The Washington Post Calls Comen "The Gatsby Sleuth!"
Bio
Howard Gerald Comen is named after an uncle and cousin killed fighting for freedom in World War II. He has a Political Science Degree from the University of South Carolina.
While at USC, Comen developed a Student Marshall Program for the University to serve as a buffer between students, administrators, and law enforcement during riots. After three women were raped on campus, Comen developed a Student Night Patrol and received a Carnegie Institute grant to publish his ideas on the student's role in handling campus affairs.
Comen holds a South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Private Detective License #30. He conducts investigations worldwide including South Africa, Nigeria, England, France, Canada, and Mexico. He has investigated public officials from small-town mayors to the President of the United States.
He has spent all of his life since his college days trying to bring about interfaith, racial, tribal, ethnic, and gender equality. Comen organized the Charleston Congress of Religions in the early '90s with Charleston Police Chief Greenburg, rabbis, imams, Hindus, Buddhists, Bishops of the Catholic and Episcopal Dioceses of Charleston and a host of other religious leaders. Governor Nikki Haley declared January Interfaith Harmony Month.
Comen served on the Board of Directors of the Open Heart Closed Case initiative to solve cold case murders, missing persons, and child endangerment. He has been published in the NY Times, Washington Post, and many other publications and by both Hasidim's Concord and The Muslim Journal. Comen is a frequent guest on talk radio all over America.
For several years Comen co-hosted a TV show, SHADES OF HUMANITY: ONE RACE, DIFFERENT SHADES on TECNTV with D.C.'s Ken McClenton, the exceptional conservative TV host. Comen is a 1960s-era JFK liberal - somewhat conservative by today's standards. They are in the process of developing a second show, THE AFRICAN DIASPORA with the African Union Ambassador Arikana Chihombori-Quao, and the Bulinda family.
Comen, Sherry Suttles (Gullah-Geechee CEO), Tuffus Zimbabwe, Kenyan Bishop John, and Mary Bulinda of Seattle, along with Missionary Protas and Jane Bulinda of Kenya; former Nairobi Mayors Aketch and Kaharah as well as Dr. David Ahrenkrantz of Pittsburgh are in the beginning stages of the development of a Trinity of Equality in Economic Opportunity, Education, and Justice for Africa in the hope of spreading the concept worldwide.
The heart of this effort we are developing is a new education model for the USA and Africa based on the work of Rev. Daniel Jenkins in 1891. This S.T.E.A.M education model is a career pathway effort to stop the school-to-prison pipeline. The revitalization of Rev. Jenkins's music and the agricultural program is the idea of the Great Grandson of Dr. Jennings, Tuffus Zimbabwe.
Comen is currently involved in an investigation of prison civil rights and health care violations in California prisons. The investigation will expand nationally with an eye to solving these inequities as well as the school-to-prison pipeline. He hopes to identify and correct the education inequities. In South Carolina, for example, a large majority of black students underperform in grades 3-8, thus fueling this school-to-prison pipeline and a black prison population of 60% of all inmates.
Howard has conducted investigations reported on by Geraldo Rivera, Bill O'Reilly, The New York Times, London Sunday Mail, Toronto Globe, the Washington Post, Newsday, Pittsburgh Tribune, Miami Herald, Buffalo News, and other media outlets.
Howard lives in Charleston, SC with his wife, Michelle, daughter, Sarah and son, Casey. He claims to have reversed the "Curse of the Bambino" for the Boston Red Sox in 2001, being a life-long Red Sox fan.
