A College Student Intervened in a Skirmish. East Lansing Police Labeled Him a Criminal.

Update: Attorney Jack Rucker sent ELi an email at 2:56 p.m. on Oct. 17 notifying us that he has just received motions to dismiss charges against Lonnie Smith and Mason Woods. “The interest of justice” is listed as the reason for dismissal.

Nadia Sellers found her son curled up in his bed in agony the morning after going out to celebrate a friend’s birthday.

Lonnie Smith, 21, had stepped in to stop an altercation between a friend and some other young men outside an East Lansing restaurant. He was then pepper sprayed by police and later criminally charged for fighting.

The altercation, captured on a security camera, was mild relative to large fights downtown that business owners say have become common. Smith’s friend, Mason Woods, and other young men in line outside the restaurant are seen pushing and shouting before officers rush in and quickly deploy pepper spray within inches of Smith and Woods’ faces. 

More than a month after the Aug. 24 incident, East Lansing police issued a press release that painted a different picture. The release named Smith and Woods, and included shaky and often obstructed body camera footage, but not the security footage that provides a clear view of the incident. 

Smith’s attorney released the security camera footage seemingly affirming his client’s story more than a week after the press release. In the days following, there has been broad public outcry claiming ELPD and the city are waging racist legal warfare against the two Black men and using Smith as a pawn to justify police brutality. City officials have asked that the police department be subject to reviews and the city’s police oversight commission has called for the removal of ELPD Chief Jen Brown. 

At the time of publication, city prosecutors are still pursuing misdemeanor charges against Smith. City and police officials declined multiple interview requests.

“Not this time. Not my kid.” Family advocacy sparked questions about police actions. 

It was hours before her son was given relief for his pepper spray injuries. Nadia told ELi in an Oct. 9 interview that she took him to an urgent care and two different emergency rooms before he was finally treated. ELPD gave Smith Sudecon wipes but they weren’t enough to stop the burning pain, Nadia said. 

Nadia started going to city meetings to speak out about what happened shortly after. At the same time, meetings were regularly being attended by downtown business owners raising grave concerns about the state of safety in downtown East Lansing, sharing anecdotes about their employees being scared to walk to their cars after shifts, describing large fights outside their businesses and saying that weapons have become abundant downtown. 

Nadia acknowledged the safety concerns, but insisted not all the arrests that night were warranted.

“Some arrests were made that may have been justified, but what about the ones that weren’t?” Nadia asked at the Sept. 9 council meeting. “Who’s going to get those young people justice?” 

While Nadia spoke at city meetings, she did not disclose that her son was one of the men arrested. She introduced herself as the CEO of the Honey Bear Project, an Okemos nonprofit organization. She explained to ELi she didn’t say her son was arrested because she’s well known in the community and wanted to protect her child’s reputation while he attends Central Michigan University. 

As Nadia protested at city meetings, Smith’s sister Sade Sellers, who spoke with ELi on Monday, was advocating for her brother on her popular TikTok account. A video she made about her brother’s arrest gathered more than 270,000 views, and a follow up video drew more than 40,000. Sade said she received threatening messages after posting the videos, and Nadia said she received death threats after speaking out. 

Like Nadia, Sade did not use her brother’s name in her videos, hoping to protect him. 

More than a month after the incident at Dave’s Hot Chicken, that discretion stopped protecting Smith. East Lansing police put out a press release about violence downtown that includes two names: Mason Woods and Lonnie Smith. The release gives an overview of the more than 50 calls ELPD responded to during the Saturday night and Sunday morning of welcome weekend, arrests made and a narrative about Woods and Smith’s arrest. 

Several local news agencies ran stories based on the press release. Nadia worries the negative media will hurt her son’s chances of getting a good job after he graduates from college. 

Smith was in the news last year for a drastically different reason. Local outlets ran stories about Smith the young entrepreneur running a sneaker store on East Lansing’s busiest street, Grand River Avenue, with his twin brother. 

