More Than 1,000 People Demonstrate in Downtown Against Detroit Water Shutoffs

More than 1,000 people took to the streets of downtown Detroit to protest against the city’s ongoing water shutoff initiative, while a number of civil rights organizations formally called for a moratorium on the practice.

The protest was organized amid a time Detroit’s water shutoffs have attracted considerable international attention, as well as from the bankruptcy judge overseeing the city’s Chapter 9 case.

“Water is a basic right,” said Desiree Conyers, 59, a nurse living in Ann Arbor.

Calling the shutoffs “ridiculous,” Conyers, a member of the Michigan Nurses Association, the state’s branch of protest-organizer National Nurses United, said her group would like to see a federal tax implemented on all financial transactions that would flow to states, and then cities for basic services.