DETROIT FREE PRESS ARTICLE - SGT DAVID MALHALAB, DETROIT POLICE - RETIRED

FEW MINUTES WITH ...An ex-cop who calls it as he sees it

BY JIM SCHAEFER • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • March 29, 2009

If the guy in the photograph looks familiar, that's because David Malhalab has been a Detroit media gadfly for years.

Malhalab, 58, started popping up in publications like the Free Press in the 1980s, when he was one of the few Detroit street cops who would talk to reporters. Back then, and even today, talking to the media without approval could be risky to a career.

But Malhalab always talked. And e-mailed. And talked. Sometimes the media ignored him; sometimes he made it onto the airwaves and into print.

He's no longer a cop, but he still talks. Just this month he popped up with Huel Perkins on Fox 2's "Let it Rip."

You have to wonder what makes a guy like Malhalab tick.

QUESTION: David, you and I have known each other for years. ... What in the world made you decide to become the self-appointed spokesman for Detroit police?
ANSWER: Because I saw the lack of training, lack of equipment, the nepotism, the favoritism and the cronyism was having a detrimental effect on police officers and the delivery of police services to Detroit residents.

Q: You lived through a number of different chiefs. Who was your favorite?
A: None of 'em!

Q: If you had to choose one of them to be your chief today, which would it be?
A: None of 'em!

Q: If you had to.
A: If I had to? (Laughs.) Probably Chief Hart.

Q: Really? The guy who stole $2.6 million from the secret service fund? Had money fall from the ceiling of his home? Went to federal prison?
A: In terms of being a police officer, not being hurt by a chief, William Hart was probably our better chief. ... I'm not condoning what he did.

Q: You ever get any grief from coworkers, family or friends about talking so much? Do they ever say, 'David, just give it up!' "
A: I've had some criticism. "Oh, you're on TV too much." ... All I say is, "I'll give you the reporters' phone numbers. ... You tell 'em what you believe to be the truth, what you see is going on."

Q: Will you ever shut up?
A: (Laughs.) When I'm finally cremated, I think you may have heard the last from me.

Q: What else should I ask?
A: I'm single. Looking for a fun, enjoyable woman that wasn't astonished at my appearance on "Let it Rip."

Q: You looked fine.
A: God, I looked like a big head with hair!

Contact JIM SCHAEFER at 313-223-4542 or jschaefer@freepress.com.



Hopefortoday wrote:
Speak out with the truth, and your dept will turn against you. I applaud Mr. Malhalab.03/29/2009 9:59:36 a.m. EDTSpeak out with the truth, and your dept will turn against you. I applaud Mr. Malhalab. Hopefortoday

1wings wrote:
Call it like it is, The Detroit police department cant do much , with all the dirty mayors the city has had03/29/2009 6:53:16 a.m. EDTCall it like it is, The Detroit police department cant do much , with all the dirty mayors the city has had 1wings

EDW22 wrote:
I knew Dave Malhalab over 30 years ago when he was my boss at an ice rink. I thought he was an oddball then but looking back he was he one of the better people I worked plus one of the few that had the guts to speak out on issues when he was on the police force. He was so honest pointing out the problems in the department-he was a constant pain to Coleman Young. I'm grateful for that.03/29/2009 3:24:30 a.m. EDTI knew Dave Malhalab over 30 years ago when he was my boss at an ice rink. I thought he was an oddball then but looking back he was he one of the better people I worked plus one of the few that had the guts to speak out on issues when he was on the police force. He was so honest pointing out the problems in the department-he was a constant pain to Coleman Young. I'm grateful for that. EDW22

LET IT RIP - DETROIT, FOX2 NEWS

WATCH THE LATEST VERSION OF - LET IT RIP - ON FOX 2 NEWS DETROIT
EVERY THURSDAY NIGHT - @10:35 PM.... LEAVE A COMMENT

myFOX Detroit Let It Rip CLICK ON THE MYFOX LINE... DAVID

NATIONAL NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY MONTH - NATIONAL HAWAIIAN HISTORY MONTH..

