Conyers’ Wife Threatened To Shoot Aide

From the Detroit Free Press:

Mrs. Conyers after a December 2005 bar fight.

Report says Monica Conyers made threat

Mayor’s aide files police complaint, but council member’s chief of staff says she was the one wronged.

Christine MacDonald

February 15, 2008

DETROIT — An aide to Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick filed a police report Thursday claiming Monica Conyers, the short-tempered City Council president pro tem and wife of U.S. Rep. John Conyers, threatened to get a gun and shoot him at a city pension board meeting.

But a spokesman for Conyers says she was the real victim in the hubbub.

According to the police report filed Thursday by DeDan Milton, an assistant to Kilpatrick, Conyers “threatened to shoot (Milton) with her gun” and made “several aggressive movements” toward Milton “in a threatening manner.”

Milton also reported to police that Conyers said she would “have my brothers (mess) you up.”

David Clark, chair of Detroit’s General Retirement System, backed up Milton’s account.

“She ran at him,” Clark told The Detroit News. “She told him she would get a gun if she had to and that she has four brothers and they would whup his a– if she asked them.”

In his police report, Milton said members of Conyers’ staff, and others at the meeting, had to restrain her. But Sam Riddle, Conyers’ chief of staff, said Milton was the one who had to be restrained. Riddle, who said he witnessed the squabble, said Milton started it by telling Conyers to shut up — and used an expletive.

Late Thursday, Conyers filed a police report of her own, accusing Milton of being the perpetrator…

Riddle said he is recommending that Conyers, as the wife of a congressman, seek protection from the U.S. Marshals Service.

“We don’t know who we can trust in the city of Detroit,” Riddle said.

A member of Congress who is threatened, or whose family member is threatened, would seek assistance from the U.S. Capitol Police. A threat assessment would be conducted, and if judged to be needed, protection would be given, said spokeswoman Kerri Hanley.

Police are investigating, but it’s not clear what crime Conyers could be charged with…

Riddle said Conyers never threatened Milton, and just defended herself from his bullying. Riddle said she did mention the word “gun,” but not in the way Milton claimed and Clark recalled.

“She said she has as big of a political gun as he does,” Riddle said. “You can’t put the victim of the abuse on trial.”

Riddle said Kilpatrick’s administration has shown a pattern of disrespect toward women…

“This is an administration that has shown it doesn’t care about women,” Riddle said…

Conyers was accused of punching a Walled Lake woman in 2006 during a bar brawl. Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s office found Conyers had acted in self-defense at a party at the Crossroads Lounge on Livernois in Detroit. Both had filed police reports.

In 2005, Valecia Moore, who said she was a friend of Conyers, filed a personal protection order against Conyers, saying that she had threatened to kill her. “There was gun shots behind my house following that conversation,” Moore wrote in the report.

The order was denied by the court.

Riddle said Conyers denied the allegations.

How ironic for such a man of peace to be married to such a violent woman.

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