Five Years of Failure
Exactly 5 years ago yesterday, April 11th, 2017, the Commission Chambers on the 9th floor of City Hall were crammed to capacity with community members demanding reform of the Grand Rapids Police Department. Weeks earlier, five unarmed African American boys, aged 12 to 14, were held at gunpoint by the GRPD on their walk home from playing basketball at the Kroc Center. No less than 6 officers had their guns drawn on these boys as they were made to lay face down on the sidewalk and lock their hands behind their heads.
The boy’s parents, the community, and the City Commissioners all expressed outrage at this incident that grabbed national headlines. Community engagement sessions were scheduled to gather input on how to reform the GRPD. A new Police Policy and Procedure Review Task Force was created to review and suggest changes to GRPD practices. Chief Rahinsky committed to these processes and finishing the reforms laid out in the ‘12 Point Plan’ (started in 2015). Then over the next few years, there were more studies, engagement sessions, trust-building programs, policing accreditation processes, and even the creation of the new office of Oversight and Public Accountability. These actions had one goal, reform the GRPD and change its culture before someone wound up dead. Yet as the tragic events of April 4th have shown us, they all failed.
Systemic reform takes more than a checklist approach. It takes more than studies, words, and good intentions. It requires not only vision, but true leadership, commitment to change, and above all else, accountability. That’s something we simply haven’t had too much of in this City:
2015: The 12 Point Plan
Never fully implemented or complete
2017: The Traffic Stop Study
Reforms and Suggestions were never fully implemented
2017: The Police Policy and Procedure Review Task Force
Reforms, suggestions, and concerns were never fully implemented or addressed
2017-2019: Community Engagement Forums for Police Reform
Hundreds of pages of Suggestions and Reforms compiled by the city were never fully implemented or addressed
2019: The GRPD Staffing Study
Reforms for deployment and use of personnel and resources were never fully implemented.
Police Unions fought the implementation of these reforms
Years of studies and reforms, yet none fully implemented. And in that same time, there have continued to be incident after incident involving the GRPD and City Officials. Including multiple issues of excessive use of force, racial bias and profiling, recorded phone lines being erased, body cam footage being “lost,” an ongoing investigation of the GRPD by the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, and most recently, the tragic killing of Patrick Lyoya.
Lack of accountability, transparency, and oversight has brought us to this point. A place so many in our community gathered 5 years ago to try and prevent. Reforms and studies are worthless if not fully implemented. Systemic and cultural change of a department is not possible without leadership to guide it. Simply put, that leadership has failed.
Since Equity PAC’s inceptions, we’ve proudly pressed for police reform in our community. We’ve supported and endorsed candidates that have spoken and acted with courage on these issues. However we as a community need and deserve more. Elected leaders in this city must step forward to be the ‘oversight’ of this system. Not just demand transparency and accountability but foster a system where those key points are delivered. They need to work for the immediate release of the Body Worn and Dash Cam Videos of the shooting of Patrick Lyoya.
Our community needs action not just words. What our elected officials do now will either be the first step in rectifying the generational wrongs done by policing in this city; or it will be the next step down the long path that has perpetuated these injustices.
Actions you can take:
Petition for the release of the videos of Patrick Lyoya’s killing
March to the Commission the Commission to demand transparency and accountability
Attend tonight's City Commission Meeting and demand the release of the videos, and transparency and accountability in this process. Meetings are held at 7pm on the 9th floor of City Hall at 300 Monroe Ave in Grand Rapids.
