http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/435483739

Detroit 9000

"At Detroit's Sheraton Cadillac Hotel, notable, rich members of black society assemble for the Hail Our Heroes Ball. Among the organizers is Reverend Markham, who welcomes Congressmen Aubrey Hale Clayton, a pompous narcissist. When Markham addresses the crowd, he exhorts Clayton to run for governor, and Clayton, pretending to be surprised, acquiesces to the cheering crowd and offers his candidacy. A contribution basket is brought out and as the audience drop in cash and jewelry, they hear a tape recording announcing a robbery. Men wearing disguises to conceal their racial identity appear with guns and force the guests to remove the rest of their valuables. After the robbers depart, the tape loops around and the victims realize that none of the robbers were speaking. Later, Clayton declares that police incompetence and possible corruption are responsible for the crime, and the racial implications are fodder for the media, which debate theories of a black-on-black crime or a 'honky caper to keep black power from taking over state government.' White police captain Morgan Chalmers is appointed case coordinator and makes Lt. Danny Bassett the lead detective, even though he and Danny have clashed over Danny's more old-fashioned approach to police work. Danny, who suffers from chronic sinusitis and is emotionally burdened by his mentally and physically ill wife, protests that he will be the real victim, as no matter who he arrests, he will be accused of racism or favoritism. Later, a trunk containing a partially dismembered body is investigated by ambitious black police sergeant Jesse Williams and his partner, Sam Orr, while Danny interviews an informer who swears that the theft was committed by out-of-town professionals. That night, on the local radio show Buzz the Fuzz, Chalmers, Danny and the panelists take citizen's calls. In frank language, Danny proclaims that he does not care what color the perpetrators are, and that he considers a criminal a criminal, regardless of ethnicity or circumstance. The next day, Danny meets with Jesse and Sam at the morgue, where the coroner informs them that one of the man's legs, which bore a shotgun wound, was professionally amputated, while the other was hacked off with a dull knife. Pondering the discrepancy, they ask if the man was black or white, and learn that he was an American Indian. Soon after, Danny visits his wife Maddy in the state sanitarium, where she is tortured by her virulent racism. Maddy urges Danny to use his position to make more money, but Danny's conscience prohibits him from becoming yet another corrupt cop. Meanwhile, Chalmers, worried about Danny's gruff talk, decides to add Jesse to the team. Danny protests, claiming that the former football hero turned cop will be glorified while he is forgotten. Despite their mutual distrust, Danny and Jesse begin following leads. Their first tip takes them to a brothel run by madam Ethel, who tells them that she had two out-of-town clients who struck her as suspicious the night before the robbery. Observing their conversation is prostitute Roby Harris, Jesse's college sweetheart. Ashamed to have Jesse see that she has become a whore, Roby hides, although as soon as the detectives leave, she calls her pimp, Ferdy Sloan, to apprise him of the situation. The policemen then visit Doc Harris Cooley, a legitimate doctor who has a lucrative sideline of caring for the city's prostitutes. Cooley informs Danny and Jessie that one of Ethel's girls called him to attend to an injured man at a rundown apartment building the night of the robbery, and there he found a man suffering from a shotgun wound in the leg. Cooley was forced to amputate the leg, although he warned the man's companions that he would not survive. Having heard about the body in the trunk, Cooley realizes that it is the same man. Danny and Jesse then stake out the apartment building, but their efforts are ruined when a passing patrol car spooks the man they are looking for, and as he is fleeing, the patrolmen shoot him. Soon after, the mismatched partners, who are gaining a grudging respect for each other, learn from Canadian officials that the mutilated man was named Indian Tom, and that he was a fence operating between Detroit and Canada. At Indian Tom's hideout, they find a ticket for a cruise ship, which Danny states would be a perfect escape route, as police do not monitor cruises. Discouraged by the lack of progress, Danny retreats to Ethel's. In the morning, Ethel upbraids him for not being selfish enough and admonishes him to work harder to better himself. Ethel then reveals that Roby called Doc Cooley about the injured man, and Danny questions Roby at the police station. Rattled, Roby denies any wrongdoing and afterward calls Ferdy for help. He encourages her to make a deal with Jesse, revealing the names of the robbers in exchange for immunity, but Roby refuses to contact Jesse. Determined to find the loot, Roby searches Ferdy's apartment, but while she is there, two of the robbers beat her for information about where to find Ferdy. As Roby is running away, one of the men shoots her in the back. The men are scared off by the arrival of Danny and Jesse, who recognizes his ex-sweetheart. While Danny calls an ambulance, Roby tells Jesse of her involvement with the robbery: Sometime ago, Ethel receives a call from a VIP to send a black prostitute to a swank hotel. Roby goes there and is surprised to find Clayton, who brusquely orders her to strip in the bedroom. Unnerved by his dismissive treatment, Roby eavesdrops as Clayton tells Markham and his other cronies about the ball, which he is craftily transforming into a fundraiser for his campaign. Clayton then has dispassionate, impersonal sex with Roby, and when she relates the incident to Ferdy, she emphasizes her shame at being treated like an animal, although all Ferdy cares about is the fundraiser. As Roby finishes telling Jesse her story, Danny overhears, and, suddenly getting an idea, runs off while Roby mutters to Jesse about their younger days at Holly Hill, then dies. Wondering if Roby was trying to tell him where Ferdy is hiding, Jesse takes Sam to the derelict Holly Hill of Grace church, which is surrounded by abandoned buildings, including an old railroad station. Suspecting that the gang is hiding in the station, Jesse calls for backup, and after the mounting police presence alarms the criminals, a prolonged shootout and chase erupts. After the intense battle, four hoodlums, two white and two black, are dead, and Ferdy is captured. Ferdy confesses to Jesse that he helped to organize the robbery, and reveals that Indian Joe accidentally shot himself with an old shotgun lying in the bottom of his boat while attempting to ferry the loot to his Canadian fence. Ferdy acquired the goods and was hiding, but after killing Roby, the two white gang members found Ferdy and took him to their hideout. Ferdy then takes Jesse to Roby's apartment, where he had hidden the loot, but it has been removed. Jesse then realizes that Danny already deduced the hiding place and retrieved the goods. Just then, Danny, carrying Ferdy's suitcase, boards the cruise ship for which Indian Tom had a ticket. He is intercepted by a crew member and escorted to a nearby office, where master fence Oscar Buford waits. Danny is cagey, pretending to be one of the robbers and stating that Indian Tom told him only the ship's name. Just as Danny believes that he is about to close the deal, Buford reveals that Indian Tom told him he would be contacted by a black man, and the cruise officer shoots Danny. Jesse, who figured out Danny's destination, arrives in time to shoot the officer, arrest Buford and call for help. In the ambulance, Jesse asks Danny whether he was trying to arrest the fence or abscond with the proceeds and begin a new life. Before he can respond fully, however, Danny dies, and Jesse is left wondering if his partner was the best policeman he ever met or the worst. ... Within the film, fictional characters Lt. Danny Bassett and Capt. Morgan Chalmers appear on the radio show Buzz the Fuzz, a real-life radio show hosted by longtime deejay Martha Jean Steinberg (1930-2000). Steinberg, a civil rights activist concerned about relations between the black community and police department after the 1967 Detroit riots, hosted the call-in program in the early 1970s. Police Commissioner John Nichols, who was a frequent guest on Steinberg's show, appears as himself in the film"--AFI catalog, as viewed on May 12, 2009.

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