“Lonnie provided free tennis shoes to kids in the community for five years,” Nadia told ELi. “Lonnie… partnered with MSU’s cancer program to do some fundraising for them and some events for them. Lonnie supported every single initiative the City of East Lansing put out.”

For 10 days ELPD’s press release laid out the events for the public record, but then Smith’s attorney Jack Rucker challenged the account. Rucker released footage from a Dave’s Hot Chicken that seemingly affirmed Smith’s story that he had been acting as a peacekeeper. 

The video shows Woods in line at Dave’s Hot Chicken. There isn’t audio in the video, but early in the clip Woods can be seen hugging someone and laughing with others in line. 

About 90 seconds into the clip, Woods and other men in line appear to be engaging in a verbal altercation that Rucker said began when the other men said they were with Woods so they could jump the line and get into the restaurant faster. Rucker clarified to ELi that Smith also knew the men Woods was arguing with from high school. 

A bouncer is seen in the footage grabbing Woods and pulling him into the restaurant, but Woods pushes back out towards the men in line. At this point, Smith walks from the curb towards his friend. He grabs Woods from behind, directing him away from the other men. Woods stumbles forward and Smith moves in between him and the other men, and puts his hands on Woods’ chest creating separation between Woods and the men he is arguing with. 

Two ELPD officers enter the view of the camera. The first begins breaking up the small crowd. A second officer, Andrew Lyon, arrives and deploys pepper spray shortly after arriving in view of the camera. Smith’s entire involvement in the altercation lasted fewer than 20 seconds. 

Smith is shown in the footage doubling over and covering his face with his hands before he is quickly handcuffed.

“I got maced for no reason,” Smith can be heard saying on the body camera footage police released. “I was breaking the fight up.”

There weren’t any punches thrown during the altercation and the only injuries were inflicted by police. Still, Smith was arrested. 

“I’ve got nothing on me, sir, I promise you,” Smith says as an officer searches him before he is loaded into a squad car. “I didn’t do anything.” 

Smith was charged with disturbing the public peace by engaging in a fight or brawl in a public space and a misdemeanor for disorderly fighting.

New footage shows police narrative was misleading. 

Many aspects of the press release drew sharp condemnation from the community. Speakers at city meetings have said ELPD has misled the public about the severity of the incident and the opportunity the young men had to follow police commands. 

The release says that Smith was held until he was sober, a section of the release that Nadia believes to be intentionally misleading because Smith wasn’t drunk when he was arrested. 

“[The footage] clearly shows your officers committing a crime against my son, deliberately trying to blind him,” Nadia said at the Oct. 7 City Council meeting. “Then you tell the press my son was a drunk when he blew sober. You called my son a criminal, when he has not even had his day in court. He’d never been arrested, he’s never been suspended from school, he’s never had a fight in his life.”

The overhead video shows everything Smith was accused of, Rucker told ELi. He added that ELPD would have had access to this footage shortly after the incident.

“They had this footage the whole time,” Rucker said. “They still decided to go through with charging him, despite the fact that they had this video.”

East Lansing Human Rights Commissioner Josh Hewitt told ELi that City Manager Robert Belleman told a group of HRC members that Chief Brown wrote the press release herself. 

The body cam footage published by ELPD and security footage released by Rucker are so different that a criminal justice professor WLNS interviewed when dissecting the body camera footage flipped his assessment of the officer’s actions in a second interview with WLNS that showed the overhead footage. MSU Criminal Justice Professor David Carter said the use of pepper spray was justified when reacting to the body camera footage, but changed his mind after seeing the overhead footage. 

“Sometimes you use chemical agents to break something up, like if you have a violent demonstration or protest, if you’ve got two people who are just fighting like crazy,” Carter told ELi. “I didn’t see that in this instance.”

It isn’t clear why ELPD chose to release the two young men’s names, but Smith’s sister Sade worries that it was retaliation for her and Nadia’s advocacy. 

