Matty on my mind

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By Joel Thurtell

Now I know how Detroit Free Press editors must have felt when they saw how many website hits

Oops! You're not supposed to see a photo of this truck going over Matty Moroun's privately-owned Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit and Windsor. Joel Thurtell photo.

their bombshell Kwame Kilpatrick stories were igniting.

Joelontheroad.com, with my story about being ejected from a public park by a private security guard hired by trucking magnate Manuel “Matty” Moroun, showed a record number of hits for Wednesday, September 24.

No brainer: Gotta write more Matty Moroun stories!

It shows a widespread revulsion for this man who puts his own financial interests over everything, including the law.

Even without the surge in interest for JOTR, I’d be looking more closely at this wealthy man who seems to have created his own parallel reality.

Ambassador Bridge and trucking tycoon Matty Moroun put counterfeit "Homeland Security" signs on city property to keep people out of a public parak he's now using as a dump for gravel and other construction materials. City officials say the federal government did not authorize the signs or seizure of the park. Joel Thurtell photo.

It’s an alternate universe where Matty Moroun makes the law or breaks the law and does what he wants. Why, this self-proclaimed caesar hung counterfeit Homeland Security signs on chain-link fences he put up on a city park to close off part of it.

Take the matter of hazardous industrial materials — corrosives, explosives, volatile chemicals, fuels — the sort of thing you don’t want sitting on a vulnerable bridge. Federal law sanely bans trucks from moving hazmat over bridges.

But Matty does it.

Since he owns the bridge, he argues that he can keep state troopers off the Ambassador. He issues special permits to truckers, letting them carry hazmat over his bridge in defiance of the law. Since several large trucking firms are owned by Matty, it saves him having to pay the Detroit-Windsor Truck Ferry to carry hazmat legally between Windsor and Detroit.

Cute guy, this Matty.

If you want to learn more about Matty, see the November 2004 Forbes magazine story by Stephane Fitch and Joann Muller, “The Troll Under the Bridge.”

Matty didn’t let the writers interview him. But the two journalistic sleuths dug up plenty on him.

They point out that the Ambassador is 75 years old, its four lanes too narrow for today’s vehicles, yet it’s located a very short distance from Canada, with the closest alternative bridge two truck-ride hours away.

Forty percent of all truck shipments from the U.S. to Canada use the Ambassador.

A privately-owned bridge controlling all that traffic, dictating tolls and telling the government its owner can decide what kind of materials will go over it, with virtually no regulation?

Wonder why we don’t read this kind of thorough reporting about a key Michigan businessman in either of the Detroit dailies? The Windsor Star does an admirable job covering him.

I hear Detroit’s city law department is mulling whether to sue Matty to give them back a city park and public boat launch he seized. Well, you know my take on that: Why sue when you own the park? Just kick the troll out, along with his shotgun-packin’ thugs.

I understand people may organize some kind of lawful activity at Riverside Park. I’ll post a notice of any park events when I hear about them. Or not. Keep ol’ Matty guessin’!

Since posting my first column about how Matty’s goon forced me to leave Riverside Park Extension on Monday, September 22, I’ve heard from other people who have been pushed illegally out of the park by Matty’s hirelings. A reader reported being harassed by Matty’s gunslingers at the park the very day before it happened to me. He was held till a Border Patrol officer came, demanded to see his ID and kept him around for half an hour. See my Comments section for more reports like this.

I’m told one of the people ejected from this public park was a city recreation official. Astounding,

Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun's private security guards kicked a city of Detroit recreation official out of this public park, Riverside Park Extension, two times. Joel Thurtell photo.

isn’t it?

What’s more astounding is that the city let it happen. Didn’t send the rec worker back with a police escort.

I wonder why the city didn’t assign some plainclothes cops to watch the two parks and arrest Matty’s guard dogs for harassing people?

Well, I hear Matty and Kwame were buddies, and Matty’s pals with Kwame’s mommy, as well. She’s Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, the congresswoman who represents a Detroit district with the Ambassador Bridge.

But Kwame’s gone. Maybe things will change. I’m told the city has to evict Matty, even though he stole their park.

Security guard who ordered me out of City of Detroit public Riverside Park Extension on Monday, September 22, 2008. This is the guy who was carting a shotgun on the front seat of the pickup. Joel Thurtell photo.

Hey, what about that shotgun on the front passenger seat beside “Doug,” the L.S.S. guard who tried to arrest and hold me for the Border Patrol?

What is the legality or lack thereof when someone not a certified municipal or state police officer keeps a shotgun loose in a car?

Matty is not the only magnate willing to make public property his own.

SeverStal Steel, owned by the Russians and ultimately controlled by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, is trying to make the Rouge River into its own private waterway. When I cruised past their steel mile on Friday, September 18, in my motorboat, a security guard ordered me to get out, claiming it is a “Marine Security Area.” Boaters have to stay out.

Utter bullshit.

Freighter docked on Rouge River near spot where SeverStal steel mill security guard ordered me to leave as I cruised the freighter slip in my motorboat September 19, 2008. Guard claimed slip is "Marine Security Area." Coast Guards says that was a lie and boaters have "absolute" right to be on the river. Joel Thurtell photo.

I just talked to a U.S. Coast Guard officer, Lt. J.G. Paul Raska in Detroit, who told me the goon — excuse me, guard — at SeverStal had “absolutely” no authority for kicking me out of a public area.

“As long as you’re in the water, you’re okay,” Lt. Raska said.

SeverStal has authority “once you set foot on the ground or touch their dock, but as long as you’re in the water, absolutely, you have a right to be there. As long as you don’t tie up, you’re okay. That is a public waterway and everybody has a right to be there.”

That’s great, except for one thing: In both cases, at SeverStal and at the city park, the guards won. They got me to leave.

So what’s to be done?

It would be great if the city took back its park and opened its boat ramp.

But how do we get SeverStal to obey the law and stop harassing boaters?

One of Matty Moroun's fake "Homeland Security" signs hangs from padlocked gate of Detroit's Riverside Park public boat launch closed by Moroun. Joel Thurtell photo.

I’m concerned that something bigger and more ominous is going on. Big surprise. The Bush administration and Congress have watered down civil rights wholesale, using 9/11 as an excuse. Wiretapping goes on legally now, because Congress lacked the guts to oppose a dictatorial president; We kissed habeas corpus goodbye long ago, thanks to Bush, Congress and a right-dominated U.S. Supreme Court.

It should come as no shock that businesses are trying to push people off public waterways and out of public parks.

It’s time for people to do something about the erosion of civil rights. Maybe these private attempts to foreclose our access to public places are where we can take a stand.

Padlock on gate of Detroit's supposedly public Riverside Park boat launch shut down by order of Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun. Joel Thurtell photo.

Yes, certainly hold a softball game at Riverside Park Extension.

Or let’s pilot a flotilla of motorboats into the SeverStal docking area.

But then what?

Ideas?

Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com