正文
亞特蘭大前高官餓死陳屍街頭
這周一具陳屍街頭的遊民屍體，成為了美國亞特蘭大的熱門新聞。因為死者桑布瑞二十年前是當時市長楊格身邊的紅人，意氣風發以致得意忘形，假公濟私，觸法而鋃鐺入獄，自此他的人生便一蹶不振，最後淪為街頭餓殍。
據“中央社”報道，富樂頓郡驗屍官將在鐵道旁發現的桑布瑞屍體，編號為“07-0989”，八日他斷氣時身染嚴重的酒精中毒與糖尿病，身體爬滿了螞蟻，壽命為六十三歲。
據鐵道官員指出，衣衫襤褸的桑布瑞頭靠在背包上，躺在鐵道旁，看起來像在小睡。他的背包內隻有幾分錢、假牙黏膠、胰島素與糖漿、捷運車票以及六旗樂園的臨時工作證。
桑布瑞遠在佛羅裏達州的妹妹伊芙林說，從他出獄後，家中九個兄弟姐妹至少已超過十五年沒有他的任何下落與消息。
過去曾與桑布瑞同為遊民的人指出，桑布瑞除了在喝酒時會嘮嘮叨叨之外，平日隻是沉默、尊貴又冷漠地坐在角落，他曾透露自己有過很棒的工作，與前亞特蘭大市長、美國首位非裔駐聯合國大使楊格以及現任市長富蘭克林熟識，但因發生了一些事，讓他流落街頭。
沒有人相信桑布瑞說的是真話。但是，這隻是他輝煌年輕歲月中的一小段曆史而已。
桑布瑞在六十年代末期從佛羅裏達農工大學拿到經濟學學位後，開始追求財富與機會，他揚言自己在四十歲以前一定要成為百萬富翁，而他也真的做到了。
幹勁十足又精力旺盛的桑布瑞，先到紐約工作，接著到巴爾的摩，進而為聯邦國民抵押協會工作，最後來到了亞特蘭大。一九八五年他獲得市長楊格的青睞，被任命專責分配住屋給低收入者的職務。
桑布瑞賣命地工作，超越住屋署的年度目標，一年之內完成分配窮人一千五百個以上的居住單位，因而受到長官們的高度讚賞。
但是在此同時，他也開始了步上觸犯法網的不歸路。他開始向沉默的弱勢人群，如老人、病患、身心障礙者，出租自己的房子，並且在這些人繳不出房租時，毫不遲疑地將他們掃地出門。
終於有名被趕出去的癲癇患者的家人忍不住向有關單位抱怨。桑布瑞狐假虎威、假公濟私的醜行，便被一一揭露。一九八八年，當時四十四歲的他，以偽造文書等罪行被判處五年的徒刑。
桑布瑞雖然在獄中信誓旦旦地向親人表示，他必將東山再起。但是根據警方的記錄，桑布瑞在一九九零年十二月出獄後，因違反假釋法，先後又於九二、九六年入獄。
在他人生最後流浪街頭的幾年，又因於公共場所撒尿、酒醉鬧事、搭公交車逃票等罪名，遭警方逮捕。多年未曾與他謀麵的妻子，也在二零零四年向法院訴請離婚。對於他陳屍街頭，他的前妻不願發表任何意見。
Ex-Atlanta official, broken by prison, dies homeless
By BILL TORPY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/24/07
The homeless man\'s head rested on his backpack, his yellow preion glasses still on his face.
To the railroad detective, who spotted the rag-tag man loitering in the tree-shaded lot by the tracks the day before, it looked like he was taking a nap.
(
Robert Sumbry apparently never recovered after prison.
LOUIE FAVORITE/Staff
(ENLARGE)
Robert Sumbry\'s body was found along these tracks. In the mid-1980s, he ran the city\'s agency that provided housing for the poor. But his career ended when he was sentenced to five years in prison for fraud. Sumbry\'s downfall began when, as a landlord in his private life, he victimized tenants — including the sick and the elderly.
Brant Sanderlin/Staff
(ENLARGE)
Safehouse counselor David Baird says Sumbry preferred sleeping outside, where he\'d end up \'in the park or under a bridge.\'
But the man wasn\'t sleeping. He was dead, covered in ants. Investigators found pennies and denture adhesive in the pockets, insulin and syringes in his backpack and a MARTA card and a Six Flags Over Georgia contract employee ID in his wallet.
