Case of frozen man stands as a symbol of Detroit’s attitude

DETROIT (AP) — In an abandoned warehouse, the image was stark and shocking: two denim-clad, lifeless legs poking up through trash-choked ice.

Investigators who took three 911 calls over two days before finally going out to retrieve the body will now try to figure out what killed the man, but this much is clear — it’s become another symbol of Detroit’s decay and indifference.

“Most of us grew up with this,” said Mike Corbin, 34, pointing toward the old warehouse and brooding, dilapidated Michigan Central train depot nearby. “It’s depressing. Chicago and New York have their own problems, but those are in certain areas. But in Detroit, it’s the entire city.”

Investigators are looking into reports that a group of urban adventurers who get their kicks exploring Detroit’s crumbling buildings and at least one homeless man had seen the man’s body but didn’t call police.

Detroit is a tough town, often described as gritty, hard-knuckled, a survivor. Its post-World War II population soared to more than 1.8 million. Many of the 900,000 people who now call it home lived through Detroit’s days as the country’s “murder capital” when more than 700 people were slain in 1974.

Now they are slogging through the worst economy in its history as Detroit ranks among the nation’s leaders in unemployment and home foreclosures. Restructuring by the slumping U.S. auto industry promises to leave many more jobless.

Faced with a budget deficit expected to top $200 million, bond ratings at junk status, a recently ended sex scandal that landed ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff in jail and a current federal probe into city hall corruption, Detroit’s fortunes mirror the nameless, unclaimed man on thaw at the city morgue.

Detroit News reporter and columnist Charlie LeDuff found the body after receiving a tip that it was at the bottom of a submerged elevator shaft at the Roosevelt Warehouse. A homeless man camped a few yards from the shaft where the body lay but didn’t report it to authorities, LeDuff wrote.

A group of young men playing hockey in the frozen interior also didn’t call police because they were trespassing, LeDuff said, though he didn’t identify them.

Firefighters used saws to cut through the ice Wednesday afternoon. It wasn’t determined how long the man’s body had been in the shaft.

The county medical examiner’s office said an autopsy will have to wait until the body naturally thaws.

Police spokesman James Tate disputes LeDuff’s account that officers failed to respond Tuesday afternoon when he called 911 to report the body. LeDuff wasn’t clear on the location of the body, Tate said.

In a front-page story that was accompanied by a photo of the frozen legs, LeDuff wrote that he returned Wednesday to find the body still there. It took two additional calls to 911 before firefighters and police arrived, he wrote.

“When you hear somebody say it’s a dead body near a train station, you say ‘and?’” said 28-year-old Bianca Glenn over her vegan Jamaican stew at the Mercury Coffee Bar near the abandoned warehouse. “I’m kind of desensitized to it.”

The Mercury, which opened just four months ago, and several other nearby eateries contrast sharply with the surrounding neighborhood dominated by the empty train station, out-of-business Roosevelt Hotel and numerous vacant lots.

Around the corner and down the block stands what remains of the old Tiger Stadium, mostly torn down after closing nearly a decade ago.

“It’s a monument and symbol of what we used to be. It’s like our Roman ruin,” said Corbin, manager of the Mercury. He acknowledges he’s explored the depot and other abandoned structures in the area.