Residents Demand Police Accountability During Tense East Lansing City Council Meeting

An East Lansing police officer punching a 20-year-old Black woman while she was face down and restrained has sparked outrage, but community members told the City Council Tuesday that the incident reflects a deeper failure to address persistent concerns about police brutality. 

A video circulating on social media shows the incident that occurred in the early hours of Aug. 2 where officers restrained and arrested Myana Collins outside of Harper’s Restaurant and Brew Pub in downtown East Lansing. Collins is heard screaming throughout the video as multiple police officers restrain her while she is pleading for help, declaring “they’re being racist.”

The city and the East Lansing Police Department have not said why officers interacted with Collins or why she was detained. The person who recorded the video, Taylor Drozdowski of Macomb County, told East Lansing Info, she had seen Collins earlier in the night sitting outside the bar, immobile and drunk, with her head between her knees, making labored efforts to breathe.

Police encountered a young Black woman who needed help and instead of protecting her, they battered her, leaving Collins and everyone in her life traumatized, her mother Shannon told council members during public comment Tuesday.

“We all seen my daughter … restrained by multiple officers and then told to ‘shut up’ while she was screaming, terrified for her life and then punched repeatedly by an officer who is supposed to protect and serve while lying helpless on the ground, face down, hands restrained,” Shannon said.

Shannon and many other speakers Tuesday called for the city to release all police body camera footage and to give an account of how officers justified using that level of force.

Collins’ screams in the video were a pain point for many community members who spoke during public comment. For Nazita Lajevardi, a political science professor at Michigan State University, she said she watched the video fearing that Collins would experience sexual violence.

“If I were in that position and a man was holding my legs down and was climbing on top of me, with my butt exposed and my bottom parts exposed, I would fear that he would try to enter me. And I am so afraid of even saying that out loud. My body is shaking right now. That’s how I felt, watching that video and I cannot imagine how badly she felt,” Lajevardi said.

If what happened to Collins was an isolated incident, then the public might call it the failure of one bad actor in the police department, Lajevardi said, but the city has experienced a deluge of incidents in the last year that have broken trust in ELPD’s ability to protect communities of color.

Considering the injuries Collins experienced at the hands of officers while her arms were tied behind her back, Lajevardi said the public needs to understand just how serious the implications for public safety are from this incident.

According to a news release from the NAACP of Lansing the day after Collins’ arrest, the 20-year-old was taken to the hospital after her interaction with police to assess injuries to her face, arms, legs and back. 

What happened to Collins, though appalling is not at all surprising, NAACP Lansing Branch President James McCurtis Jr. told City Council members Tuesday. By not adequately addressing incidents like the police shooting of Isaiah Kirby, a 21-year-old Black man, and stripping the powers of the city’s Police Oversight Commission, East Lansing is sending a clear message that people of color will not be protected by city leadership, McCurtis Jr. said.

“You are not simply managers of zoning or whatever propositions were actually on the agenda tonight,” McCurtis Jr. told City Council members amidst about two hours of public comment. “You are supposed to be leaders of the community and leaders do not allow, essentially, children to be beat by police directly in front of them.”

The day after the video of police arresting Collins was posted to social media, the city issued a press release stating that the video “does not capture the entire incident.” The release offers no further information about the events of that night other than stating ELPD is investigating the incident and one officer was placed on paid administrative leave as a part of that investigation.

“Once again, we have been told not to believe what we have seen with our own eyes,” Police Oversight Commission Vice Chair Kath Edsall said during public comment Tuesday. “Once again, we’ve been told we do not have all the facts. So once again, we know it is way worse than what we have seen.”

Edsall and several others who spoke during public comment Tuesday have condemned the city for what they say are repeated incidents of police brutality where the city then gives a narrative that contradicts what the public sees in footage.

It’s been nearly a year since an incident during Michigan State University’s welcome week where police pepper sprayed and arrested two young Black men, with the city issuing a press release listing several criminal charges for the pair related to fighting.

The release named the two men while outlining a rise in violence in the downtown. However, soon after the city published obstructed body camera footage of the pepper spray incident, security footage from a local business was released showing that one of the men charged with fighting was separating a group of men arguing.

There are deep-rooted institutional problems of racism within the police department, Edsall said, and they are fortified by city leaders’ inaction to address repeated instances of police violence against people of color.

Following the public comment portion of the meeting, East Lansing Mayor Pro Tem Chuck Grigsby told members of the public that he feels frustrated about how he as an elected leader must respond to this incident, even as he has personal concerns about the actions of officers. He said given his position on the City Council, he feels the need to communicate his thoughts in a responsible manner as to not circumvent the authority of those on the judicial side, who will determine what criminal offenses occurred.

“I know what I saw in the video and I know what concerns me in the way the situation was handled. There may be other facts that matter to the prosecutor or to a formal investigation, but I do not believe I need to have every fact to speak about conduct that is visible to me right now,” Grigsby said.

The pivotal question, according to Grigsby, is what threat did Collins pose to the officers or to the public while face down and restrained that warranted officers’ actions. He added that once Collins was restrained, there should have been a shift from officers making decisions based off of any potential threat she posed prior to being restrained to what threat to the public’s safety remained.

“The video raises a serious concern for me about whether the response changed as the level of threat changed,” Grigsby said. “Because I struggle to see where the reassessment occurred with what is shown.”

East Lansing City Councilmember Mark Meadows called for the release of every video of the incident in the city’s possession as soon as possible. He recognized residents’ distrust in city processes when it comes to evaluating police use-of-force and added that the entire community should have the opportunity to see what happened that night and evaluate the city’s response

While outrage against ELPD has unfolded in the last week, East Lansing Info reported that recent correspondence between city staff and the city’s police oversight commission revealed ELPD’s intention of removing wording about preserving sanctity of human life within its use of force policy.

In response, Meadows said though the City Council has not taken an active role in evaluating or contributing to the creation of police department policies, it should start as residents communicate directly with the council and not police leadership during council meetings.

“We have a responsibility to respond to them,” Meadows said. “The idea of sanctity of life as being part of a policy, to me, should be part of every single policy that we establish.“

Councilmember Kerry Ebersole Singh said she has been meeting with community members, ELPD Chief Jennifer Brown and city attorneys to update police training and policies, saying she hopes the council can begin work on police policies at a meeting next month. 

Councilmember Steve Whelan said he believes everyone deserves due process and that available footage of Collins’ arrest should be released, adding he does not believe it is appropriate to comment on the incident while an investigation is still underway. 

Mayor Erik Altmann and Interim City Manager Annette Irwin did not address the incident in their comments. 

One member of the public asked the council if the city is going to protect ‘property and not people,’ a comment Meadows responded to in his comments.

“Our objective is to protect people and our police department’s objective has to be to protect people and where we fail on that … we need to take responsibility,” Meadows said.