Darnell Stephen Summers

Darnell Stephen Summers is a long time left-wing political activist and U.S. Army veteran of the Vietnam War who has been facing charges of murdering a police officer for years. The case has been dismissed twice, first in 1969 and then again in 1984 due to a lack of evidence and recanted testimonies, with the second judge saying there was "no factual, legal, or ethical justification for proceeding with this case." Despite no conviction and no new evidence, Michigan State Police continue to consider him a suspect. As recently as October 2020, police stopped him in Michigan to collect DNA samples and seize his phone. Summers and his supporters argue the ongoing case is a form of political harassment. He is a musician, filmmaker and journalist who has created a jazz album and several documentary films. He attended Blessed Scarcement Elementary and then graduated from St. Francis Xavier High School in 1965. The next year he joined the Army. He has told interviewers that he wasn't super patriotic, mainly enlisting because he had split with his girlfriend and had "a broken heart." While in the Army, he received orders to Vietnam in August 1968, but went home on leave prior to shipping out. This is where major events took place that changed his life. During the ensuing days there were several clashes between Black youth and the police. By the time things settled down, two policemen had received minor wounds from a shotgun blast near the recreation center, one policeman had been killed by unknown assailants, a civilian had been shot in the shoulder by police, and a 14 year old Black boy had been shot in the back and killed by the police for having "'something' in his hands (it was his shirt)." One soldier in his company kept some souvenir fingers he had cut off a Vietnamese, and Summers witnessed two soldiers in his company "just arbitrarily kill a man who was tending his fields." Summers turned the two soldiers in and testified against them.

In early December 1968 Summers was brought back from Vietnam "to face charges of attempted murder" of the two Michigan State patrolmen who had been injured. He was flown to San Francisco where the U.S. Army turned him over to the Inkster and Michigan State Police for transport to Detroit. He was then placed in the Wayne County Jail and held on a $20,000 bond. Once in court, however, the attempted murder charge against Summers was thrown out. The Detroit Free Press reported the prosecution's case "came apart" as their "star witness" was unable to provide convincing evidence after "more than three hours of intensive cross-examination". Charges were then reduced to "assault" and "attempt to damage police property." In June 1969, Summers plead guilty to "conspiracy to commit felonious assault" against the two policemen, "neither of whom was seriously hurt." He was sentenced to one and one-half to four years in prison, but was released after thirteen months.

In July 1982, almost 14 years after the murder, Summers was extradited from West Germany to Detroit "to once again face charges" that he was involved. He was arrested by the German police who cooperated with the Michigan police. The case quickly became a political issue as several "local and some international leftist political organizations" claimed he was a "victim of political oppression." The groups cited his progressive jazz band, his writings in "left-wing publications and his support of the Rock Haus in Worms, West Germany". Summers agreed, calling himself "a revolutionary" who has organized "black American GIs against the Vietnam War, aided expatriate Turkish workers, [defended] the Iranian revolutionaries who had seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and performed regularly in 'progressive' music events."

Almost immediately after his extradition the prosecution's case began to unravel as its "chief witness" said she had been "pressured into signing 'totally fabricated' statements linking him to the 1968" killing. She explained at a press conference that the police had "threatened to 'keep me in jail for a long time'" if she didn't testify.

Fort Carson Racial Harmony Council

Before Summers was discharged from the Army, after he had served thirteen months in civilian prison, he was sent to Fort Carson in Colorado with the 517th Medical Company to complete his enlistment. He hadn't violated any Army regulations, and the Army wasn't sure what to do with him, but after a retention hearing where he presented "letters from the Inkster mayor and police chief and from his battalion commander in Vietnam", they decided to reinstate him "with both rank and secret-level security clearance intact." At Fort Carson, Summers was soon involved in the Racial Harmony Council and quickly elected as its chair. He spent "his last months in the army working for racial justice." Things did not always go smoothly and "on several occasions unit commanders had him arrested for haircut violations or 'anything else they could come up with.'" Summers then helped to form the "Stop The War Brigade" in Germany which campaigned against both the Gulf War from 1990 to 1991 and the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He was even quoted in the official military newspaper Stars and Stripes in 2003 shouting "George Bush, we know you. Your daddy was a killer, too" at a demonstration in Heidelberg against the pending war with Iraq. He has filmed and produced several documentary films, including "Street of Dreams 'Harrison Avenue'" in 1993, and "The OTHER American(s)" in 2008. In 2005 he appeared in the film Sir! No Sir!, a documentary about the antiwar and resistance movement within the ranks of the U.S. Armed Forces during the Vietnam War. He talked about the dap, a special handshake used by Black GIs and the role played by GI underground newspapers inside the military.