Darwin Jiles, who has two criminal convictions on his record related to shootings, has been elected as the vice chair for the ethnic/minority bloc of the Michigan Republican Party.
The GOP convention delegates chose Jiles over the incumbent, Linda Lee Tarver.
You can read more about Jiles in the post below.
Friday, February 20, 2015
The Grand Old (Prison) Party: GOP vice chairman candidate was convicted of violent gun crime as a teen
Darwin Jiles, Jr., has emerged as a controversial character within the Michigan Republican Party since he declared his candidacy for one of the vice chairman positions up for grabs at this weekend’s state convention.
The internal debate was sparked by revelations that Jiles, 29, is on probation after pleading guilty last year to a misdemeanor charge for shooting an acquaintance in his Auburn Hills trailer park. But that black mark on his record is nearly trivial compared to the violent gun crime he committed when he was a 15-year-old living in Flint, according to court records.
Facing that barrage of felonies, the records indicate that Jiles arranged a plea bargain and pleaded no contest to a lesser charge of assault with intent to do great bodily harm, plus the felony firearms charge.
As he looks forward to a career in politics, Jiles went on a charm offensive after he was charged in the 2014 Auburn Hills shooting, insisting that the incident was an accident, not a crime. But apparently everyone wooed by his PR campaign forgot to ask Jiles if he had ever been convicted previously of criminal activity.
Details of the first crime are not readily available but, according to the court, Jiles was sentenced in November 2001 as a juvenile, not an adult, and was ordered to serve time in the medium-security section of the Maxey Training School – a juvenile detention center for boys in Whitmore Lake.
The court summary does not specify what type of treatment he received, though he was still at Shawono in May 2002 when the sentencing judge ordered him to complete the program.
Shawono is a state-run, 40-bed treatment facility for male juveniles between the ages of 12 and 21 years who have committed felonies. The center offers four specialized treatment programs: for sex offenders, addictions/substance abuse, general criminals, and delinquents.
Known in Flint as a community activist, Jiles has said that he moved to Auburn Hills to get away from the crime-plagued streets of his hometown.
It's good that this information is out there, but it would be wrong to malign Mr. Jiles unfairly if he is truly putting his past behind him.
He has chosen the Michigan Republican Party as his path to civic redemption, which is not unheard of, as there is a niche in the GOP where a small number of black conservatives can thrive as contrarians, ready and willing to bash the rest of the African-American community (following a path taken by JC Watts, Herman Cain, Dr. Ben Carson, former Rep. Allen West and current U.S. Rep. Mia Love).