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FRIDAY, JULY 1, 2016

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BERRIEN COUNTY TRIAL COURT

Jury declares
Thompson
guilty of murder
Panel ponders stand
your ground arguments
By JULIE SWIDWA
HP Staff Writer

Don Campbell / HP staff

Members of the Benton Harbor Receivership Transition Advisory Board (R-TAB), Bret Witkowski and Kathryn Debien meet Thursday
at Benton Harbor City Hall. The R-TAB sent a recommendation to Gov. Rick Snyder to end its oversight an receivership with the city.

Back in control

R-TAB no longer
has oversight
of BH finances
By TONY WITTKOWSKI
HP Staff Writer

BENTON HARBOR
Benton Harbor officials have control over the
citys finances again after
the Benton Harbor Receivership Transition Advisory Board adjourned
for the last time Thursday.
The
four-member
board, which was in

charge of approving all

items city commissioners
passed before they could
go into effect, agreed to
send its recommendation
to Gov. Rick Snyder to
effectively end the stateappointed
receivership.
There was no confirmation the recommendation was accepted Thursday, but Snyder told The
Herald-Palladium
on
Wednesday he was confident the states Treasury
Department would sign
off on the receivership.
Its been more than two
years since Benton Harbor last had an emergency

manager, and the R-TAB

was among the last layers
of the state governments
control over the city. The
R-TAB was appointed by
Snyder after former Emergency Manager Tony
Saunders II vacated the
position in March 2014.
City Manager Darwin
Watson said he believes
the transition will be easier because the city has
somewhat been operating
on its own, even with the
R-TAB in place.
Most of the stuff
weve done has been supported and approved by
them. Theyve given us

some latitude, Watson

said. Decisions that have
been made have been with
oversight, but the oversight was not adversarial.
Despite the R-TABs
absence, the state treasury will still be required
to sign off on any budget
amendments Benton Harbor makes for the next
year. That the R-TAB
would be phased out became apparent when the
panel began to cut back
on its monthly meetings.
Watson has worked at
the city since 1995, but
See CONTROL, page A8

Benton Harbor state oversight timeline

Dec. 2009: A
state review
team examines
Benton Harbor
finances and
recommends
an emergency
declaration.

2010

April 2010:
Joseph
Harris is
appointed
emergency
manager for
Benton
Harbor.

2011

March
2010: Gov.
Jennifer
Granholm
first
declares a
financial
emergency
for Benton Harbor.

Feb. 2013:
Harris leaves
his Benton
Harbor post;
Tony Saunders II takes
over as
emergency manager.

Nov. 2012:
Michigan voters reject the
law in a referendum vote.

2012

2013

March 2011:
Gov. Rick
Snyder signs a
stricter emergency manager law, sponsored by state
Rep. Al Pscholka. Its known as Public Act 4.

2014

Dec. 2012:
Snyder signs a
revised bill,
known as
Public Act 436,
that restricts
the public from
repealing it.

June 2015:
Benton Harbor climbs
out of its
more than
decade-long
operating
deficit.

2015

March 2014:
Saunders leaves
as emergency
manager and
the R-TAB is
formed to oversee City Commission decisions.

2016

June 30,
2016:
R-TAB votes
to end
oversight
of the city.