American Indians History Month, Indian Casinos - Honor the Agreements

Congress and every state needs to enact and make official an 'American Indian History Month' - so that all Americans, adults, children and others learn of the tortured history of native Americans, who were robbed of their lands, infected with disease, forced to live on land that was once theirs, and had their children taken from them - to save them? and educate them?.
And of how we have systematically tried to destroy their heritage and culture.It is a sad tale of betrayal, lies, broken treaties and death.

But it is history that must be give a special designation, promoted and discussed - so that we learn from the experiences and work toward a reconcilitation. It is not being taught in schools.

The current Michigan Casino controversy over wether to allow Indian casinos in Romulus and Port Huron, is a tiny part of the story, Mayor Kilpatrick and his mother, Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick oppose them - because they will be competition for Detroit, that is not a proper argument. Former Michigan Governor John Engler entered into an agreement with the Tribes, - Michigan should support the agreement - or have objected before and/or just after the agreement was signed - not now - years later.

Land shopping is not an issue because Engler entered into and signed an agreement, go forward with the deal. Congress should approve it and let not another broken promise be delivered to the Indians. The American Indians have had to endure enough broken promises and treaties.

Some American Indians have rejected $800 million dollars for the deed to sacred lands in the Black Hills of the Dakotas because they want their land. It should be given back to them.

Congress should lead the way - approve an American Indian History Month, honor the Engler deal, and give the sacred lands of the Dakotas back to the original owners - now.

PS: Native Hawaiians, also need their story told, of how the USA conspired to take their lands, destroy their heritage and culture.

Hawaiian History Month - now..

MONICA CONYERS FOR MAYOR OF DETROIT - OMG NO -

Are you going to vote for Monica Conyers for Mayor.

I think she is building momentum, posing, posturing, positioning for the next mayoral campaign. It is now not about Cobo - but about Monica, who played the RACE card, and stirred up divisions that should be healing. She has poisoned the debate, the Cobo deal and the economic atmosphere in Detroit and Michigan. Her actions are hurting Detoit and Michigan and she doesn't get it - or fathom what she has done. Neither does Martha Reeves, JoAnne Watson, Barbara Rose Collins or Alberta Tinsley-Talabi who have increased racial tensions and divisions with their votes and bizarre actions.

Monica could face Cockrel or Bing, in the next Mayor election, both of whom, will be injured during the bruising campaign....she could easily label Bing - carpet bagger (which will be in Cockrel campaign) and Cockrel would be vulnerable on the Cobo deal - no matter how it turns out.

Detroit is $300 - 700 million dollars in debt.

The Detroit School System has an appointed state financial overseer and a bloated ineffective school board, whose members must be cut to five to seven (5 -7).

Detroit has lost 600,000+ residents....

Under Mayor Cockrel, the City of Detroit spends $15.4 million to operate the nine member City Council and another $11.8 million to operate the Mayor's Office itself ($27.2 million dollars). This budget must be slashed to the bare bones. Council member must be cut to five - seven (5 - 7).

So much is at stake in the Mayoral election, the Cobo deal, more must be done to save Detroit - before Detroit can't be saved - before Monica Conyers - for Mayor. Let a real debate begin - today..

AUTORAMA, AS DETROIT CITY COUNCIL FIDDLES, NOVI OR PONTIAC SHOULD BUILD NEW CONVENTION CENTER.

DETROIT --
The fate of Detroit's Cobo Center remains in limbo as city council politics debate what to do with the crumbling structure.

But classic car owners and visitors to Autorama this weekend voiced their lack in patience as rain overwhelmed the tarps already hanging from Cobo's ceiling to collect water from melting snow -- creating dripping.

Leaky Cobo Dampens Autorama

On Saturday, pricey classic cars were on display at Cobo for the show. Hot rod owners who obsess over the slightest detail of their cars were irate.
"I'm cleaning, this beautiful '59 Galaxy 500, that took us 20 years to build, because Cobo is leaky nasty stuff from the ceiling. I mean this is salt water, it's rust, it's disgusting," said Roy Oberg.

"You know, I have a $50,000 car here. And this is what I come to get," added Tony Delmora.

WWJ RADIO (AM950) Beth Fisher

David7750 comments:

Detroit City Council should be required and must hold all of their future Coucil meetings at Cobo Hall, under tarps collecting rain water and corrosive liquids leaking thru the ceiling.

The Council must walk thru the crumbling loading docks, down to the deporable disgusting basement, walk up (because the escalators aren't always working) to Cobo Halls. The must sit and ponder - What should we do? What should we do?

Autorama, a premier Cobo event, visitors - and exhibitors saw the tarps, dodged the rain drops and wiped rain and corrosive liquids off their beloved customized, collectible and expensive vehicles - probably wondering - why are we here? They may not return.

WWJ radio (am950) reported on the tarps, rain drops and the escalators. What kind of image does that give Detroit?

Roger Weber of WDIV (Chl 4) has done a story on the crumbling loading docks, the downstairs area and the leaking ceilings, in a very visible horrorfying story of neglect and decay.

The City Council may win their battle with the Mayor, in court, but their is no real assurances that the regional plan for Cobo will be renogiatied - so what will the Council - win - a deplorable 'a jewel of the city', a convention facility that they can't afford to repair or afford to subsidize. A facility that more and more conventions will ignore, and reject.

If the City Council wins - the Detroit Metropolitan Area LOSES.

The Rock Financial Center (Novi) should expand, and then use buses to transport exhibitors and visitors to its modern facility, as buses were used to transport people to Detroit from the surrounding areas.

Pontiac, the Big 4 and the Governor, should consider using the Silverdome as a convention anchor for a convention, retail and hotel hub. Oakland County is the economic center of region. A more centered area, safer area with less baggage than Detroit. Even in this hard economic times it would make sense to build a new convention center in this area - leaving Cobo to attract smaller boutique conventions - after it is rehabed and refurbished - $288 million isn't enough to expand.

Novi or Pontiac - maybe regional cooperation can decide what's the best location for a new convention area. Now is the time to decide.

ps. mayber Windsor, Canada should be exploring expanding the convention facilities it has...its just a short bus ride across the border. Maybe conventioneers will have a better time South of the Border - Canadian style.

SAVE DETROIT TIGER STADIUM, MCPP MISTATEMENTS - FUNDING, DONATE AND SUPPORT...LEAVE COMMENTS..

Comments about Michael LaFaive of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy - ignorant comments, about Tiger Stadium - federal funding - David Malhalab ***********************************************************************************

I do not appreciate you calling supporters of a restored Navin Field or those who understand the meaning that the stadium carries in the historic fabric of the City and the State thief's. It is both classless and unprofessional but I have come to expect such from most every individual who feels the need to put in his/her 2 cents yet never contributed a second of research to back their opinion.

I'm sorry John Gallagher chose to contact your organization for comment but then I've already given him my opinion of his story. Since my family and I have contributed nearly $500,000 dollars over the past decade to better educate the public on the stadium issue as it really was and try to assist the City of Detroit with making the best out of Tiger Stadium you can see why I resent your treatment towards people trying to create a positive out of a negative.

It is 110% true that the ILITCH family the City of Detroit and the DEGC have been no help working with those that had money to spend on the stadium. All this is fact which you could have concluded had you put in the effort. The Conservancy having raised nearly $400,000 through public contributions since last summer should be praised not shot down.As my mother former Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Dorothy Comstock Riley used to say if you cant set the record straight then you need to get your facts.

The $3.8 million is about helping Corktown and improving the quality of life for Detroit's oldest neighborhood......now how can you do that without a plan. Coming with it is another $11 million dollars that the City of Detroit can use......money that with a corrupt City Government running amuck as I write never would have gotten on there own.

