Woodward Avenue-Detroit Michigan
Friday, September 4, 1964
The mist of the steaming hot summer day seemed to evaporate into the air as dusk began to set onto the urban city. A barrage of automobile traffic continued to flow in both directions of Woodward Avenue as various retail stores started closing their doors for the evening.
It had been a hot, sweltering summer season in the Motor City, with temperatures averaging in excess of 95 degrees for the eighth straight day in a row. With the coolness of the setting sun, the sweltering temperatures were finally beginning to fall to a comfortable eight-two degrees as crowds of people started to venture out and enjoy the summer sunset.
It was Friday night, and many of the working girls were now out and about, walking the nearby sidewalks, looking for new customers to entice. One of those girls was a young, black woman named Cynthia Young, a twenty-three-year-old prostitute who had been making her living on the streets of Detroit for the last six months. She was currently homeless, sleeping in various motel rooms from night to night along Woodward Avenue. She would hustle men for sex, turning her nightly tricks for twenty dollars apiece. Cynthia would sometimes spend the night with different ‘johns’ who were willing to pay her to spend the night after turning several ‘tricks’ for the evening.
The young streetwalker carried a large handbag containing most of her worldly belongings. She maintained a locker at the Greyhound bus station on nearby Howard Street. She deposited her belongings from time to time whenever her handbag became too heavy for her to carry around. She knew several of the gas station attendants in the area, who would gladly lend her the restroom key for her to freshen up whenever she turned a trick in the backseat of someone’s car.
On that hot Friday evening, Cynthia had just turned a trick for a white, married ‘john’ from the suburbs. He called himself ‘Rick’ and was probably from nearby Grosse Pointe Woods because he was driving a new 1963 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible. Rick wore a gold wedding band and a fancy gold-plated Rolex watch. He had on a white, short-sleeved shirt and a black tie, which was untied and hanging loosely from around his neck. His crinkled cashmere slacks bulged from the large wade of cash he kept in his right pocket. He told her he had just gotten off work at midnight and didn’t want to go directly home to his wife and three children.
Rick paid her twenty dollars to engage in backseat sex in an alley just off of a nearby street adjacent to Woodward Avenue. Cynthia spent almost a half-hour with him, ensuring his needs were well taken care of. She sat on top of him during their sexual encounter while he kept a watch for anyone who might be peering into the back seat of his car.
Rick had just dropped her off at the corner of Seven Mile and Woodward near a busy traffic light. It was now just after two o’clock in the morning as Cynthia began walking south down Woodward Avenue towards the White Castle restaurant, which was open twenty-four hours. She wanted to use their facilities to freshen up before finding her next customer for the evening. She figured she would turn one more trick before calling it a night and then find a local motel room to spend the evening.
Cynthia looked behind her and noticed a Detroit Police Department patrol car, the same vehicle that had followed her for the last few blocks.
Suddenly, the DPD patrol car pulled alongside her and turned on its bright blue patrol lights. There were two police officers inside, and one of them rolled down the window and barked out offensive questions to the young streetwalker.
“Hey there, nigger-girl…ain’t it way past your bedtime? Whatcha’ doing out so late?” one white patrol officer yelled at Cynthia.
She immediately ignored the officer’s catcalls, pretending she wasn’t hearing any of their vulgar dialog. She walked quickly towards the White Castle restaurant on the corner of Woodward and Gunnison Avenues.
“Hey, nigger-girl? I’m talking to you. What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?” the white officer yelled out, now getting out of the parked police car.
The young, twenty-three-year-old streetwalker now began to run. She was trying to pick up speed, maneuvering her hurried sprint while wearing her two-inch, high-heeled dress shoes. The other patrolman driving the vehicle now exited the parked car, and both of the officers were now giving chase to the young prostitute. She hadn’t run more than five hundred yards before both policemen grabbed the street hooker by her blouse and tackled her down to the concrete sidewalk.
“Let me go! Leave me alone, you fuckin’ bastards!” she screamed as the patrolmen grabbed both of her arms and began to haul her toward their parked patrol car.
