The Greensboro City Council voted to hold a special work session on conducting an independent investigation into the death of Marcus Deon Smith.
Smith died on Sept. 8, 2018, after being restrained by Greensboro police with a Ripp Hobble device in a restraint position that is commonly called hogtying.
The City of Greensboro is currently being sued by Mary and George Smith, the parents of Marcus Deon Smith.
The city has made offers to settle the lawsuit, but the offers have not been accepted. Earlier this year, Councilmember Yvonne Johnson asked that settling the Smith lawsuit be made a City Council priority for 2021, but it was not added to the list of priorities.
When hiring an outside firm to do an independent investigation has been discussed in the past, the City Council has been advised that from a legal standpoint it would be a mistake to facilitate an independent investigation while inthe midst of litigation.
At the Tuesday, April 20 meeting, City Councilmember Michelle Kennedy, who describes herself as a “friend” of Marcus Smith, made a motion to conduct an independent investigation.
Mayor Nancy Vaughan said, “I’m not prepared to vote on that tonight. I don’t believe there was a cover-up and I’m not adverse to having the information out there.”
Vaughan suggested that the City Council hold a work session on the proposed independent investigation.
City Manager David Parrish said the earliest work session available would be late May.
Kennedy, “I don’t want to wait until the end of May to have this conversation.” And she suggested scheduling a special work session to discuss the independent investigation.
Johnson said, “We have been dealing with this for years. We need to come to some resolution.”
Kennedy made the motion to schedule a special work session to discuss conducting an independent investigation and the motion passed unanimously.
In the past, both Councilmembers Tammi Thurm and Justin Outling have waited months for work sessions on issues they wanted the council to discuss.
Not sure I’m a fan of this council, it appears a little lopsided
Woke oligarchy puts off real action on city funded homicide of unarmed man who was just asking for help? Plenty of money for riot cleanup and performance arts boondoggle however.
I have a resolution. Quit bringing this up and let a sleeping dog lie. Case closed.
Kennedy should have recused herself from any discussion on the matter, much less any motion or vote. The council needs to defend the investigation done by the city. The time for a third party investigation was before the litigation began. If there’s any blame to place in this, blame Smith for taking drugs, his drug dealer for providing them, and society for looking the other way until an addict flipped out. You may even want to study hard on whether or not Kennedy enabled this to happen through her actions in some way.
Offer Smith’s parents $3 and tell them to take it or leave it, but either way, shut up about their criminal son. BTW, why does the world have to revolve around Michelle Kennedy?
These idiots on the council need to look back in history and realize how they ALWAYS fall on the wrong side of issues. Remember all the headaches and money they caused the citizens of Greensboro when they were all on the wrong side of the former police chief David Wray fiasco? All that happened was the city spent millions, the council, and their idiot city manager at the time, all looked like fools, and a good man’s name was tarnished, only to be later vindicated.
Maybe if the citizens of Greensboro would stop electing idiots and friends of criminals, they wouldn’t have to watch their money just fly away to Lord knows where. Apparently, they don’t mind.