If you ever had any doubt that Michigan has been taken over by a group of dangerous, radical extremists, what happened in Detroit on September 11th, 2013 should be enough to wake you up. There were several things significant about September 11th, 2013. Not only was it the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center, but the state of Michigan was also experiencing an unseasonal heat wave. In the city of Detroit, power outages left people stranded in elevators, trapped four hours in the blistering heat. Hundreds were evacuated from buildings in the downtown area, traffic lights did not function, public transportation was disabled and 1,400 sites across the city were without power. Wayne State University and other key buildings still remained closed, the following day. All of this after the city’s power supply supposedly failed.

The Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, a twelve story building that conducts the city’s criminal proceedings was shut down and the building was evacuated. Earlier in the week, a prisoner had stabbed a Wayne County Deputy, before fleeing from the building. A manhunt followed, with authorities searching for the escaped prisoner for several long hours, before finally apprehending him as he was trying to flee the city. In light of this, the power outage on September 11th created a tense and dangerous situation for officers, justice workers and visitors to the building. Witness the building evacuation for yourself here:

The problem is that the city’s power supply never failed.

On September 12th, 2013, Bill Nowling casually stated that the city’s power outages were intentional. Officials and citizens working in the city were given no warning before the electricity was cut off. Law enforcement officials working in the Hall of Justice had no time to prepare. Senior citizens and disabled citizens using elevators in the city’s downtown district had no way to know what was coming. The entire criminal justice system was shut down without notice. Wayne State University Campus was just one of many sites evacuated under emergency conditions. Traffic lights across the city stopped working. 1,400 public and private locations were left without power. And the entire thing was intentional, to “send a message” to the people of Detroit. Bill Nowling works in the office of Kevin Orr, Detroit’s Emergency Manager.

Orr, who was appointed by Governor Rick Snyder to replace all of the city’s elected officials under the state’s “Emergency Manager Law,” is the sole authority over the city of Detroit. He answers to no-one except the Governor. He is not elected and cannot be fired. Nowling told local reporter Dennis Kraniak: “City grid customers were asked to reduce power, but failed to, so we had to move to intentional outages.” Smiling, speaking to the camera, another city official, Gary Brown, said that some buildings in the district were contacted and people were asked to turn off their air conditioners. He then says that people “didn’t respond as fast as we would like them to, so we had to send them a strong message, by turning off the power.” (Watch the interview with Brown on the video below.) When asked what he plans to say to the people still “trapped in elevators in 90 degree heat” a still smiling Brown replies that he is restoring power to those buildings.

The intentional power outage also shut down the City-County Building, the McNamara Building, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Detroit public library and the Detroit People Mover, a main source of public transportation in the city.

This is what power out of control looks like. The officials in Detroit answer to no-one except the Governor. They cannot be voted out. They have no fear of repercussions from the people. They rule with an iron fist, immune to the justice system and immune to the democratic process that would allow the residents of the city to recall them or even vote them out in the next election cycle. How many people were injured or killed as a result of the message Orr’s office sent to the people of Detroit on September 11th is currently unknown. What is known is that there were injuries as a result of this, as described by at least one woman in the video below. Cutting off vital resources without warning is clearly an example of what can happen when government accountability is eliminated and the election process is overthrown by corporate Fascists, like Snyder and his appointed overseers.

Many people believe that the deliberate power outage was carried out because Orr’s office has been pushing for the privatization of the city’s power supply. The video below shows Gary Brown laughing about the power outage. After saying that he deliberately took power away from the city, causing chaos in the process, of course, the need for privatization of electricity in the city is stressed. Here is the interview where you can hear it for yourself: