsuit against the city of Detroit, said he is pleased with the task force designation. Yatooma’s lawsuit alleges that the city thwarted any investigation into Green’s death.
“It is about time that this case be properly investigated, unthwarted by the fallen King Kilpatrick and his evil ambassadors of doom and gloom,” Yatooma said. “Thank God and Uncle Sam that the Feds are investigating what happened to this mother of three.”
Contact BEN SCHMITT: 313-223-4296 or bcschmitt@freepress.com.
