The Detroit Free Press shocks with McPhail says mayor's backers sabotaged her chair:
Detroit Councilwoman Sharon McPhail says someone tried to shock her off her rocker Tuesday afternoon, and she pointed the finger at Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's administration.The party of the regular guys (natch) is certainly a fun bunch!
"The guy is a thug. He's a bully," McPhail said of the mayor. "Basically, he's the kind of person that if you don't do what he wants, he's going to go after you."
Kilpatrick was shocked -- that the councilwoman would blame his administration.
"This is a serious accusation," Kilpatrick said. "It's ridiculous. . . . I don't understand how we are in this at all."
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Police were investigating after McPhail reported that the electric massager attached to a leather rocker-recliner desk chair in her office had been rigged to give her a shock. McPhail said she didn't turn on the massager and didn't receive a jolt.
"It's perceived to be a threat right now," Police Lt. James Elliot of the armed robbery unit said.
Elliot said McPhail claims someone cut the wires of the plug-in back massager, which drapes over the chair, and wrapped them tightly around the chair's metal base. Evidence technicians were sent to photograph the chair and massage device in McPhail's 13th-floor office in the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center on Tuesday afternoon.
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McPhail said Kilpatrick has been unhappy with her since she voted against amended development agreements he worked out with two of the three casino developers in August. She said the mayor also is out to get her because he sees her as a potential rival in the next mayoral election.