“I ain’t done nuttin’ wrong! Let me go!” Cynthia continued to scream as she was thrown into the back seat of the black Ford Galaxy patrol car with its distinctive ‘Detroit Police’ markings displayed prominently on each side of the vehicle. As she was thrown inside, they handcuffed her hands behind her back.
The two police officers laughed out loud as if they had just captured a wanted criminal. The large, oversized patrolman with a huge pot belly then drove the vehicle and sped off quickly, going southbound on Woodward Avenue.
“You let me ‘outta here, you fuckin’ bastards! I ain’t done nuttin’ wrong!” she continued to scream loudly.
Both police officers continued to smile at each other as the patrol car continued to travel towards what seemed to be in the direction of the Detroit Thirteenth Police Precinct.
After several minutes, the patrol car abruptly made a right-hand turn down a dark side street called Avondale. The road was filled with abandoned buildings and tenements; its long grass and uncut brush lined both sides of the uninhabited, stone-paved boulevard. The Detroit patrol car traveled westward three blocks until it encountered an abandoned alleyway.
As the street hooker continued to scream and curse at both police officers, they pulled their car into the alleyway and parked their vehicle. At that moment, both patrolmen exited the police car and pulled Cynthia out of the vehicle's back seat.
“What are you guys doing with me?” she continued to protest.
At that moment, the one patrolman, who was over six feet tall and was physically built like a bodybuilder, swiftly slapped the young girl several times across her face. The other officer, a little shorter but very overweight, laughed out loud at the young girl’s protests.
“What do you think we are? Fucking stupid? We know your turning tricks down Woodward, you fuckin’ nigger-whore!” he screamed as he punched her several more times in her face. The other officer, who was keeping a lookout, nodded his head at the other patrolman, letting him know that no one was around in the area.
At that moment, the Detroit copper threw the hooker face forward back into the back seat of the vehicle, her hands still handcuffed behind her back. He then pulled down her panties and unbuckled his pants, dropping them down to his ankles. His gun was still in its holster as he continued to mount the young prostitute from behind while the other copper was keeping watch from the other side of the police car.
Cynthia was now crying profusely while the Detroit police officer continued to rape her from behind, her hands still cuffed behind her back. Both of her wrists were now bleeding.
Another Detroit patrol car now pulled into the dark, deserted alley, its bright lights shining onto the activity that was going on. The location was behind Brentwood Street, a block south of Seven Mile Road. Several abandoned houses had been boarded up and were unhabitable.
“Hey, Al, who’s the nigger-broad?” one of the patrolmen shouted out from the passenger window.
“We caught her doing tricks on Woodward Avenue a few blocks away. We’re tryin’ out the merchandise,” the other officer laughed. The policeman in the other patrol car seemed amused at the rape that was going on in the other DPD police car. Both were laughing as they watched the disgusting police officer take full advantage of the handcuffed, black hooker.
After several more minutes, the towering Detroit copper pulled up and buckled his trousers as both policemen switched positions. The shorter patrolman was now fornicating her from behind, laughing out loud while he continued to thrust himself onto her.
“How’s it feel, baby? How do you like us pig coppers fucking you from behind?” he kept exclaiming out loud, viciously raping her at the same time.
“Hey John, do you wanna piece of this?” the arrogant Detroit copper asked the other patrolmen.
“No thanks. I’ve got some tail waitin’ for me at home,” the other copper yelled out from the passenger window.
When the shorter policeman finished raping the young black prostitute, they uncuffed her and threw her out of the patrol car and onto the middle of the street. The young black girl was still crying profusely from the nightmare. Her face and hands were now bleeding from the violent ordeal she had just experienced.
Cynthia Young was no stranger to being raped. She had been raped several times before by disgruntled ‘johns’ who took advantage of her small, demure frame and her dishonest profession. She was only five feet, two inches tall, and barely weighed one hundred pounds.
