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A weekly show from the folks at East Lansing Info breaking down all the news and happenings in East Lansing, Michigan.
WDBM East Lansing. This is East Lansing Insider, brought to you by Ellie on Impact eighty nine FM. In this show, we break down all of the news and happenings in East Lansing community. And now today's East Lansing Insider. Hi everyone. I'm ELi's deputy editor, Anna Liz Nichols, and today we're going to be talking about recent public safety incidents in downtown East Lansing, including a string of arrests during Michigan State University's Welcome Week, as well as impending changes to the city's independent police oversight commission that commissioners say will gut the group's ability to call for accountability from East Lansing police. I'm joined by our city government reporter, Ayah Imran, who has been covering the controversy between the city and the police Oversight Commission. Thank you for joining me, Ayah. I'm happy to be here. Anna. So, Aya, what is the police oversight commission? So the official name is East Lansing Independent Police Oversight Commission, or Lepak. And per the city's website, it says the purpose of the commission is to increase accountability of the East Lansing Police Department and strengthen conditions leading to trust in the police department by the community that it is pledged to serve. The Commission will enable members of the community to participate in reviewing and making recommendations about police department policies, practices and procedures, and it will provide means for prompt, impartial and fair review of complaints brought by individuals against police officers or the police department. So you and I covered the most recent City Council meeting where there were numerous members of the city community present, including business owners, um members of different committees and commissions around the city, and Michigan State University students, several of which spoke during public comment railing against the proposed changes the city is looking at for the Lapack ordinance. Why is this change so controversial. So the proposed changes to ordinance fifteen fifty three. Commissioners say, hurts accountability and transparency within the police department. And some of these changes would include commissioners not being able to publicly speak about complaints. Commissioners won't receive a investigation like a complaint investigation until after it is done and a discipline, if any, is necessary, has been issued. But if that complaint ends up in arbitration or anything of the sort or grievance, um, that all has to be done before Lippok receives the documents. The changes will prevent officers names from being included in complaints, so commissioners won't know who the officers are. And the city labor attorney Gauri Sushital proposed a number system, so giving each officer a number. So l'époque is still able to kind of track repeated behaviors. And if there's policy violations, say, if a person addressed l'époque with a complaint, they are allowed to listen. However, they can't. They l'époque would have to direct them to the police department and follow their process of filing a complaint. And L'époque won't know when complaints are filed. The police department doesn't isn't required to notify them, and we'll get into it later that there has been historic back and forth between city officials and LAPD on what the role and power of l'époque should be, because it does not have authority over the police department. It's simply as it stands right now. Its role is to provide insight, to provide community input on the concerns of the community when it comes to use of force and other elements of public safety. So what commissioners are saying is the simple act of being able to provide community input, informed input in policing in the city is being stripped. This also impacts their ability to propose new policies if some of them may be outdated, if some of them need to be, you know, include new things. A big part of Ellie Park reviewing complaints is identifying what policies, if any, have been violated. And with that, they also take a look at the policy as a whole and if that needs to be changed or updated. The changes made to the ordinance would impact their ability to propose changes, which is a big deal considering much of the discussion throughout the city that spurred on the creation of this commission comes from an incident in February of twenty twenty, just months before The murder by police of George Floyd in Minneapolis. East Lansing had a controversial incident where residents questioned use of force on a young black man. That led to years of discussion about why certain types of use of force are necessary and what accountability there is for police actions after an incident has occurred. Many of the public comments at City Council and at Edgeley Park have been, you know, everybody has no matter their job has oversight. Doesn't matter if you're the CEO of a company, you have oversight. So why don't the police? And recent events in downtown East Lansing have led to a renewed discussion in public safety and how policing ought to operate. During Welcome Week in August, there were a string of arrests, a string of incidents in the downtown area that coincided with students returning to the downtown area on the night of August twenty third alone. According to East Lansing police. They responded to fifty two calls for service, leading to the arrest of ten individuals, most of which were not MSU students, according to East Lansing police, who have released body cam footage of an incident that night involving a twenty one year old Lansing man who pulled out a nine inch knife in front of Ll's Taco in downtown East Lansing. The officers responded swiftly and tased the individual, and he was adjudicated on September eleventh and will be sentenced on a later date. The incident drew controversy from the community. It was discussed at the most recent city Council meeting, as well as other actions taken by police that night. 