“I think it’s because of my video,” Sade said. “My mom thinks I’m reading too much into it. I think it’s retaliation, whether it’s against me or my mom because we’re very outspoken women. Day one we were on it.”

At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Police Oversight Commission Vice Chair Kath Edsall said ELPD issued the press release to deflect attention from excessive force used by ELPD officers during welcome weekend. She said Smith’s charges must be dropped. 

“Those of you on council who are white may spend your whole life not understanding the trauma that is inflicted by being wrongfully stopped, having force used upon you, being arrested, being accused of a crime you did not commit, going through the process of arraignment, pleadings, jury selection, trial and a verdict, but Black and brown people often do know,” Edsall said.

This is not the first time East Lansing police have come under fire for including names in a pre-trial press release. 

In late 2020, ELPD put out a press release stating it had stopped a sexual assault and included the apparent perpetrator’s name and mug shot. Weeks later, investigators gained access to a video on the man’s phone that exonerated him. The county prosecutor dropped the charges, but the reputational harm had been done. 

At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, former East Lansing Mayor Aaron Stephens implored the city to take action to rectify the situation.

“I understand the position you guys are in, I’ve been in that position myself,” Stephens said. “I know the natural instinct is to be defensive, but the correct instinct in this situation is to be understanding. Understanding that there is a kid that is currently being used as a pawn to justify what could have been something that ELPD called a mistake, took accountability for and moved on from.”

In another world, the video showing Smith’s actions that night may have never been made public, Rucker told ELi. He called Ingham County public defenders “some of the finest attorneys in our bar,” but said the heavy caseload they deal with means they likely won’t have the opportunity to review evidence until later in the process. At that point, a prosecutor might try to cut a last minute deal.

“And the news reports remain ‘Lonnie takes a deal’ and this all gets brushed under the rug,” Rucker said. 

The legal action against Smith and Woods is ongoing. The city’s police oversight commission passed a resolution last night asking the City Council to direct the city prosecutor’s office to drop charges against the two men.

“While the city is playing checkers, we will be playing chess,” Nadia said. “This will go on as long as they want it to go. And the more they continue with their rhetoric that is slanderous, discriminatory and downright racist, they’re just going to invite more scrutiny and more people to come in.”

Just months into Police Chief Jen Brown’s tenure, calls for her resignation or dismissal are growing louder.

On Thursday, the city’s Police Oversight Commission passed a resolution calling for Brown’s removal. 

Brown took over as ELPD’s interim chief late last year as the department’s third chief of the year. Kim Johnson resigned after he was placed on leave following an allegation of sexual harassment, and Chad Pride stepped down from his post as interim chief. Earlier this year, Brown had the interim tag removed when she was chosen to serve as police chief over three other finalists for the position. 

Right away, members of the city’s police oversight commission and others criticized the decision to make Brown chief and the noise has only gotten louder. In a recent news interview, Brown made a comment that has been characterized as racist by the Lansing NAACP branch president, city commissioners and the city manager. 

“We have a very transient population, and over the last month, starting with Welcome Weekend, we have had a disproportionate number of minorities come into the community and commit crimes, and as police officers we are simply responding to those crimes,” Brown told WLNS.

Tuesday’s City Council meeting featured more than 90 minutes of speakers during public comment, most condemning the actions of Brown and the officer who pepper sprayed Smith. There was also a group of downtown business owners who defended the police chief. 

After an emotional public comment period, Mayor Pro Tem Kerry Ebersole Singh announced she requested that the city attorney provide advice about an independent review of the incident at Dave’s Hot Chicken and the press release. 

At last week’s City Council meeting, Mayor George Brookover requested that the city manager look to outside resources to help improve policing in East Lansing, though he declined to clarify why he made the request. 

“In view of recent events, I call on our city manager and city attorney to undertake immediately a complete review of our police and personnel policies and report back to council with recommendations as to how the city can best utilize outside resources, such as the MSU School of Criminal Justice, to ensure our continuing progress towards effective and just law enforcement,” Brookover said.