“I’m gonna get you fuckin’ cracker bastards,” she screamed as she stood there on the darkened street, surrounded by only the high brush from the vacant city lots and its abandoned tenements. She continued to scream a barrage of obscenities at the two police officers that had so brutally raped her.
The vacant alley was extremely dark, and only the lights from the patrol cars were the only illumination visible as the Detroit coppers completed their vile, violent acts.
The two coppers in the other police car who had witnessed the brutal rape pulled away first, making sure that its lights were still off until it approached Woodward Avenue.
As the other patrol car began to turn around, Cynthia grabbed a rather large concrete rock lying nearby. She picked up the rock and heaved it toward the passenger side of the vehicle, making sure that she had hit one of the officers who had just finished raping her. The stone hit the policeman squarely in the head.
“Fuck you, you fuckin’ pig bastards,” she screamed as the Detroit police officer’s wounded head was now starting to bleed.
“You fuckin’ bitch!” the officer screamed as he quickly exited the police car and chased after her. As she was trying to escape, the Detroit Police officer withdrew his Lugar sidearm and fired one round at the young prostitute. His bullet entered the back of Cynthia’s head, exploding upon impact. Her flesh, bone fragments, and blood from her shattered skull dispersed everywhere as she quickly fell onto the concrete sidewalk. The black homeless prostitute was dead before she hit the ground.
Cynthia Young died trying to run for her life.
The bleeding Detroit police officer, without any reaction or remorse, quickly climbed back into the passenger side of his police vehicle, and the DPD patrol car rapidly sped away.
On the dirty, broken sidewalk of that abandoned alley, twenty-three-year-old Cynthia Young lay there motionless and dead. She was just another victim of the urban police brutality that was so prevalent, yet so familiar, during that violent period. Her murder was another example of the continued brutal, callous, violent acts that so many Detroit police officers asserted on so many African Americans who lived within the Motor City.
Her lifeless body, which was discovered the next morning, was immediately scooped up by the Wayne County Coroner and taken to the county morgue. Cynthia Young’s murder never made the newspapers or the television nightly news. The circumstances of her murder were never questioned by either the county prosecutors, the investigative Detroit Police detectives from the homicide unit, or the local media.
Working the streets of Detroit during that violent period was a deadly profession indeed, and Cynthia Young’s death was just another tragic statistic.
In the Motor City, street hookers, drug dealers, gang members, and other Negro deviants were typically harassed by the Detroit Police Department. They were often arrested for no apparent reason other than suspicion by the assaulting policemen who were on patrol. They were regularly interrogated, often beaten up, and sometimes violently killed without any explanation or cause by the Detroit Police Department. The Wayne County Prosecutors often looked the other way, commenting privately that the DPD were ‘doing their jobs’ in keeping the streets of the Motor City safe.
The twenty-three-year-old street hooker was presumed to be another black victim who met a very violent end. The authorities guessed that she was probably killed by her ‘pimp’ or, more likely, an unsatisfied customer for a ‘trick’ gone wrong.
Her mother, Florence, and sister, Cecilia Travis, traveled by Greyhound Bus from Columbia, South Carolina, several days later. They had gotten word of what had happened to their beloved family member from a phone call they received from the Wayne County Sheriff's Office. Her sister had borrowed eight hundred dollars from a relative to bury her in a simple grave in Gethsemane Cemetery on Gratiot Avenue, adjacent to Detroit City Airport. They hired a Baptist minister to say a simple service at her gravesite. Then, the two of them watched the cemetery workers lower her wooden casket into the ground as the grave was quickly refilled with dirt.
Both mother and daughter then boarded the Greyhound Bus that afternoon and returned to Columbia, vowing never again to return to Detroit. They both knew what had happened to their sister and daughter. They both knew what Cynthia was doing on Woodward Avenue.
And they both suspected the truth about how she died.
Cynthia Young was another casualty of the racist, violent, dirty cops that were often referred to in the Detroit Police Department’s Thirteenth Precinct as ‘The Big Four’.