Fulton County Medical Examiner\'s case 07-0989 appeared to be open and shut: Life expectancy is not good for 63-year-old alcoholic diabetics on the street.
But the life and death of the former Atlanta city official, who worked for Mayor Andrew Young in the 1980s and was known by two other future mayors, was anything but simple.
Robert F. Sumbry apparently never recovered from a hard, notorious fall that sent him to federal prison and forever altered his life.
Sumbry\'s nine siblings had not heard from him in at least 15 years, a sister in Florida said. He just faded away after being released from prison.
When family members learned of his death on June 8, they were surprised he was still in Atlanta.
The phone call ... telling us of his death was finally a sad closure, said Evelyn Henderson of Tampa. How sad that families must go through this. You could never guess what lives these street people previously lived.
Those who knew Sumbry on the streets usually saw a reserved man with a quiet, sad dignity who existed in the margins, trying to slip by unnoticed. That is, unless he was blithering drunk.
He really didn\'t have any friends out on the street, said David Baird, a former homeless man who is a guidance counselor at Safehouse Outreach in downtown Atlanta. He said he used to have a great job but things happened and he ended up on the street. He kept to himself. He didn\'t want to cause any trouble.
Juanita Ford, another of Sumbry\'s sisters, said he got an economics degree from Florida A&M University in the late 1960s. The proud young man was set to seize the opportunity. He moved to New York, then Baltimore — where he married — working with the Federal National Mortgage Association before coming to Atlanta.
He was a go-getter; he had a lot of energy, she said. He always wanted to be a millionaire by the time he was 40.
In 1985, Mayor Young appointed the dedicated man in a crisp business suit to run the city\'s agency that provided housing for the poor. In 1987, Young reappointed him, saying, Mr. Sumbry has done an outstanding job during his brief tenure with the city.
Another boss said he surpassed the agency\'s yearly goal, making more than 1,500 units habitable for poor families.
But Sumbry had another side. He bought his own houses to rent out to poor people and threatened to evict them if they didn\'t pay more than Section 8 stipulated. Mary Bennett, an epileptic who could not read, was one such tenant. Her family complained to Atlanta Legal Aid. Dennis Goldstein, a lawyer who took the case, figured Sumbry was doing the same thing to other tenants.
Sumbry\'s victims were working mothers, the elderly, the sick. Most were too scared to talk to legal aid lawyers.
I remember him as arrogant, said Goldstein. He struck me as a guy who tried to hide his lies through bluster. But then we ground him down.
The legal aid case led to a federal investigation. An ambitious U.S. Attorney named Bob Barr, who later became a congressman, took up the case. An equally ambitious city councilman named Bill Campbell publicly tore into Sumbry and the Young administration.
Young\'s chief administrative officer, Shirley Franklin, initially defended Sumbry, saying removing him from office would slow the momentum in housing improvements he had made.
The sympathetic victims made the case dramatic and put it on the top of the evening news. One victim had her heat cut off and huddled with her children by the fireplace. When [she] refused to pay any more, he gave her 10 days to get out of her house and threw her furniture after her, Thomas D. Bever, the prosecutor assigned to the case, told the judge as Sumbry was being sentenced after pleading guilty to three fraud counts.
Sumbry, then 44, got five years.
Juanita Ford last talked to her older brother during his prison stint. He said he\'d go back to landlording. He said he\'d get in touch when he got out, she said. But he never did.
The family tried a computer search of their brother, to no avail. We felt he was alive but embarrassed, Ford said. We were hoping he was rebuilding his life.
Instead, his life was coming apart.
At least five times after he left prison, he or his wife filed for bankruptcy. One judge called the filings an abuse of the system. He returned to prison twice after his December 1990 release — in \'92 and \'96 on parole violations. In 1996, he tried unsuccessfully to appeal his conviction.
His brothers and sisters never heard what Sumbry did, or tried to do, to make it in the world after his release. Another sister heard that her brother drove a cab for a small Atlanta taxi company in 1992 but he didn\'t stay there long. His former wife declined to say much, other than she hadn\'t seen him in years. She filed for divorce against her absentee spouse in 2004.