Even after calling Brown’s comment racist, Belleman said he supports the chief, partially because he thinks further turnover atop the department would negatively impact ELPD. Staffing has plagued more than just the top of the ELPD ranks.

Facing serious financial challenges, East Lansing has reduced the size of its police force significantly since 2000–the city had 63 sworn officers at the start of 2001 and just 44 at the start of 2024. Even with reduced staffing capacity, ELPD has struggled to fill the positions it is budgeted for. 

After a different incident this year where an ELPD officer tased a man accused of trespassing in McDonald’s, Brown admitted that officers mishandled the incident and that a lack of experienced officers is causing problems within ELPD, according to a report drafted after Brown watched footage of the arrest with members of the city’s police oversight commission. 

“Brown said the seniority profile of ELPD officers at the present time does not allow more recent hires to be routinely paired with more experienced officers once the four-to-five-month period of working with a field training officer is over,” the report drafted April 15 reads. 

As East Lansing grapples with questions about policing, the city’s police oversight commission sits in limbo. 

Earlier this year, the city reached a new collective bargaining agreement with a union that represents ELPD patrol officers. Under the new agreement, city labor attorneys have said several changes declawing the oversight commission are necessary, like removing officers’ names from public reports and limiting what commissioners can speak about publicly. 

Commissioners have said many of the changes put in place this spring are not actually required by the bargaining agreement, but City Council is set to soon vote whether or not to enshrine the changes in the ordinance that governs the oversight commission. 

“Officers have an incredibly difficult job, but they have power over your constituents in a way that requires additional oversight,” Stephens, who helped usher in the commission as mayor, said at Tuesday’s meeting. 

Councilmember Dana Watson, the only Black City Council member, has worries that extend beyond the city’s police department.

After community members raised concerns about violence downtown and police brutality following MSU’s welcome weekend, Belleman reached out to the other four members of City Council to discuss use of force incidents. Watson, who is often the only voice on council publicly questioning police actions, said she was the only council member not contacted.

“I’m supposed to be on the inside but it’s like I’m not,” she told ELi. 

“I was left out of an update, I was left out of my opportunity to process and respond to the community,” Watson continued. 

When Watson vacates her seat on council after November’s election, she will conclude her five-year tenure as the longest serving Black council member in East Lansing’s history. 

“As far as leadership goes, it’s a hard time,” Watson said, questioning why we haven’t heard more from the city’s recently hired prosecutor. “It’s always like, ‘What is really going on?’”

Smith’s family hopes the saga doesn’t hurt his future. 

Nadia still hasn’t seen the videos from welcome weekend. It would hurt too much. 

Her son doesn’t talk about what happened to him, Nadia said. She doesn’t think she’ll know how he’s handling the traumatic incident, media attention and ongoing criminal case until after she sees his grades at the end of the semester. Smith is a senior studying fashion at  Central Michigan University. 

“Lonnie is a senior in college, he’ll be coming out trying to get a good job, what do you think his chances are going to be knowing this stuff is out there?” she asked. 

Smith won’t be speaking about what happened to him, Nadia said. She wants him to focus on young adulthood and the people around him will advocate on his behalf. 

“We don’t talk about it to him,” Sade said. “Me and my mom talk about it together a lot though.”

Sade said the narrative ELPD pushed about her younger brother is far from what she knows to be true. Fifteen years Smith’s senior, she said she thinks of the young Lonnie who came home from school incensed because he had to step in to stop other kids from bullying a disabled classmate and the present day Lonnie who still comes home most weekends to visit his mother. 

“He’s a loyal kid, he loves his friends and he loves his family,” Sade said. “He just wants to be a fashion designer and do well… He’s the best kid in the world.”

When he’s ready, Nadia said it will be her job to make sure her son has access to therapy to help him move past the incident. 

“I’m 60 years old and I can recite every single racial incident that happened to me since I was a child like it happened yesterday,” Nadia said. “It don’t go away.”