The Free Press has run at least 3 articles about this incident.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...05/1007/NEWS05

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...709220319/1001

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...EWS02/70921018

I know that these articles were published, but why was this story floating around on the internet and blogs for well over a week before freep makes mention? Thanks for missing the point. :)

ETA: Did you read the comments on the first and third links? Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks this way, and I swear I didn't write any of those.

I'm not exactly sure what your trying to say here, but the "conspiracy" site I linked to posted the story on the 13th, which got the story from some Lansing TV news station. The earliest article I've seen from the Detroit news was posted a week after that, the 19th. And as for the mayor knowing, well he did know. The article mentioned that the mayor had asked that all questions involving the case be sent directly to his office rather than to the local police.

So, it wasn't covered up, the Detroit paper didn't pick it up very quickly. Since the other news sites had the information out it was public by that time. Who knows why the Detroit paper made the call it did, but assuming it was related to September 11th is like 5 steps too far down the logic train.

"O’Reilly said although the man had recently visited Lebanon, he was cautious to indicate there was a larger terrorism issue brewing so close to the Sept. 11 anniversary.
“I really wanted not to let it become more of a bigger issue to be played out,” O’Reilly said. “The real story will come out when he is bound over.”"

It kind of sounds like the mayor really didn't want this story out because of the Sep 11 anniversary. Do you disagree? What do you make from that statement?

I make that he wasn't willing to speculate on whether it was a large scale terrorism plan since he a) didn't know and b) it would scare people unnecessarily since he was speculating. He didn't yell "TERRORIST" to the world. That's different than keeping it a secret.

Also, the reporter said 9/11, not the mayor. There's no indication that 9/11 was truly the mayor's motivation.

I think the mayor of Dearborn worries a lot about the reputation of his city. They've been cited as having the highest middle eastern population outside of the middle east numerous times and with the whole La Shish owner situation, he does feel a need to do some damage control although I don't know if I'd call it a coverup. I wasn't sure if there earlier articles or not because I only did a search for "recent news" and I didn't search any of the local tv station web sites either.

I am surprised that this wasn't bigger news around here.

Maybe that's the one I'm thinking of, but I remember hearing about more. Not to mention people have been getting busted for sending money to support terrorism.

And La Shish? Why do people continue to go to that restaurant? I understand that people really like their food, but where is your money going?

It's a problem of size and resources.

I worked in Detroit TV for five years before moving out here.

The size of the metro area, the number of smaller cities and the number of people in the region make finding stories like this more luck than skill, unless some assignment editor happens to hear a police call on a scanner or lucks into the information on a phone call. Again, because of the number of agencies, it would be more than a full time job to be in touch once a day.

I've never been a patron of La Shish, or La Terrorist as my friends and I call it. I really am surprised that the chain is still open and that there's still people that want to go there after getting busted like that.

Cuz they get what they want. The Muslim Student Association wanted footbaths put in the bathrooms and BOOM they get what they want. I wouldn't want MY tuition money going towards one set religion, especially since there has been "activity" in that club.

Whatever was the outcome of that? I've heard conflicting stories on where the money came from, " The footbaths were paid for from the omnibus fees, which every student pays"; "the footbaths were paid for by the state, etc...."

I've also wondered how it stayed open. If you deal drugs out of your home or business, everything that you may have bought with the drug money is confiscated. But, apparently you can fund terrororism from your business, leave the country, and others can keep running your business. I presume their books are being audited very carefully?

From what I've heard, it came out of the university's budget. And they most definitely got put in.

The most absurd excuse I heard about them was "Everyone can use them. Some people's feet get dirty when they're wearing sandals to class and they can now wash their feet". Bullshit. It's kinda like saying "Anyone can join the Muslim Student Association" but everytime I had walked by one of their meetings, they were speaking Arab. That'd make it a little hard for non-Arabs to join, wouldn't it?

I've heard that most of the money they bring in now is going straight to the IRS to pay off back taxes, and the wife is crying that she didn't know about her husbands dealings and her restaurant shouldn't be closed because of him. But yeah, with all of the fake immigration docs they were passing out, loan sharking, bribing, drug running, it is odd the chain is still operating.