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Detroit: Too Broke to Bury Their Dead

More news stories on Blacks in Charge

Poppy Harlow, CNN, October 1, 2009

Inside the Wayne County morgue in midtown Detroit, 67 bodies are piled up, unclaimed, in the freezing temperatures. Neither the families nor the county can afford to bury the corpses. So they stack up inside the freezer.

Albert Samuels, chief investigator for the morgue, said he has never seen anything like it during his 13 years on the job. “Some people don’t come forward even though they know the people are here,” said the former Detroit cop. “They don’t have the money.”

Lifelong Detroit residents Darrell and Cheryl Vickers understand this firsthand. On a chilly September morning they had to visit the freezer to identify the body of Darrell’s aunt, Nancy Graham—and say their goodbyes.

The couple, already financially strained, don’t have the $695 needed to cremate her. Other family members, mostly in Florida, don’t have the means to contribute, either. {snip}

So the Vickers had to leave their aunt behind. Body number 67.

{snip}

The number of unclaimed corpses at the Wayne County morgue is at a record high, having tripled since 2000. The reason for the pile-up is twofold: One, unemployment in the area is approaching 28%, and many people, like the Vickers, can’t afford last rites; two, the county’s $21,000 annual budget to bury unclaimed bodies ran out in June.

{snip}

Detroit is not alone. The Los Angeles coroner’s office said it, too, has seen an increase in the number of bodies abandoned. {snip}

Little help available

This is an issue of concern, said the Detroit mayor’s office, but the city can’t afford to offer any assistance. {snip}

{snip}

‘Reflection of the economy’

{snip}

Dozens of other bodies remain, some never identified. And they can’t be disposed of until their families come forward or the county’s burial fund is replenished when the 2010 budget is approved. {snip}

{snip}

And in a town with so much need, Schmidt noted one more cause for concern: The increase in unclaimed bodies is not due to an increase in murders—though the rate remains high—but due to natural causes. {snip}

{snip}

Original article

(Posted on October 1, 2009)

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Comments

1 — Anonymous wrote at 6:33 PM on October 1:

I watched a documentary on this, how cities deal with unclaimed bodies. It is a lot of work. They have teams of investigators to try and locate the family. If they can’t find family, or if the family can’t claim the body they take all of the person’s possessions and auction them off (if no family comes forward to claim the body) and the proceeds go to the city expenses.

They keep them in the morgue for a certain amount of time then cremate them and hold the ashes for years before burying the ashes in mass pits.

In one case a guy knew he was dying, he died at home and they found his body days later. He left papers on his kitchen table with the location of the family plot, and the gravestones, and an arrow where his plot was. He had no family left, they were all dead. It was quite sad really.

2 — Shawn (the female) wrote at 9:13 PM on October 1:

But the Olympics should be there!! Never mind their destitute financial status or their horrific crime rate, bring on the torch!!
Regardless of that, all three of the big O’s seem to think Chicago would be the perfect place to build taxpayer funded multi-million dollar venues that are totally worthless after 4 weeks.

3 — Whiteplight wrote at 9:28 PM on October 1:

All that needs to be done is to pass a law that donates unclaimed or unburied bodies to science. As far as I last knew, there is always a need. Many of the volunatry donations actually go to colleges with anatomy labs all over the country and serve as teaching aids.

4 — HH wrote at 10:30 PM on October 1:

$695!?!? Do these people have any comprehension what White people are soaked for the average funeral, etc? My God, this is disgraceful…

5 — kgb wrote at 12:42 AM on October 2:

L.A. and Detroit have now finally sunk to the depths of Haiti, where the locals are too poor to afford burials for their dead. They cannot afford wooden caskets — are there any trees left? — so they use cardboard coffins.

http://tinyurl.com/yaaayp7

http://tinyurl.com/ycs2mkb

6 — Kenelm Digby wrote at 3:08 AM on October 2:

And yet if you read the story immediately above this one you will see that the city of Detroit has no shortage of money to waste on silly ‘education’ gimmicks.

7 — Martin wrote at 2:42 PM on October 2:

Ah Detroit such a fine example of what blacks are really capable of. I’m sure they would have provided a terrific venue for the Olympics in their bastian of Chicago. As a side note there has not been one city that hosted the Olympics in the last 30 years that turned on penny of profit for the city. Check it out, the information is out there.

8 — Darrell wrote at 2:44 PM on October 2:

Will the blacks ever catch on? When the white man leaves an area the area goes downhill and broke. It will be kind of tough collecting that welfare check without Mr Whitey picking up the tab.

9 — François wrote at 5:46 PM on October 2:

Couldn’t the morgue give some of those unclaimed cadavers to medical schools, for the study of human anatomy?

10 — Anonymous wrote at 6:42 PM on October 2:

“And yet if you read the story immediately above this one you will see that the city of Detroit has no shortage of money to waste on silly ‘education’ gimmicks.”

Exactly. It’s not that they don’t have the money, it’s that they waste the money on nonsense.

11 — Anonymous wrote at 1:46 PM on October 3:

Poster #4 I have to agree with you.

If the Vickers can’t (or more likely won’t) come up with the $695, then maybe they should finance the burial- just put ole Aunt Nancy on “lay away” (no pun intended). After all, blacks are more than familiar with that concept.

12 — Anonymous wrote at 4:40 PM on October 3:

most of the highest paid athletes and entertainment personalities are black. why dont they spend some of their money to setup a fund for “their” people for this kind of thing. they always compain about whites not doing enough.

13 — Jeddermann wrote at 10:57 PM on October 3:

“most of the highest paid athletes and entertainment personalities are black. why dont they spend some of their money to setup a fund for “their” people for this kind of thing”

Personally, this very idea has come to me from time to time. YOU DO have a lot of very rich black folks out there that could create a vast pool of money for all sorts of contingencies like this. The Jacksons, the Cosbys, the Winfreys, the Jordans, etc., of this world, create a large pool of money for contingencies that need addressing. Why NOT INDEED?

14 — Anonymous wrote at 12:13 AM on October 5:

“most of the highest paid athletes and entertainment personalities are black. why dont they spend some of their money to setup a fund for “their” people for this kind of thing. they always compain about whites not doing enough.”

My observations suggest that while Blacks are hospitable; they are uncharitable. They may help their relatives, friends, and churches, but donating money to to help people that they don’t directly care about is atypical. An exception is Black celebrities may make generous charitable contributions (to benefit members of their race) for public relations.

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