7-Eleven owner Ali Haider addressed the city council twice within the month of September about increasing violence in the downtown area and urged them to reintroduce a loitering Ordinance in the interest of preventing violent incidences. He shared that his female employees can't even take out the trash at night without being harassed. Earlier this month, he released security cam footage. He shared that a group of individuals came into the store and one of them was stealing merchandise when the employee confronted them. They got into a disagreement. Um, and then he said, about five minutes after that, another group of individuals came in and pepper sprayed that employee, which led to her going to the hospital. And at the last city council meeting he had, he said he has lost seven employees within two days and expects to lose more. And following that, he stated that he doesn't let his own kids go downtown because it's not safe. He doesn't recommend it for MSU students, or recommends that anybody even works downtown because it is unsafe. Hader wasn't alone in his concerns over public safety in the downtown. Public safety has been a huge topic in multiple public meetings in East Lansing in recent days, as well as the recent candidate forum held at Hana Community Center, where candidates for City council each shared their own concerns for public safety in the downtown area and what they'd like to see from East Lansing police in the future to try to solve the problem amongst those community members who voiced their concerns over public safety in East Lansing, as well as insistence that Ali Park retain its oversight abilities, was Karen Horney of the Human Rights Commission, who implored the council to consider the weight of this decision they're making to alter the powers of Ali Park, as well as consider the state of trust in policing. The proposed changes to Division twelve, section two of the City Ordinance are a clear attempt to strip the Independent Police Oversight Commission of its powers, with the goal of making it an impotent body. The proposed changes are diametrically opposed to the purpose and mission for which Lee Park was created. Lee Park was formed with the intent to address the historical and documented overpolicing and use of force against communities of colour and other protected classes. The process undertaken was comprehensive and included the formation of a study group, as well as extensive research and data collection about the components of a successful police oversight commission. It had the full support of both the Human Rights Commission and the City Council. In a democratic society, the powerful must be subject to scrutiny by the people, and there is no greater power than that of life and death, which the police hold over others. By removing Lee pack's ability to investigate, removing the ability to hire independent investigators, reducing transparency in the public's access to information, doing away with mediation, limiting what commissioners can say publicly, not requiring the LP to notify of complaints, and by having agreements with the police union, supersede the rules laid out in the city ordinance. The proposed changes pose a very real threat to the just treatment of East Lansing residents and guests. If passed, the proposed changes will not only weaken, but will undermine public trust and confidence in East Lansing civic institutions, especially the police department. People will not be sure whether they will be treated fairly, as there will be no easily accessible, impartial authority with any real power to investigate abuses of power at this critical time in our nation's history, where there is a widespread crisis of faith in the ability of authorities to act in the best interest of the common good. The City of East Lansing should be looking to build trust in those who are tasked with keeping people safe, not destroy it. The city should be seeking ways to invest in restorative justice, not weaken it. These proposals will not make the city safer, and in fact, may discourage people from seeking out help because they do not trust the system. We therefore call on the East Lansing City Council to wholly reject the proposed changes to to Division twelve, section two of the city ordinance. Further, the Human Rights Commission of East Lansing supports the recommendations put forth by the Oversight Commission on this matter. And I've got a couple a little bit of time left. I'm just going to add a few comments. I we want to save downtown. I've lived in this city my whole life. I raised children here, I have grandchildren. Um, and I feel like there's this kind of false dichotomy going on where we feel that if an independent police oversight commission has some power and authority to to investigate complaints and to make sure to make sure that the police department is held accountable, that that means that we can't have a safe community and a strong police force. And that's just not true. Nothing in what wants to be able to do limits the power of the police to keep our city safe. It's just holding them accountable. We're all accountable in our jobs. Everybody's accountable, especially if you have a job in public safety. And so I just want to challenge this false narrative that it's either one or the other, that if we have a police oversight commission, that means we can't have strong, safe communities and a strong police force. I don't I do not believe that that is accurate. I think it's a false dichotomy, and I challenge that narrative and the decision that you all make here, whenever you decide to vote on this, is going to have lasting impact long after you're gone on the safety of our community and on trust in the police department, on people wanting to come to our city and feeling safe to come to our city. So I just urge you to really consider all the input and make the right decision. Thank you. So City Council had two major measures on their plate at their most recent meeting, one being the decision to postpone future voting on the adoption of the altered ordinance. They moved second vote to their October twenty first meeting, where they possibly will have final vote on the measure. Another item they voted on was whether to release the cross-reference document that Alipac has been requesting, a document they say could shed a light on whether some of the changes to the ordinance are necessary under the new police contract. And this cross-reference document has been central to the conflict between the city and Alipac. But, Ayah, what is the cross-reference document? The cross-reference document essentially outlines the necessary changes being proposed to the ordinance based off of the language in the contract. So this conflict dates back to twenty twenty two, when the police union went into negotiations with the city regarding, um, the union contracts. The union representing the police department believed that Alipac was a bargaining obligation, and the city disagreed. The two couldn't come to a decision and ultimately filed an unfair labor practice dispute with the Michigan Employment Relations Commission. Administrative law judge David Peltz ruled that several aspects of the of process are a bargaining obligation under the Public Employment Relations Act, which allowed the police union to negotiate some