Tamara Greene case: City ordered to turn over files
A federal magistrate judge today ordered lawyers for the City of Detroit to turn over several pieces of evidence by Feb. 4 in the lawsuit brought by the family of slain exotic dancer Tamara Greene, known as Strawberry.
Birmingham attorney Norman Yatooma, who represents Greene’s family, seeks 911 tapes, police personnel files, video surveillance tapes from the mayoral Manoogian Mansion, city communication records, Fire Department response records and e-mail.
Today, U.S. Magistrate Judge Steven Whalen ordered that lawyers for the city turn over the following:
• Certain interoffice communications between former Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings, Deputy Chief James Tolbert, Deputy Chief Shereece Fleming-Freeman and Christine Beatty, the former chief of staff to ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.
• Portions of Tolbert’s personnel file. It’s unclear why Yatooma wants Tolbert’s file.
• Police run sheets or other records related to the April 30, 2003, shooting death of Greene on Detroit’s west side.
• Police overtime requests from Sept. 1, 2002, to Oct. 31, 2002.
• Detroit Fire Department log books containing entries for every Friday, Saturday and Sunday between Sept. 1, 2002 and Nov. 30, 2002.
• The city’s contracts with wireless cellular or text messaging service providers.
Whalen denied a request for dispatch logs of the fire and police departments from between Sept. 1, 2002, and Nov. 20, 2002, based on city lawyers’ declarations that the records don’t exist. But he told the lawyers to make sure “it has made a diligent and good faith search for the records.”
• Greene was rumored to have danced at a never-proved party at the Manoogian Mansion in fall 2002.
Michigan State Police Detective Sgt. Mark Krebs testified in an October deposition that the investigation of the rumored party was thwarted by stonewalling from Detroit police, pressure from Attorney General Mike Cox’s office to finish the probe and reluctant witnesses.
Cox has consistently denied wrongdoing. He recently completed a deposition with Yatooma. That deposition is sealed.
