A once vibrant neighborhood becomes the site of Steven Utash mob attack

May 04--There was a commotion across the street.

Mike Shirdel stepped out to see the scene unfold from his old antique shop, now a ramshackle version of the vibrant place it once was. Sort of like the neighborhood itself.

A boy lay on the ground outside the nearby gas station, crying after a pickup hit him. The driver, Steven Utash, pulled over and got out to check on him. People gathered, upset by the child's cries, and soon someone took a swing. The next thing anyone knew, Utash was on the ground, a mob forming around him, kicking and punching.

This all went down in front of a forlorn white building marked "Antiques" in big letters, where Shirdel, a native Iranian, once drew business from the well-to-do of the Grosse Pointes and beyond. Today, the store brings in people, mostly on foot, who are looking for push mowers or $8 kids' bicycles or just a friendly chat.

Shirdel, 74, said he opened this place 28 years ago, and he has witnessed the changes here and in the neighborhood. Business has gotten so slow, he considers his shop more of a hobby. So he sits outside near a wide-open door, its glass cracked and never fixed from a break-in attempt. Classical music wafts outside from an old clock radio that flashes: "12:00 ... 12:00 ... 12:00."

The neighborhood is rife with poverty and other deeply rooted problems.

"Today, you can't fix it," Shirdel said on a recent afternoon. "You cannot fix it tomorrow."

These and other streets near here on Detroit's far east side were once known collectively as Copper Canyon -- blocks filled with homes once occupied by Detroit Police officers and firefighters before residency requirements were overturned and many moved to the suburbs for lower insurance rates and less crime. The area now leads the city in aggravated assaults so far this year.

The ZIP code that includes the neighborhood -- 48224 -- tells the story of a community where the latest rates of unemployment, 27%, and poverty, 34%, far exceed national rates, U.S. Census Bureau data show. The busy stretch of Morang, north of I-94, where Utash was attacked is dotted with liquor stores. The gas station is a hangout spot for people whiling away the day.

The streets where the beating happened don't feature the widespread abandonment and swaths of open land that mark more dismal areas of the city. But there's high-crime there, and Utash's assault on April 2 drew national attention and outcry, in part because of a perceived racial element. Utash is a white man from the overwhelmingly white suburbs; his alleged attackers are African Americans from the mostly black city.

One of the suspects, a 16-year-old juvenile, faces an ethnic-intimidation charge.

Shirdel, who emigrated to New York in 1967 from his home country and later moved to Detroit, said he has had no problem assimilating in his neighborhood.

"Why should I be scared of this little girl here, who is black?" he said, gesturing to a young girl walking by his store. "Why?"

'Out of anger'

Wonzey Saffold is Wonzey Saffold, but he's also -- according to various law enforcement and court records -- Dujuan Saffold, Juan Saffold, Kwon Saffold Lewis, Kwon Lewis, El Lewis, Kjuan Lewis, Keshawn Thompson, Keshaun Thompson, Nigel Gray, Nyjuel Nyjuel Gray, Nyjuel Cummings and Low.

Saffold, 30, is the oldest of the five Detroiters charged in the attack on Utash, 54, of Clinton Township. Records show Saffold has maneuvered through the court system for years using different names and birth dates.

Now he's facing his most serious charges to date: assault with intent to murder and assault with intent to do great bodily harm.

Utash's head injuries were so severe from the beating, he spent a month in a hospital and was transferred only last Tuesday to a rehabilitation facility.

Other suspects in Utash's attack -- Bruce Wimbush Jr., 17, James Davis, 24, and Latrez Cummings, 19 -- are also each charged with assault with intent to murder and assault with intent to do great bodily harm. A 16-year-old, whom the Free Press is not identifying because he is charged as a juvenile, is facing counts of ethnic intimidation and assault with intent to do great bodily harm.

Surveillance footage shows that the accident on Morang happened in an instant: The young boy steps off of the curb and is hit by the truck.

Witnesses say the child screamed as he lay in the street.

According to police, when the 16-year-old was interrogated about the assault, he said he had been hanging out with three guys, including someone named Bruce. After the child was struck by the truck, the teen asked Utash, who had stopped, whether he was going to check on the boy. Utash said yes, they went over to the child and, the juvenile told police, that's when he hit the driver twice in the head and walked away.

When the juvenile was asked why, he said: "Out of anger."

Ashley Daniels, a witness, testified in court last month that she had urged Utash to get back into his truck, but he told her he was trying to wait for police. Daniels said a mob stomped Utash. She testified she saw Saffold waving a gun and saw him kick Utash.

Saffold is also facing weapons charges. Ray Paige, Saffold's attorney, said his client did not have a gun.

Few details have emerged about the roles of the other suspects, but a preliminary hearing last month determined that some of them have implicated each other in the attack. Because of this, there will be two separate trials in August -- Saffold and Cummings one week, and Wimbush and Davis the next. The 16-year-old's case is making its way through the juvenile court.

Saffold has the most extensive criminal history of the five.

