Study Committee on Police Oversight Present Report and Recommendations to City Council
Four members of the Study Committee on an Independent Police Oversight Commission presented the team’s final report to the East Lansing City Council on the evening of June 8, recommending the City enact an ordinance that would create an oversight body to monitor complaints about the East Lansing Police Department and investigate issues with police policies and procedures.
Mayor Aaron Stephens said at the outset of the meeting that Council would not comment on the committee’s presentation that evening to give Council members time to reflect before Council’s discussion-only meeting on June 15.
But the committee did receive praise from Council members – including Stephens – who acknowledged their hard work over the last eight months, the clarity and thoroughness of their materials, and the important nature of the task at hand. Stephens said that, if approved, the new ordinance on police oversight would be “arguably one of the most important policies we’ll pass as a Council.”
Council member Ron Bacon pointed out the potential lasting effects of such an ordinance, saying that having a seated Police Oversight Commission made up of citizens could help to “define our goals around policing in perpetuity, into the future and beyond all of our times on Council.”
The nearly 250-page document, which included both the report and the recommendations for the ordinance, was presented by the committee’s Chair Chuck Grigsby, Vice Chair Chris Root, and committee members Cedrick Heraux and Erick Williams.
The report encompasses much of the committee’s research and analysis on ELPD policing trends and activities in addition to a look at other oversight bodies across the U.S. and policing standards nationwide. The document provides pertinent background information that “will provide a valuable foundation for the work of the oversight commission, when it is formed,” as stated in the report.
Speaking to Council, Root explained how the committee obtained information from ELPD on public interactions, including materials on arrests, complaints, and use-of-force incidents. Root emphasized that Black people were overrepresented in this data and that many complaints made to the police by people of color were about racial bias.
“Black people have consistently been overrepresented in interactions with ELPD. This includes 24% of officer initiated stops, 36% of arrests, and approximately 50% of use of force,” said Root. She then explained that the data to which she was referring covered various time periods but was often the most current data available.
“Also, Black people represent 40% of the offenses reported by 54B District court. Black people are only 7% of the population of East Lansing and less than 12% of residents in Ingham County, so this was clearly an issue of concern.”
An academic specialist in this topic, Heraux spoke on national policing behavior and data, an area he said he has spent 25 years researching. He explained to Council how the committee looked to several “relevant” and “useful” examples of oversight in other American cities, like Albany, New York, and Denver, Colorado. Heraux noted the difficulties of policing while arguing that law enforcement has an “insular” tendency that can be “poisonous” and that can prevent the building of community trust.
Heraux stressed the importance of community input in oversight and rebuilding this trust. “It was so important for us to have that community input meeting,” Heraux said, explaining how many members of the public were reiterating similar concerns on transparency and potential abuses of power that the study committee had discussed.
In addition to public feedback, the study committee is asking for professional evaluations of the oversight commission to occur every four years by “a qualified agency, with experience in evaluating police oversight boards,” as per their written recommendations.
“The oversight commission should have this vital function of, sort of acting on an ongoing basis of monitoring where can we get better,” Heraux said.
An attorney, Williams spoke specifically to the terms laid out in the proposed recommendations for the City ordinance that will be used to form the oversight commission. He laid out the parameters of the commission’s power as recommended by the study committee, and the importance of a proper flow of information from ELPD and the City to the commission and the public.
Williams also outlined how the commission could make recommendations during the complaint process and offer prospective changes to how the ELPD functions in terms of policy and procedure.
This, to some Council members, is a key feature of potential oversight.
Mayor Pro Tem Jessy Gregg said on this issue, “The critical importance to me in this process is obviously the oversight of individual complaints, but I think what’s really powerful about the recommendations that we’ve seen brought forward is that there’s a recognition that policies drive some of those complaints and that this offers an opportunity to track patterns within our department and possibly anticipate future problems.”
After the presentation, Stephens once again congratulated the study committee on a job well done.
“I’d just like to acknowledge this incredible work,” Stephens told the representatives of the committee. “I think that this ordinance, or ordinances, are very well thought out. I think they’re drafted accordingly, and I think they understand the restrictions and constraints, but also understand the necessity, and give the commission what I believe is the necessary amount of oversight as well as the ability to create longevity in terms of police reform.”
The City Council is set to discuss the committee’s report more fully at the next Council meeting on June 15, with a tentative plan to vote on the formation of an official oversight commission later in June or July, according to Stephens.