Beenish Ahmed

Dec 7, 2023 | michiganradio.org | Beenish Ahmed

Lorenzo Harrell held his two-year-old daughter as he tossed a tennis ball for their dog, Pinky, to run back to him in their quiet, suburban backyard. It’s an ordinary experience that he could barely let himself imagine for much of his life. That’s because Harrell was supposed to spend all of his adult life in prison for a crime he committed at the age of 17.

Nov 3, 2023 | michiganradio.org | Beenish Ahmed

Valencia Warren-Gibbs remembers the first time she saw the boys who killed her older brother. Of the group, “he was the smallest,” she said of 15-year old Bobby Hines. He couldn’t have been more than 100 pounds soaking wet, she said. “You could clearly see that he was a child.”Warren-Gibbs was devastated when her brother, James Warren, was murdered. There were five kids in their family, but Valencia says she and James were extremely close.

Oct 30, 2023 | michiganradio.org | Beenish Ahmed

Oxford Community School officials and staff “failed” to keep students safe from a school shooter who took the lives of four students and injured six others as well as a teacher nearly two years ago, according to a 572-page report released Monday night by the independent investigators commissioned by the district.

Oct 25, 2023 | michiganradio.org | Beenish Ahmed

Hundreds of people gathered to call for a ceasefire in Gaza at Ford Woods Park in Dearborn last week, in one of many peaceful demonstrations in support of Palestinian people over the last few weeks. Yet, looking out at the crowd of people wearing checkered keffiyeh and waving Palestinian flags, Amani Badran felt a tinge of anxiety. “I've actually thought about [how] we're all standing here,” she said.

Oct 6, 2023 | interlochenpublicradio.org | Beenish Ahmed

From the new storefronts downtown to the demolished houses in the neighborhood he was raised in, Detroit is almost unrecognizable to Yusef Qualls. He grew up in the city but he was never supposed to see it – or anything else outside the walls of a prison – ever again. Eight days after his release from prison in June, Qualls took in the view from a recently redeveloped park on the riverfront. “The whole city looks completely different,” he said.