So you best a say a big "thank you" to the Senator from all of us locals. If I were you I would stick to the problems in Lansing and leave the ballpark to me. When I write about the subject I never write in crayon but rather in black and white.

Respectfully,Peter Comstock Riley
Founder & PresidentMichigan & Trumbull,
LLC.2200 Trumbull AvenueDetroit, Michigan 48216
http://www.preservetigerstadium.com/ ************************************************************************************************************8 From: Reed, Lawrence W. To: DAVID7750@aol.comCc: PETERRILEYGPM@aol.com; LexiconSvs@aol.com; daleatkinson@msn.com; dsokolowski@charter.net; demesrey@yahoo.com; jgallagher@freepress.com; LAGUILAR@DETNEWS.COM; djosar@detnews.com; JKURTH@DETNEWS.COM; nrubin@detnews.com; DCHOWES@DETNEWS.COM; VBTHOMAS@CBS.COMSent: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 8:26 pm

Saying this federal handout would “create jobs” is naïve. If a thief goes door to door in a neighborhood grabbing all the loot he can get his hands on and then goes and spends it at the local shopping mall, I suppose you would only focus on what his spending does for the shops in the mail and never think about=2what would have happened if the thief hadn’t stolen the money in the first place.
So government magically creates wealth just by spending it?This is pre-school economics, not rational or adult thought. I’m surprised you don’t write your e-mails in crayon.

Lawrence W. Reed
President Foundation for Economic Education
Mackinac Center for PublicPolicy
30 S. BroadwayIrvington, NY 10533
Phone: 914-591-7230 Fax: 914-591-8910
Web: http://www.fee.org/
Personnel [Mackinac Center for Public Policy *************************************************************************************************************** From baseball's - 'the lady in blue'......

The important thing here, Dave, is to bring out the fact that the "precious money" doesn't go into some safe deposit box marked "Tiger Stadium." It pays the LOCAL people who will do the restoration work. It helps contractors and builders pay their employees, helps those employees put their kids through school, pay their medical bills, pay their mortgages...I could go on and on. We want people to earn that money by working on the stadium.
LaFaive, whoever he is, probably would prefer to put them on the dole and give it to them directly. Now you tell me which approach really helps the economy and the city of Detroit, and which approach has long-term value.

Karen Elizabeth Bush ---------------------------------------------------------

Mr. Reed,

I tend to ignore bombast as a general rule, but the charm and overwhelming tact of your last communication deserve considered response.

For the record, I am a political conservative, a devout capitalist, and I am the first person to scream that there is no such thing as a free lunch. We will all pay -- dearly -- for the well-meaning naivete (your word) of our president and of Socialists everywhere.

However, to be so myopic as to dismiss good because it comes out of a larger evil is not just naive -- it falls in the category of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Tiger Stadium -- or, more properly, Navin Field -- is at this point probably worth not much more than the cost of its remaining demolition. In case you hadn't noticed, prices are down, including those of scrap.

The land under Tiger Stadium possibly could be attractive to builders sometime in the next millenium, but, for the nonce, it is absolutely worthless.The city hopes to "attract a developer." Perhaps it can choose one from the organizations queing up to redevelop the train station or the land where the Statler and Tuller once stood.

Perhaps Bobby Ferguson could suggest a name or so, or, failing that, I'm sure that Bernard Kilpatrick knows somebody who could fake it and make the city look good for a nanosecond or so.However, instead of being faced with the inevitable creation of one more very expensive parking lot, we offered an opportunity to create something good -- to let one small part of much-maligned Detroit rise like Phoenix out of the ashes.

We live in a nation determined to deny its own culture and, to a degree, its own history. In a world where whole societies derive a sense of place and identity by reveling in the cultural heritage bequeathed by preceding generations, America stands almost alone in its contempt for anything that does not have immediate (and usually commercial) significance.

