EL Police Oversight Commissioners Bristle at New Speech Limits, Seek Transparency Around Pepper-Spray Incident

Months after the East Lansing City Council adopted ordinance changes that limit the powers of the East Lansing Independent Police Oversight Commission, commissioners are growing more and more frustrated about the new constraints put on their speech and the information that can be shared with the public. 

In October, the City Council voted to approve ordinance changes that some council members said are necessary to comply with a new collective bargaining agreement the city reached with a police union, though oversight commissioners have contested that the changes go beyond what is required in the bargaining agreement. 

Since the amendments were adopted, some changes have been apparent at meetings. For example, commissioners are no longer allowed to use ELPD employees’ names at meetings or in reports. At certain points during Wednesday’s meeting, commissioners would slip up and mistakenly say Police Chief Jen Brown’s name, instead of just saying her title of police chief. They would then be reminded of the rules by other commissioners or stop themselves. 

“Brown’s name is not in it,” Chair Ernest Conerly said when referencing a motion to file a complaint against the police chief. “Damn – I mean – the person that works for the [city] manager, who runs the department. [Her] name is not in here. [This is] utterly ridiculous.” 

Commissioner Amanda Morgan said she thinks the new rules violate her first amendment rights. 

“The most conservative Supreme Court justice would strike this down,” Conerly said. 

Even though the changes were put in place in October and have been broadly discussed since the spring, members of the oversight commission are still unsure about some of the requirements under the revised ordinance. 

For example, during a discussion about the commission’s 2024 annual report, commissioners agreed they needed to redact officers’ names, but were unsure if officers’ titles need to be redacted as well. There is language in the agreement that says the commission cannot identify ELPD employees in reports, and commissioners disagreed about if a title is enough information to identify some ELPD employees. 

When the City Council passed the ordinance amendments on Oct. 21, it passed a version that had been amended days prior to the council meeting that had not been reviewed by the commission, leading a commissioner to tell an ELi reporter she had “no idea” what council had just passed shortly after the vote. 

Many questions commissioners still have about the ordinance changes – like if the commission has the ability to hire an investigator and if officer titles must be kept out of commission reports – remain unanswered. 

“Most of the questions we have are how do we use the ordinance. Not how did we get to this point? Not discussing what whatshername did or the city manager,” Vice Chair Kath Edsall said. “How do we work with this document and what limitations does it put on us?”

Commissioner Chris Root said at yesterday’s meeting a city attorney told a group of commissioners that city attorneys would answer questions provided by commissioners, but if they have follow-up questions about those answers, they would need to be addressed in a closed-session meeting. 

Commissioners had concerns about talking about the amendments in a closed-door meeting, saying the public should understand the new rules and that discussing the amendments in closed-session could violate the Open Meetings Act. 

“It is clear that what the city attorney is allowed to discuss with a body that normally meets in open-session during the closed-session involves strictly legal advice,” Root said. “A number of questions we might have wouldn’t actually be about strictly legal advice.”  

Commissioner Michael McDaniel, who is an attorney, said City Attorney Carlito Young had unexpectedly called him that afternoon to tell him he was surprised the commission did not want to meet in closed-session. 

McDaniel said Young was concerned that the conversation would drift into questions about an incident where an ELPD officer deployed pepper spray on young men downtown in August.

In that incident, an officer deployed pepper spray on two men downtown before arresting them. Brown defended the officer’s actions and helped write a press release that named the men arrested. However, the attorney for the men later released security footage that contradicted the police narrative and charges against both men were dropped. The incident and press release are now the subject of a lawsuit filed in a federal court. 

This is not the first rift the commission has had with the city’s attorneys. Last month, the commission opted to skirt a recommendation from Young when filing complaints against officers involved in the pepper spray incident. 

Young said filing the complaints could be against the city’s interests due to ongoing litigation, but members of the volunteer commission said their duty is to oversee the police department.

Commission asks that city investigation look into police chief’s actions, be made public. 

The commission was initially slated to vote on a motion to file a complaint about Brown’s actions following the pepper spray incident. However, after a discussion the commission amended the motion to ask that an independent review of the police department that the City Council ordered in October look specifically into Brown’s actions following the pepper-spray incident. 

The commission’s ability to have an investigation carried out is limited by the new ordinance and when the oversight commission files a complaint, it is investigated by ELPD. 

“I’m not comfortable with the police department investigating themselves,” Commissioner Kathy Swedlow said. “I think that anything that would come from that [investigation] in some eyes would be necessarily tainted because you’re investigating your boss.”

As a way to get more information, Swedlow suggested the commission amend the complaint motion to instead request that the review into ELPD already ordered by City Council investigate Brown’s actions after the pepper spray incident. The motion also requests that the investigation be made public after it is completed. 

The commission has raised concerns about Brown’s actions during and after the pepper-spray incident because she did not intervene to ensure the men pepper sprayed received medical care when they asked for it. Additionally, Brown played a central role in writing the misleading press release about the incident. The amended motion passed unanimously. 

While commissioners are hoping the investigation shines more light on the controversial August incident that city officials have mostly stayed quiet about, some are already raising doubts about the prospect of the investigation being made public and the attorney, Michelle Crockett, council hired to conduct the review. 

“There’s no transparency in this investigation as far as we can tell,” Commissioner Simon Perazza said. “When we heard we had a civil rights lawyer who was chosen, we looked up the civil rights lawyer and saw they actually specialize in protecting corporations and municipalities from harassment and discrimination cases. I’m concerned about the lack of transparency and the choice.”

Commissioners are troubled by police force data.

For the first three years of the oversight commission’s existence, monthly reports would be attached to meeting agendas that give short narratives and demographic data around incidents where ELPD officers use force. Under the new bargaining agreement, those reports must be kept confidential by commissioners – though ELi did obtain a redacted version of the October report through a Freedom of Information Act request. 

Edsall said she is troubled by demographic data in recent reports, namely the racial and age breakdown of who ELPD is using force against. 

Edsall highlighted data in reports that cover August through October, over those three months ELPD used force in interactions with 108 individuals, of which 78 were Black and 17 were white. 

Additionally, the average age of individuals in the September report was 21.5, Edsall said. When you take out three middle-aged outliers, she added, the average age drops down to 19.5. 

“What we’re seeing here is what we’re seeing around the country,” Commissioner Sharon Hobbs said. “We’re getting an increase because that increase is being stimulated. That gives the powers that be the opportunity to say… ‘Look at what happened with all those people who came in there.’” 

Hobbs continued to say this could preempt the city and ELPD to “send in the troops” as a way to “Make East Lansing Great Again,” referencing President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan. 

“I am worried about that,” Morgan said. “I do worry that East Lansing is going to be a focal point for an increase in bias and prejudice and militarization of law enforcement.”

Correction 12/5 6:00 p.m.: This story initially stated the commission filed a complaint about Police Chief Jen Brown. The commission amended its motion to ask the city’s investigation be made public and look into Brown’s actions. The commission did not file a complaint against Brown.