Southwest Detroiters confused why police put a stop to annual Cinco De Mayo festival

By Faraz Javed , Kent Saunders

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    DETROIT (WXYZ) — In Southwest Detroit, Mexicantown has been celebrating Cinco De Mayo for decades. But this past Sunday, folks say their annual celebrations came to a screeching halt when the Detroit Police Department closed a long stretch of Vernor Highway, impacting several businesses.

Cellphone footage shared with 7 News Detroit shows the moment when dozens of officers can be seen shutting down Vernor.

Mexican American comedian Ofeliza Saenz described it as chaotic.

“I was on stage, so I saw it unfold from the top. But I felt if I was in the crowd, I would have been panicked,” said Saenz.

Saenz has been attending the festival her whole life. Sunday, she was set to perform at Fiesta Detroit at El Club, but her plans were toast when the police showed up.

“They came in, started yelling, started pushing, people to leave, not giving us an explanation. And then they barricaded us inside, so there was no going in and out and there was only one exit,” said Saenz.

Meanwhile, back on the street, Fiesta Detroit’s organizer Michael Reyes says DPD enforced a strict lockdown.

“We had a checkpoint there, you had a checkpoint on the other side, you had another checkpoint on that corner. I mean, every entrance, basically, had a police officer telling you not to walk on the street,” said Michael Reyes, co-executive director of We Our Culture Creators.

Eight people were also detained. One of them was 26-year-old Xavier Cuevas, who was photographing the event in a neighborhood where he grew up.

“A line of police making their way down Vernor arresting folks and shutting down businesses,” said Cuevas.

“But little did you know, you would also be detained,” said Faraz Javed, 7 News Detroit reporter.

“Yeah, which caught me by surprise as a person who was very respectful, never said anything out of line, never took a step forward, never did anything that was instructed not to do,” said Cuevas.

Cuevas was cited for disorderly conduct and released a few hours later, along with the other seven detainees.

“This is like the draft for our community, and here you are on the one day where you can start the summer strong. You can have a $20,000 night and you are asked to shut down. To me, that is the issue more so than even our own party,” said Reyes.

Reyes says all the necessary permits were secured for Fiesta Detroit, and when DPD entered the Cinco De Mayo event, it was under capacity by at least a hundred. But Detroit Police Chief James White disagrees.

“We did not shut down Cinco De Mayo. Thousands of people attended and enjoyed the event. There was a number of instances where overcrowding was a safety issue,” said White.

“Is there anything the police can do better to share information with people during events,” asked Javed.

“I don’t think that’s a fair question. With thousands of people on the street, we have to make sure they are OK. Because if something happened to them, you would be asking, why did something happen to them?” said White.

“Why can we have a conversation beforehand? That this is our plan of execution, if this happens, this is what we are going to do…instead, it was like a surprise, none of these businesses knew that was going to be the process,” said Reyes.

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