Most infamous University of Michigan crimes?
February 12th, 2010 at 1:13 PM ^
The problem was not that they were targeted in the investigation, but that the AAPD used the opportunity to round up black males, get samples of their DNA, and then after the rapist was caught, they tried to keep the DNA samples of the black males on file when the innocent parties requested the information be given back. They had a right to be upset, that's a horrendous violation of civil liberties.
February 12th, 2010 at 1:36 PM ^
The way AAPD tells it, is that they only asked suspects for DNA samples. A bunch of people called in descriptions of people who matched AAPD's sketch of the criminal. AAPD says it initially offered all suspects the chancew to provide an alibi, if they had no alibi for where they were at the time of the attacks they were offered the chance to submit a DNA sample to clear their name.
February 12th, 2010 at 3:14 PM ^
I admit I was pretty young when all of this was going down, so those specifics had escaped me. However, even if you accept that police conduct as fine (while I don't believe that police conduct was ok, it is a much longer and tedious argument), holding onto those samples after they had been used to clear the person's name is what I remember as angering people the most. The AAPD were essentially creating files on black men because they "resembled" another black man. If I had a police file based on a similar incident, when I had been proven innocent, I would be infuriated too.
February 12th, 2010 at 12:27 PM ^
I can't find a source for it, but I'm told back in the day the Med School was involved in some grave robbing. Supposedly they had a secret room with the remains in them, sealed it at up at some point and forgot about it. A few decades some construction team was doing a rennovation and stumbled on it.
I'm not sure if it is true or just some urban legend that floats around the University of Michigan Health System.
February 12th, 2010 at 1:00 PM ^
The story I had heard was that in the 1800s the Med School buried its "used" cadavers in an unmarked grave, then when the practice was stopped everyone promptly forgot where the graves were--until the university expanded the Law Library and found a bunch of skeletons. No idea if it's true, but that's the version I know.
February 12th, 2010 at 1:04 PM ^
I feel like that was an urban legend that floats around the University of Michigan Campus Day System, and I give it about the same credence as Stepping On The M (which is stupid anyway; out of respect, I never would've stepped on the M if not to antagonize people who somehow got into UM with a ridiculous capacity for superstition).
February 12th, 2010 at 3:49 PM ^
I would actually bet that it's true, at least the grave robbing. It was extremely common back in the start of medical schools to rob graves for bodies/have a deal w/ funeral homes and grave diggers. There's a really interesting* book in regards to this called "Stiff" by Mary Roach that touches on the subject.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiff:_The_Curious_Lives_of_Human_Cadavers
(my definition of interesting may be skewed considering i'm in med school...)
February 12th, 2010 at 12:38 PM ^
Dr. H.H. Holmes, of Devil in the White City fame, was a Michigan medical school alum. Happily he did not commit any of his crimes in Ann Arbor. Unhappily he did kill dozens of people just a few miles from where I'm sitting right now.
February 12th, 2010 at 12:59 PM ^
I had never heard of this guy so I googled him. This guy built a building designed to help him murder people.
February 12th, 2010 at 12:40 PM ^
A few years ago Crime Notes included a story about $4000 worth of damage caused by a toilet overflowing.
February 12th, 2010 at 12:41 PM ^
UM gave him a degree in 1982.
February 12th, 2010 at 12:50 PM ^
I'm not too thrilled about the U-M sheepskin Ann Coulter's got hanging on her wall, either.
February 12th, 2010 at 12:56 PM ^
I'm not too thrilled about the Bernstein Clan's connection to our Law School either. They were the asses who sued us over the Big House rennovations and forced us to reduce seating capacity.
February 13th, 2010 at 11:19 AM ^
How can you stay angry with the Bernsteins. Just look at them:
Just adorable.
February 14th, 2010 at 11:48 AM ^
They have U-M ties? There's a Spartan flag flying outside their law office.
February 14th, 2010 at 2:18 PM ^
Two of them have faculty/lecturer posistions here.
February 12th, 2010 at 2:03 PM ^
Maybe someone should start a thread entitled "Most infamous fascist dominatrixes from the University of Michigan"
February 12th, 2010 at 3:39 PM ^
Coulter uses the standard U of M Law School argument style, people just dislike it because she isn't on the left so it throws them.
You: Say something common sense, like "The sun rises in the east"
Me: Snort, make face, roll eyes up and to the left "You are coming off with that tired old spin again? (snide voice) Don't you think the public is getting tired of your (racism, homophobia, antisemitism)"
You: "But the sun does rise in the east, so that's why..."