Records show he has maneuvered through the court system for more than a decade using aliases and various birth dates, racking up charges for drug possession, having stolen property, resisting police and domestic violence.

Saffold was repeatedly given probation, mostly for drug offenses, and violated it several times by failing to report, records show. He has served time in county jails and, in 2005, was sentenced to serve 1 1/2 to 5 years in prison for a charge related to a stolen vehicle.

'Not a willing participant'

According to the state Corrections Department, Saffold was released from prison in August 2009, but it wasn't long before he was in trouble again. He pleaded guilty to drug possession and resisting police in 2010 and was sentenced to probation, which he violated. Court records show the probation was continued in 2012 and, in October 2013, was closed.

Records show Saffold also had many addresses in the area of the beating. No one at the houses wanted to comment.

Paige said Saffold, his client, is in a state of disbelief about the charges.

"He was not a willing participant in any kind of mob behavior in which the end game was to kill Mr. Utash," Paige said.

No one answered at an address listed for Davis; a man who answered the door at a house associated with Wimbush declined to comment, and parents of the juvenile suspect also declined to comment last week. Attorneys for Davis and Wimbush could not be reached.

Wayne County juvenile court records show Wimbush was deemed "incorrigible" three times. An official at the court said there was no more information on the cases.

Austin Union, a friend of Latrez Cummings, said in an interview last week that he doesn't believe Cummings had anything to do with Utash's beating. Union, who was interviewed at Cummings' home about two blocks from the beating scene, said he drove up that day as people crowded around the injured boy.

Union said he saw Cummings in the mix but heard Cummings tell Utash to get back into his pickup because some younger guys were threatening Utash.

"He didn't try to hurt the guy," Union said. "He didn't even try to beat up on him. He was just trying to tell him to back up off the scene because the little kids was threatening him."

Union called Cummings his best friend. He said he has known Cummings for a couple of years since they were placed in a boys' home together.

Records show Cummings was made a temporary ward of the state in 2011 when he was 16. He told police at the time that his mother had kicked him out of her house and told him not to come back. His mother told state workers it was a misunderstanding.

Michigan Department of Human Services workers helped the family get back together in 2012, records indicate. Some challenges were that Cummings occasionally skipped medication for bipolar disorder, and his mother had suffered her own childhood trauma and placements in foster care. She gave birth to Cummings when she was 16. He is one of her seven children with four men, records indicate.

Cummings attended alternative schools in Detroit and Ferndale, where he wanted to play on the basketball team some day.

Cummings' attorney declined to comment about the Utash beating case.

Union said he believes his friend was just "at a bad place during a bad time."

'This neighborhood's pretty quiet'

The neighborhood where Utash was assaulted is high in crime, according to police statistics broken down by scout car area. So far this year through April 30, that scout car area led the city in aggravated assaults with 61, Detroit Police spokesman Sgt. Michael Woody said. There were also 22 robberies, 104 burglaries, 64 auto thefts, six sexual assaults and one homicide.

Like Shirdel, the antique peddler, Frank Miller has lived through the neighborhood's changes.

Last week, Miller walked about two blocks from his house on McCormick to the Lucky Seven liquor store, right across the street from Mike's Antiques, to pick up some chicken wings. The retired Chrysler worker, 68, sat on a wall around the corner from the store smoking a cigarette.

"This neighborhood's pretty quiet. I mean, every now and then you'll hear about somebody getting robbed coming to the store," Miller said.

He has been in the neighborhood for 35 years. Other than almost being robbed himself about 10 years ago, he said he hasn't had any trouble. And the one time he did, he pinned the guy to the ground before the cops rolled up to intercede.

Miller, who is white, said he saw news of the Utash beating on television. He said he believes racial tension is a constant in the neighborhood, though he hasn't suffered.

"People are kind of afraid to step in and say something about what happened," Miller said. "They're afraid they'll get stomped on, you know what I mean?"

Shantell Weaver, 21, an employee at Happy's Pizza on Morang, said she grew up on the east side and lived once around the corner on Balfour. Three years ago, someone broke into that home while she and her sister were there alone, Weaver said.

She recounted hiding in the basement with her sister, who called 911 but didn't speak for fear of being heard. The thief took their TV.

"In my opinion, it's not the neighborhood; it's the people in it," Weaver said.

She said she doesn't know whether race was a factor in Utash's beating but said in her crowd race is not an issue.

"We bleed the same blood," said Weaver, who is black.

The lobby of Happy's overlooks the street where Utash was beaten. The day of the assault, Weaver was outside because the power in the pizza shop was out. She saw the commotion.

She moved to Warren last year and drives down each day to the pizza place, where she takes orders from behind a thick transparent wall. Last summer, she said, someone walked into the lobby of Happy's and walked out -- carrying the gumball machine.

Such lawlessness, Weaver said, is what forced her out of the city she loves.

Contact Gina Damron: 313-223-4526 or [email protected]. Staff Writer Kristi Tanner contributed to this story.

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