Police reports show he had bottomed out by then. He was arrested for public urination, intoxication and fare evasion at MARTA.
He had been out on the streets for at least four years before his death, street people and homeless advocates say.
Delores Young knew one of Sumbry\'s tenants who complained in the 1980s. Bonnie Owens, a nearly blind woman, was threatened with eviction for coming forward, she said.
I feel bad, said Owens\' friend, Delores Young, about how Sumbry had died. But when you do people wrong in life, bad things happen to you.
Tim Sewell, a homeless man standing by the forbidding brick shelter at Peachtree and Pine streets last week on a hot, sunny afternoon, immediately identified Sumbry from a 20-year-old photo.
That\'s Bob, he said.
He was a supervisor for the city, or something. He said he knew Andy Young personally. And Shirley Franklin. Nobody believed him.
He talked about the opportunities he had and was proud of that. He wanted his life back. It was eating at him every day.
He sometimes drank cheap liquor, causing him to forget his insulin and go into diabetic shock, Sewell said.
The two men hung out at downtown parks or made the rounds to a half-dozen or so missions and shelters around downtown, hearing religious services to get a free meal.
Sometimes, Sumbry went to the library downtown to peruse the Internet. He liked to keep up with politics, keeping an eye on Franklin\'s rise to mayor and Campbell\'s fall from mayor to convicted tax cheat and federal prisoner.
Reminiscing was a temporary respite from a grim reality. Street life is a test even for a young man. Sumbry sometimes slept at shelters like the one Peachtree and Pine, which can accommodate 500 men. But he preferred not to.
He\'d end up outside in the park or under a bridge, said Baird. If it\'s nice weather, most guys like to stay outside because when you get a bunch of guys in a building all together, it\'s not a healthy atmosphere. You\'re dealing with so many situations. People are drunk, bipolar. The hotter it gets, the worse it gets.
But outside, you get extremely wore out because you\'re always in the elements, said Baird.
You want to rest, to become invisible. But it\'s hard to do.
And likely, that\'s what Sumbry was trying to do when he laid down in the shady, secluded lot that offered a panoramic view of Atlanta, the city he came to years ago to make his mark.
這周一具陳屍街頭的遊民屍體，成為了美國亞特蘭大的熱門新聞。因為死者桑布瑞二十年前是當時市長楊格身邊的紅人，意氣風發以致得意忘形，假公濟私，觸法而鋃鐺入獄，自此他的人生便一蹶不振，最後淪為街頭餓殍。
據“中央社”報道，富樂頓郡驗屍官將在鐵道旁發現的桑布瑞屍體，編號為“07-0989”，八日他斷氣時身染嚴重的酒精中毒與糖尿病，身體爬滿了螞蟻，壽命為六十三歲。
據鐵道官員指出，衣衫襤褸的桑布瑞頭靠在背包上，躺在鐵道旁，看起來像在小睡。他的背包內隻有幾分錢、假牙黏膠、胰島素與糖漿、捷運車票以及六旗樂園的臨時工作證。
桑布瑞遠在佛羅裏達州的妹妹伊芙林說，從他出獄後，家中九個兄弟姐妹至少已超過十五年沒有他的任何下落與消息。
過去曾與桑布瑞同為遊民的人指出，桑布瑞除了在喝酒時會嘮嘮叨叨之外，平日隻是沉默、尊貴又冷漠地坐在角落，他曾透露自己有過很棒的工作，與前亞特蘭大市長、美國首位非裔駐聯合國大使楊格以及現任市長富蘭克林熟識，但因發生了一些事，讓他流落街頭。
沒有人相信桑布瑞說的是真話。但是，這隻是他輝煌年輕歲月中的一小段曆史而已。
桑布瑞在六十年代末期從佛羅裏達農工大學拿到經濟學學位後，開始追求財富與機會，他揚言自己在四十歲以前一定要成為百萬富翁，而他也真的做到了。
幹勁十足又精力旺盛的桑布瑞，先到紐約工作，接著到巴爾的摩，進而為聯邦國民抵押協會工作，最後來到了亞特蘭大。一九八五年他獲得市長楊格的青睞，被任命專責分配住屋給低收入者的職務。
桑布瑞賣命地工作，超越住屋署的年度目標，一年之內完成分配窮人一千五百個以上的居住單位，因而受到長官們的高度讚賞。
但是在此同時，他也開始了步上觸犯法網的不歸路。他開始向沉默的弱勢人群，如老人、病患、身心障礙者，出租自己的房子，並且在這些人繳不出房租時，毫不遲疑地將他們掃地出門。
終於有名被趕出去的癲癇患者的家人忍不住向有關單位抱怨。桑布瑞狐假虎威、假公濟私的醜行，便被一一揭露。一九八八年，當時四十四歲的他，以偽造文書等罪行被判處五年的徒刑。
桑布瑞雖然在獄中信誓旦旦地向親人表示，他必將東山再起。但是根據警方的記錄，桑布瑞在一九九零年十二月出獄後，因違反假釋法，先後又於九二、九六年入獄。
在他人生最後流浪街頭的幾年，又因於公共場所撒尿、酒醉鬧事、搭公交車逃票等罪名，遭警方逮捕。多年未曾與他謀麵的妻子，也在二零零四年向法院訴請離婚。對於他陳屍街頭，他的前妻不願發表任何意見。