Me: snort, eye roll, and loud "You are (fat, ugly, Christian Fundie). Everyone knows you aren't telling the truth!"
Usually folks shut up after being called racist, if not continue to be snide and call names, in this example your fall back is that the sun usually rises northeast or southeast. Don't admit that, but be snide and loud and force the guy on the other side to admit it through rude and loud questions, then jump on it and say something like "So now you admit you lied!".
I first saw it day one of law school. It is the U of M Law trademark. Bollinger is a master of it, and many of our M Grad appeal court clerks can not only do it on command but write that way, too.
February 12th, 2010 at 3:46 PM ^
We expect more out of our TV personalities than our lawyers in this country. This is America, by God!
February 14th, 2010 at 11:11 AM ^
As a UM law grad (I suspect you are, too), and as a former "M Grad appeal court clerk," I have to disagree. A lot of people use Coulter's style of argument, on both the right and left, and I don't like it in any of them. I would not, however, say it's a hallmark of the law school. All kinds of lawyers from every law school use it, but not everyone at or from UM does. And it's not a distinguishing characteristic of Michigan law school graduates
The problem with Coulter is that her approach is all ad hominen, all the time. Anyone who disagrees with her about anything is, in her view, immoral, a traitor, and unfit to live in the U.S. -- or perhaps even unfit to live at all.
Even accepting your premise that people like Bollinger use a similar argument style (and I don't completely agree), they don't use it to the same degree that Coulter does or with the same vituperativeness.
February 12th, 2010 at 1:19 PM ^
How has no one mentioned the Coner killing fools?
February 12th, 2010 at 1:32 PM ^
Underage drinking
February 12th, 2010 at 1:34 PM ^
hearing about the brawl between football players and the Q dogs? Maybe 95-96 or so? Not so much a crime as freshman year lore.
Jake Baker was an interesting case, and the Courtney Cantor incident makes me sad whenever I think about it.
February 12th, 2010 at 2:26 PM ^
Was Jake Baker the internet torture/rape fantasy guy?
February 12th, 2010 at 2:37 PM ^
Sick fucking bastard.
February 12th, 2010 at 2:44 PM ^
You're probably right, but what was done to him by the authorities was the real crime. That was a frightening violation of civil liberties.
February 12th, 2010 at 2:51 PM ^
You guys have any more information on the case?
February 12th, 2010 at 2:58 PM ^
The guy wrote a snuff fantasy story on usenet. This was back in 1995, when most people weren't aware that this kind of stuff existed. I don't think that you would get this kind of reaction today.
http://www.trincoll.edu/zines/tj/tj4.6.95/articles/baker.html
February 12th, 2010 at 3:28 PM ^
To be fair, the girl's name he used for the victim in all the stories was another student, and he was writing some really nasty stuff.
February 12th, 2010 at 1:53 PM ^
every time someone brings up maize jerseys or night games.
February 13th, 2010 at 12:07 AM ^
A-1 Typing charging me money to type a Russian History Paper, then typing a wonderful account of the 1917 Pheasant Uprising. (OK it has been posted before, but this was so FOWL!)
(BTW I wrote a Paper about John Normal Collins and the "Michigan Murders" for my History of UM research Project. THere is a book detailing it called "Michigan Murders."
(In another book, Leggs McNeil's "Please Kill Me, the Unofficial History of Punk Rock" it details many of Iggy Pop's Ann Arbor crimes. (It also has an interesting premise that Punk Rock started in Ann Arbor with Iggy Pop, MC5, then went to NYC then London)
February 16th, 2010 at 2:32 PM ^
I walked by David Terrell's dorm room once when he was having sex with the door open. All he kept saying is "what's my name bitch" over and over. She kept saying "David Terrell." Not really a crime, but it stuck with me.
February 16th, 2010 at 9:23 PM ^
The Little Bo Peep mass murder on Halloween night back in 1998. H-shaped dorm near railroad tracks and/or a graveyard... Midwest school starting with an M... all predicted by a psychic on Oprah.
I forget how many students were killed.
February 17th, 2010 at 1:36 AM ^
serial killer, operated in the Ann Arbor area for a while...He even killed a UM grad student, and ironically, was put away by a UM grad. Look him up sometime, sick motherfucker. The "Cold Case Files" episode about it was on this morning, as a matter of fact.
February 17th, 2010 at 8:50 AM ^
Every other year a bunch of so called Michigan fans sell their OSU tickets to people from that piece of shit state.