of the terms. The new contract conflicts with Ely Parks Ordinance, which is why the changes are being made to make sure it's in compliance. Commissioners feel that some of the changes made go way beyond what the contract says. And a few of those changes, as we mentioned earlier, are the change in timeline for the complaint review process, limiting what the commissioners can say publicly. The new contract will redact officers names in the use of force reports and person in crisis reports, which L'époque uses to establish repeated behaviors. Identify policies that have been broken. You know where the police department could use extra support. All members of City Council voted to release the document to Alipac. Short of Councilman Eric Altman, who said it was his understanding that Labor Council had advised that it's not in the best interest of public safety to release the document at this time. And the Commission essentially just wants the document to understand where the city labor attorney is coming from and why the exact why specific changes are being made. In recent years, nationally, the country has been having serious and insistent discussions on accountability for policing. We're only five years out from the murder of George Floyd, and East Lansing was not immune from that discussion back in twenty twenty. Nor is it immune from demanding that some of the outcry from that year means something, that it causes change in policing amongst the Michigan State University students who spoke at City council was Marceline Jones, who compiled her thoughts in the form of a poem asking for the city council to operate like they care about residents and to prioritize policies that keep residents safe and keep police accountable. I am here to speak on behalf of myself as a community member and MSU student. I would like to implore the Council to vote no against the amendment against the Police Oversight Commission Ordinance fifteen fifty three. This ordinance poses a threat to our communities. It doesn't help us, and it's an attempt to silence our voices and to sweep investigations under the rug regarding the police brutality and overpolicing within our communities. I wrote a plea. I wrote a piece to fill my time. Call a city with a blanket. It's cold out here. I walk outside every day with my head held down. Not because I'm ashamed, but because I'm afraid to look at the world around me. A place filled with so much pain. A place where I'm so impressed by space. It's cold out here. People in our community have been burdened with heavy weights. People are suffering daily and live in fear of their lives by word of mouth and sight. People are being terrorized by sight and mind. Emotions are heightened. It's cold out here. We see videos on the internet of people being unlawfully detained, people being discriminated against and blamed. It happens across the world, but you can also see it if you just look outside your window, you can find it if you ask around. It's cold out here. We work hard to be heard and to have representation going outside to protest, to provide aid, to educate others, and to attend meetings occasionally and frequently. We're doing all the work for ourselves because literally no one else will. Systemic racism never went away, affecting where we live, travel, work, our health care, food, entertainment, school, shelter and relationships essentially our every single move. It's cold out here. Police brutality never went away. Just in case you weren't aware. The knee, the taser, the gun, the abuse of power. All of it is still here. It's cold out here. I didn't know that. My skin could be so threatening to the world around me that I'm restricted in what I can do if I want to stay alive. If I don't want to be in prison, I have to be careful. There are far too many eggshells outside. The housing crisis never went away. People are starving, wondering when their next meal will come from. People are being kidnapped and taken away from their families. The violence never went away. And who are we holding accountable with this? There are genocides taking place, and we're expected to look the other way, and we're expected to silence our voices and lower our gaze. There are red lines still here when black, brown and indigenous bodies are targeted and racially profiled, when we're abused, when we're scared and when we're cold. Some of us have been hopeless, unsure of what to do or where to go. It's cold out here. The police system is just one of the many corrupt systems that have continuously failed us. It's cold out here, and implementing this ordinance confirms that they don't care about our lives. Not even the stupid stuff that we have to deal with on a day to day basis. What happens when students and community members of color are continuously targeted and faced with excessive force? We are not the danger. Are we limiting the very commission put in place to support the people? Who's behind to excuse my French? Are we protecting? I'll let you answer that for yourself. There's so much work that needs to be done, and we're doing it all by ourselves. And why do we have such a disregard to the lives of our community members? It's cold out here. Pray for liberation and peace. Peace to our communities to hold security, safety and love. Envisioning a place with better accessibility to daily necessities. It starts with actions. It starts with building community connections. And it most certainly starts with transparency. It's cold out here and face a climate change, and with how cold our state becomes. People are stuck. People are outside with blankets. People are stuck searching for resources to support themselves. People are scared, wanting protection and love. Why hide the truth of our reality? Why hide from the people? Why silence us? The police will not hide. It was never about equality. It was never about protection. And it was never about our best interests. And we recognize that you won't give a blanket to keep us warm. So clearly, residents feel like there's a lot at stake with these changes to Alipac. This is a complicated topic. We've covered it for years now. Yeah, the history and logistics of the changes Alipac has experienced can definitely be hard to follow. Um, East Lansing Info has been covering this subject for a long time now, and we will continue to cover all the twists and turns as this issue unfolds. For East Lansing Insider, I've been East Lansing Info Deputy editor Anna Liz Nichols, and I'm city government reporter I am Ryan. Thanks for listening. East Lansing Insider is brought to you by Ellie on Impact eighty nine FM. We are on the web at East Lansing info, news and impact eighty nine. Org. Thanks for listening.