Ex-Atlanta official, broken by prison, dies homeless
By BILL TORPY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/24/07
The homeless man\'s head rested on his backpack, his yellow preion glasses still on his face.
To the railroad detective, who spotted the rag-tag man loitering in the tree-shaded lot by the tracks the day before, it looked like he was taking a nap.
(
Robert Sumbry apparently never recovered after prison.
LOUIE FAVORITE/Staff
(ENLARGE)
Robert Sumbry\'s body was found along these tracks. In the mid-1980s, he ran the city\'s agency that provided housing for the poor. But his career ended when he was sentenced to five years in prison for fraud. Sumbry\'s downfall began when, as a landlord in his private life, he victimized tenants — including the sick and the elderly.
Brant Sanderlin/Staff
(ENLARGE)
Safehouse counselor David Baird says Sumbry preferred sleeping outside, where he\'d end up \'in the park or under a bridge.\'
But the man wasn\'t sleeping. He was dead, covered in ants. Investigators found pennies and denture adhesive in the pockets, insulin and syringes in his backpack and a MARTA card and a Six Flags Over Georgia contract employee ID in his wallet.
Fulton County Medical Examiner\'s case 07-0989 appeared to be open and shut: Life expectancy is not good for 63-year-old alcoholic diabetics on the street.
But the life and death of the former Atlanta city official, who worked for Mayor Andrew Young in the 1980s and was known by two other future mayors, was anything but simple.
Robert F. Sumbry apparently never recovered from a hard, notorious fall that sent him to federal prison and forever altered his life.
Sumbry\'s nine siblings had not heard from him in at least 15 years, a sister in Florida said. He just faded away after being released from prison.
When family members learned of his death on June 8, they were surprised he was still in Atlanta.
The phone call ... telling us of his death was finally a sad closure, said Evelyn Henderson of Tampa. How sad that families must go through this. You could never guess what lives these street people previously lived.
Those who knew Sumbry on the streets usually saw a reserved man with a quiet, sad dignity who existed in the margins, trying to slip by unnoticed. That is, unless he was blithering drunk.
He really didn\'t have any friends out on the street, said David Baird, a former homeless man who is a guidance counselor at Safehouse Outreach in downtown Atlanta. He said he used to have a great job but things happened and he ended up on the street. He kept to himself. He didn\'t want to cause any trouble.
Juanita Ford, another of Sumbry\'s sisters, said he got an economics degree from Florida A&M University in the late 1960s. The proud young man was set to seize the opportunity. He moved to New York, then Baltimore — where he married — working with the Federal National Mortgage Association before coming to Atlanta.
He was a go-getter; he had a lot of energy, she said. He always wanted to be a millionaire by the time he was 40.
In 1985, Mayor Young appointed the dedicated man in a crisp business suit to run the city\'s agency that provided housing for the poor. In 1987, Young reappointed him, saying, Mr. Sumbry has done an outstanding job during his brief tenure with the city.
Another boss said he surpassed the agency\'s yearly goal, making more than 1,500 units habitable for poor families.
