Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in Trouble over Text Messages

Again in the Hot Water (Well Still from Before) Text Messages Are a Character Witness in This Situation

By now you're probably sick of hearing about the romantic relationship between Kwame Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty. On some levels it isn't that much different from the scandals that have occurred in any major city. People are still talking about Rudolph Guiliani's indiscretion, but this scandal has what most consider to be another corrupt city ran by African-Americans on the front pages of newspapers they wouldn't normally be on, bringing negative attention to African-American politicians.

Yet again, most of us are perhaps even afraid to speak of it. Mr. Kilpatrick's time serving as the mayor of Detroit has been short yet turbulent, in 2002 he took over from Dennis Archer, who had served in the Michigan Supreme Court for 8 years before becoming mayor for approximately 7 years.

The issue there was that Dennis Archer could never get through to loyalists of Coleman Young, who had served as mayor for 20 years. Archer left a mixed legacy similar to that of David Dinkins in New York, coming in and being proceeded by charismatic and polarizing individuals who made politics interesting again. That much being said, it comes as no surprise that Kilpatrick has had a fair amount of drama during the short time he has been in office, if the history of politics with the mayors of American cities is any indication.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Kilpatrick and Beatty, who had lied about their affair under oath, and whose trail cost Detroit $9 million, were texting each other while the affair was going on. Of course Beatty's pager was issued by the city, so it wasn't that difficult to go back and take a serious look into over 14,000 text messages that transpired in under 4 months, 2 in 2003 and 2 in 2004. On top of that, their initial testimony that they did not fire Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown is easily rebuffed by one of the messages in which Beatty talks about the "decision that we made to fire Gary Brown".