Tough questions for city officials and for ourselves

On Thursday, October 19, Pastor Adam Lipscomb hosted the Grand Rapids Association of Pastors at City Life Church for a meeting focused on two recent policing issues:
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• On August 19, 2017 Officer Kevin Penn held a long-arm rifle to the head of a robbery suspect who was handcuffed, laying face-down on the pavement, and had been tased. Then, despite the internal investigation finding that he had used excessive force, the Kent County prosecutor's office declined to press charges against him.
  
  
• Outgoing City Manager Greg Sundstrom went against the recommendation of Police Chief David Rahinsky, and fired only one of three officers involved in the attempted cover-up of a drunk driving crash by a then-Kent County Assistant Prosecutor. The city manager made  that decision without hearing the phone recordings of the cover-up.

Cle Jackson, President of the Greater Grand Rapids NAACP chapter spoke with GRAP about these issues, and about actions local pastors can take regarding community and police relations.

Excessive Force Incident

The discussion began with Pastor David Mays reading aloud the October 3 Community Alert released by the NAACP. Here are the first two paragraphs:

First, we applaud the officers(s) who reported their fellow colleague, Officer Kevin Penn, for what they perceived as excessive forced based on departmental training protocol and procedure related to the detainment of any suspect regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, age or disability.
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The NAACP of Greater Grand Rapids Branch is disappointed in the decision made today by the Kent County Prosecutor’s office not to charge Officer Penn and impose some form of punitive punishment based on what is clearly excessive force and an abuse of power. Furthermore, there was clearly no threat and/or danger perceived or real to Officer Penn or any other officer on the scene once the suspect was detained.

Jackson reiterated the gratitude for the officers who didn't remain silent, and who reported their fellow officer's behavior. He acknowledged that it would've been difficult for the prosecutor to get a conviction, but wanted the office to go ahead with a prosecution for three main reasons:
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1. For the potential rehabilitation of (now former) Officer Penn. Jackson said, "We don't think this young man should be sitting in anyone's jail for this incident. But we think there could've been punitive measures." With a prosecution, he said that Penn could have wound up with court-ordered training, or psychological testing to begin to address the issues that led to this excessive force incident. Without a prosecution, the opportunity that "could've led to this guy getting the help he needs" was lost.
   
   
2. Because there was no prosecution, and because the officer quit the police force, he'll have the opportunity to be hired by another agency. Jackson feels this puts the community at risk.
   
   
3. Without prosecutions, rogue officers will continue to act without fear of repercussions, which puts our community at risk.
   
   

There is an additional policing issue this episode highlighted: the policy on long-arm rifles. Jackson said that these rifles were purchased to deal with active shooter situations, particularly those where the shooter may be distant. This incident took place in a crowded parking lot, the robbery suspect was not armed, and there was no active shooter. Why was an officer using a long-arm rifle in this situation? What are the policies that govern use of these rifles? These rifles also played a role in the incident this Spring when police held five unarmed 12- and 13-year-old boys at gunpoint. The NAACP is pursuing this questions with the City Commission.

​Attempted Cover-up Incident

On November 19, 2016 then-Assistant Prosecutor Joshua Kuiper caused a car accident while drunk, but the responding officers (and other officers they consulted) decided not to give him a breathalyzer test, nor to arrest him; they wrote him a ticket for driving the wrong way on a one-way street and drove him to a local residence. The cover-up came to light two weeks later. After an internal investigation, Chief Rahinsky recommended that all three officers involved be fired. However, the City Manager's office has discretion about whether to follow that recommendation; they chose to fire one officer, and to give the other two a 30-day suspension. The office made this decision without hearing the phone recordings of the officers as they discussed the situation (the in-car and body cam videos were incomplete). 

Jackson was concerned that the City Manager's office would go against the recommendations of the police chief--the one with policing experience, and with the fullest knowledge of the situation. He said that the NAACP will be asking the City Commission to reconsider the 30-day suspensions.

What Can Pastors Do?

When asked how a group like the Grand Rapids Association of Pastors could respond, Jackson said:

When you see B.S., call it out. It doesn't have to be you as a group, just you as an individual. Call [city officials] in. You pay their salary. Just start responding. It's your right to go down to any meeting and make a public comment. You can also ask for any issue to be put on the agenda.

The church has a social gospel responsibility to ask these questions. Do some research. Understand what's happening. 

What I want white pastors to do is call out the people who are in your church who are stone-cold racists, who have strong racist tendencies. We have to be willing to call them out. Black pastors, stop asking what the NAACP is doing and come talk to me and find out. Preach about injustice at a core level. Start saying something. Pick up the phone in your own home. 

In the ensuing conversation a number of questions were posed, both for pastors to ask of our city officials, and for pastors to ask themselves.

• What is the data that supports the need for those long-arm rifles?
• What might be keeping the police chief from making change?
• What role do the police unions play in the issues devastating our community?
• How is our police department training our officers to be in our highly racialized society?
• Why doesn't the implicit bias training that officers receive now include any testing?
• What does the police department do when they figure out an officer needs some help with issues of bias?
• Have you gone to a city meeting?
• Are you encouraging your members to participate in public city meetings?
• What kinds of voter empowerment are you doing in your congregation?
• How many of your parishes/churches/denominations require anti-racism training for your leaders?

There was a spirited conversation about the limited resources of the NAACP and the multitude of congregational issues that pastors deal with, and pleas on both sides for increased attention. It wound up with at least one pastor asking the NAACP to send someone to his church on a Sunday morning to speak with them directly and the organization promising to do so.

There is one immediate and simple action that pastors (and anyone) can take: the current City Manager is retiring and the city is looking for input from the community about what they should be emphasizing in the search, and what they should be looking for. Following are the links to a survey, in both English and Spanish, to filled out online or to print out and send in (available until November 3):
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• English online grandrapidsmi.gov/City-Manager-Position-Profile
• Spanish online grandrapidsmi.gov/gerente-de-la-ciudad
• English printed grandrapidsmi.gov/files/sharedassets/public/gr-digital/mayor-surveys/city-of-grand-rapids-city-manager-position-profile.pdf
• Spanish printed grandrapidsmi.gov/files/sharedassets/public/gr-digital/mayor-surveys/spanish-city-of-grand-rapids-city-manager-position-profile.pdf

You may also complete the survey over the phone by calling the City’s 311 Customer Service line at (616) 456-3000.​

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Next meeting is on Thursday, November 16, 11:30am - 1:00pm, place to be determined. If you are not on the mailing list to hear about the meetings, please contact us.