But Sumbry had another side. He bought his own houses to rent out to poor people and threatened to evict them if they didn\'t pay more than Section 8 stipulated. Mary Bennett, an epileptic who could not read, was one such tenant. Her family complained to Atlanta Legal Aid. Dennis Goldstein, a lawyer who took the case, figured Sumbry was doing the same thing to other tenants.
Sumbry\'s victims were working mothers, the elderly, the sick. Most were too scared to talk to legal aid lawyers.
I remember him as arrogant, said Goldstein. He struck me as a guy who tried to hide his lies through bluster. But then we ground him down.
The legal aid case led to a federal investigation. An ambitious U.S. Attorney named Bob Barr, who later became a congressman, took up the case. An equally ambitious city councilman named Bill Campbell publicly tore into Sumbry and the Young administration.
Young\'s chief administrative officer, Shirley Franklin, initially defended Sumbry, saying removing him from office would slow the momentum in housing improvements he had made.
The sympathetic victims made the case dramatic and put it on the top of the evening news. One victim had her heat cut off and huddled with her children by the fireplace. When [she] refused to pay any more, he gave her 10 days to get out of her house and threw her furniture after her, Thomas D. Bever, the prosecutor assigned to the case, told the judge as Sumbry was being sentenced after pleading guilty to three fraud counts.
Sumbry, then 44, got five years.
Juanita Ford last talked to her older brother during his prison stint. He said he\'d go back to landlording. He said he\'d get in touch when he got out, she said. But he never did.
The family tried a computer search of their brother, to no avail. We felt he was alive but embarrassed, Ford said. We were hoping he was rebuilding his life.
Instead, his life was coming apart.
At least five times after he left prison, he or his wife filed for bankruptcy. One judge called the filings an abuse of the system. He returned to prison twice after his December 1990 release — in \'92 and \'96 on parole violations. In 1996, he tried unsuccessfully to appeal his conviction.
His brothers and sisters never heard what Sumbry did, or tried to do, to make it in the world after his release. Another sister heard that her brother drove a cab for a small Atlanta taxi company in 1992 but he didn\'t stay there long. His former wife declined to say much, other than she hadn\'t seen him in years. She filed for divorce against her absentee spouse in 2004.
Police reports show he had bottomed out by then. He was arrested for public urination, intoxication and fare evasion at MARTA.
He had been out on the streets for at least four years before his death, street people and homeless advocates say.
Delores Young knew one of Sumbry\'s tenants who complained in the 1980s. Bonnie Owens, a nearly blind woman, was threatened with eviction for coming forward, she said.
I feel bad, said Owens\' friend, Delores Young, about how Sumbry had died. But when you do people wrong in life, bad things happen to you.
Tim Sewell, a homeless man standing by the forbidding brick shelter at Peachtree and Pine streets last week on a hot, sunny afternoon, immediately identified Sumbry from a 20-year-old photo.
That\'s Bob, he said.
He was a supervisor for the city, or something. He said he knew Andy Young personally. And Shirley Franklin. Nobody believed him.
He talked about the opportunities he had and was proud of that. He wanted his life back. It was eating at him every day.
He sometimes drank cheap liquor, causing him to forget his insulin and go into diabetic shock, Sewell said.
The two men hung out at downtown parks or made the rounds to a half-dozen or so missions and shelters around downtown, hearing religious services to get a free meal.
Sometimes, Sumbry went to the library downtown to peruse the Internet. He liked to keep up with politics, keeping an eye on Franklin\'s rise to mayor and Campbell\'s fall from mayor to convicted tax cheat and federal prisoner.
Reminiscing was a temporary respite from a grim reality. Street life is a test even for a young man. Sumbry sometimes slept at shelters like the one Peachtree and Pine, which can accommodate 500 men. But he preferred not to.
He\'d end up outside in the park or under a bridge, said Baird. If it\'s nice weather, most guys like to stay outside because when you get a bunch of guys in a building all together, it\'s not a healthy atmosphere. You\'re dealing with so many situations. People are drunk, bipolar. The hotter it gets, the worse it gets.
But outside, you get extremely wore out because you\'re always in the elements, said Baird.
You want to rest, to become invisible. But it\'s hard to do.
And likely, that\'s what Sumbry was trying to do when he laid down in the shady, secluded lot that offered a panoramic view of Atlanta, the city he came to years ago to make his mark.
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