Baseball is part of America's social history, a sport that reinvents itself each generation to match popular culture. Even the changing architecture of baseball stadia is a commentary both on structural advance and decline and on public expectation. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum rightly terms one its traveling exhibits, "Baseball as America."

We have in Detroit -- a city so often justifiably criticized -- a unique opportunity to preserve a small portion of the entire nation's heritage in a way that can ensure a local revenue flow from property otherwise destined to be part of an urban prairie. (Yes, that revenue flow is assured -- both from actual facility use, and from spinoff custom of area restaurants and -- in the case of youth tournaments -- hotels.)

It will take money to effect preservation, but it is important to realize that the money will not be squirreled away in some bank account, idle revenue from sale of an expensive ticket to nostalgia. The money is, deny it how you may, going to be paid to various businesses contracted to do restoration work. In short, it will be pumped directly into the state's struggling economy.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (and Herbert Hoover before him) looked to public works as an ideal way to utilize federal "stimulus" money -- ideal because construction of roads, dams, parks, and the like created jobs during their construction and provided ongoing benefit to the people who would use the facilities so constructed.

We are offered $3.8 million that would otherwise be redirected in incentive-destroying quasi-Marxist giveaways.We will use that money to help restore the original segment of a beloved public landmark, and then go on to use that restored landmark as a vehicle for instruction, entertainment, youth enrichment, and -- frankly -- as a much-needed tourist attraction.

This represents an chance that only the most inflexible, narrow-minded, and otherwise limited of individuals would eschew.
Karen Elizabeth Bush
http://www.lexiconsvs.com/ *************************************************************************************************************** hello mr.reed

You arent looking at the broader picture....that this project will create jobs...and take a abandon piece of history and restore it....so that it will produce revenue that flows back to the city, state andnation......

LaFaive should have kept silent...or know the facts first...he hasnt the slightest idea about the issues about tiger stadium......... David L. Malhalab ...................................


MCPP members,

Michael Lafaive, should not to make statements that make your organization (Mackinac Center for Public Policy - look, sound and appear ignorant, about historic Tiger Stadium.

"It's not only irresponsible to redirect these precious resources to saving Tiger Stadium," he said, "it's unfair to everyone with no voluntary connection to the stadium whatsoever. And that comes in the form of people who don't like baseball, people who don't go to the city of Detroit, people who have no desire to see what remains of the old stadium because of this rescue." free press 2/27/09.

If the City of Detroit, the DEGC and Mike Ilitch had not conspired to abandon and denigrate historic Detroit Tiger Stadium it would be a revenue producing entertainment center today and since 1999. Ilitch has taken $2-$12 million dollars, since 1999 to maintain and secure Tiger Stadium - tax payer dollars - a billionaire...He has failed to maintain and secure the Stadium and maybe under FBI investigation.

Members of the DEGC lied before members of the Detroit Planning Commission, which knew, that they were lying and rejected their proposal to demolish Tiger Stadium.

A member of the DEGC lied to the Corktown Citizens Council - telling them that Tiger Stadium was to dangerous for them to tour and make an evaluation themselves.

100,000,000 (100 million) people have come to Tiger Stadium over the years, and would come today - as they do to Lambeau Field and Fenway Park and the Field of Dreams (IA) to see and be a part of history.

Tiger Stadium is viable...It is historic, and it can be a revenue producing tourist attraction - had not those like LaFaive, taking a wrong headed and ignorant view of the Stadium.

David Malhalab, Detroit, Mi
David7750@AOL.COM

Money pitched at Tiger Stadium; group needs more Freep.com Detroit Free Press - read the story that started this discussion....click line above

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Reed Lawrence is comparing us to thieves because of the earmark, and that's exactly how I took it!
This is wrong! The earmark for the stadium came into the picture long before the latest economic down swing. Would Lawrence be making the same comments regarding the earmark if the economy was in an upswing???
Regardless, he's not going to be convinced the $3.8 million reserved for the stadium is the right thing to do. Thank God this is America and not everyone shares in his views... at least I hope not. Dale