ST. JOSEPH A Berrien

County jury deliberated nine
hours Thursday before finding Roy Thompson guilty
of second-degree murder in
the shooting death of David
Krieger last December.
Thompson, 30, of Benton Harbor
faces life or
any
term
of years in
prison when
he is sentenced Aug.
1. The jury
further found THOMPSON
Thompson
guilty of carrying a concealed weapon, being a felon
in possession of a firearm
and felony firearms, and acquitted him on two counts
of assault with intent to
commit murder.
The
assault
charges
stemmed from shots fired
at Stephen Krieger, David Kriegers brother, and
Sam Shade, a co-worker, as
Thompson fled the murder
scene at Michiana Supply,
1502 Milton Street.
According to trial testimony, Stephen Krieger
exchanged gunfire with
Thompson as Thompson turned and appeared
to be pointing his gun back
toward the scene. Thompson fired back twice, with his
rounds hitting the Michiana
Supply building near where
Stephen Krieger and Sam
Shade were standing.
Thompson shot David
Krieger outside the familyowned business the morning of Dec. 11 after Krieger
told him to stop kicking a
dog and not to come on the
Michiana Supply property.
The bullet ripped through
Kriegers heart and he died
at the scene.
Crockett (David Kriegers nickname), my brother,
lived his life to the fullest. He
loved things that couldnt
help themselves, Stephen
Krieger said in an interview
after the verdict was read
Thursday. He stuck up for
those things and well always
remember him for that.
Thompson, who took
the stand as the last witness

for the defense Wednesday,

claimed self-defense. He told
the jury that as he walked the
path he walked every day to
the Benton Square Plaza, he
had nudged a dog with his
footbecause the dog was not
in its own yard. He said the
dog was playful.
Thompson told the jury
that David Krieger had
yelled racial slurs at him.
The things that were said
about him at this trial were
never said by him, Stephen
Krieger said Thursday. He
never used those terms in his
life. He made this community a better place. He was
an asset to this community,
a giver to this community.
Everyone who knew him
was better off because of it.
Krieger said the verdict
will not bring happiness or
satisfaction to his family.
A lot of people are going to suffer over this. There
is no happiness that anyone
can feel about this. Two families have a loved one gone in
two aspects, he said.
In Thompsons testimony
during the trial, he told the
jury of 8 women and 4 men
that he had playfully nudged
the dog, and that when he
was confronted by David
Krieger, he saw a gun and
believed Krieger was reaching for it when he shot him.
But in a videotaped police
interview played by Berrien
Assistant Prosecutor Amy
Byrd, Thompson told Benton Township Police Detective Sgt. Jeffrey Faraone the
day of the murder that he
had kicked the dog because
it had attacked him several
times. He told Faraone that
he thought Krieger had a
gun or a knife or something
but he did not see a gun.

Stand your
ground at issue
During
deliberations
Thursday, the jury seemed
to be struggling with the law
as it relates to duty to retreat
versus stand your ground.
A person who uses deadly
force while committing a
crime cannot use a standyour-ground defense. Lawyers stipulated during the
trial that Thompson is a
convicted felon, making
him automatically guilty of
the charge of being a felon
See THOMPSON, page A8

St. Joe to be Queen City for a day

Prestigious
yacht race coming
this weekend
By JOHN MATUSZAK
HP Staff Writer

ST. JOSEPH The

Queens Cup really gets
around.
Asone of the oldest prizes in world yachting, origi-

nating in 1853, the Queens

Cup has changed hands
from England to New York
to Detroit, and was lost for
a while before it resurfaced
and landed at the South
Shore Yacht Club in Milwaukee, which hosts the
second-largest boating race
on Lake Michigan.
This weekend the 78th
Queens Cup race, involving more than 150 boats,
will finish in St. Joseph for

The Newspaper
for Southwest Michigan

the first time, hosted by

the St. Joseph River Yacht
Club.
Its one of the biggest,
most prestigious races on
Lake Michigan, said Dr.
Stuart Boekeloo, a St. Joseph dentist who will sail
his boat Attitude in the
race, one of numerous
owners participating from
St. Joseph and South Haven.
He will be joined by local

To subscribe or report
delivery problems,
call 429-1396

boats with such names as

Spirit Walker, Imagine, No
Quarter, The Jabberwock
and Dandelion.
Boekeloo praised event
chairman Terry Deegan at
the St. Joseph River Yacht
Club and his committee
members for doing a phenomenal job working
Don Campbell / HP staff
for two years to bring the
Mike Thieneman and his Morris 48 yacht Cheshire Cat will serve
Queens Cup here.

as the Race Committee Boat at the finish line of this years Queens

See QUEEN CITY, page A8 Cup, which makes a stop Saturday in St. Joseph.

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