Cockrel campaign: Allegations of paid protesters ‘misleading’

Jim Edmondson, the campaign manager for Kenneth Cockrel Jr.’s mayoral campaign in Detroit, said that to his knowledge, all the protesters who showed up to protest the campaign headquarters of businessman Dave Bing on Sunday afternoon were volunteers and were not paid. On Sunday, a Cockrel campaign volunteer, who asked not to be named, told Michigan Messenger: “We’re getting paid, believe that.”

The impromptu protest was sparked by Bing’s announcement that he has assembled a crisis management team, a group that would help him oversee the financially troubled city should be elected in the May 5 special election to fill the remainder of ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s term. Cockrel, who is Detroit’s interim mayor, condemned Bing’s move and criticized his opponent’s refusal to name the members of the crisis team. On Sunday, protesters were calling the crisis management team a “takeover team.”

“The only people I know of — and I’ll be very clear — the only people I know of that were there to my knowledge were [unpaid] volunteers,” Edmondson told Michigan Messenger on Monday. “We didn’t pay anyone to show up,” he said, adding that the allegations are “misleading.”

According to Edmondson, the protest was not directly connected to any Cockrel campaign effort and was rather an action undertaken by members of organized labor supporting Cockrel.

“This was not our event. It wasn’t even my idea,” Edmonson said. “These were people in organized labor. I supported it. I helped them get the word out.”