GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - A Kent County commissioner brought attention to an incident that happened Tuesday evening, Oct. 9 leading to the handcuffing and search of an family outside their home on Batavia Place NE.
"This is an evolving review for us; we've only been aware of the incident for less than 24 hours now," said Grand Rapids Police Chief David Rahinsky in a press conference Tuesday.
The department issued a press release on the event Monday evening, in an effort to get ahead of the incident that transpired a week ago. A caller told dispatch that their daughter witnessed a shooting at a home two houses away on Batavia Place, just north of east Fulton Street.
"Today is an effort to get as much information out as quickly as we can to members of the community who may have expressed concern over what was reported," the chief said Tuesday.
Kent County Commissioner Robert Womack criticized the incident on Facebook.
"As a community and a department, if we are going to continue to build trust we need to open up those lines of dialogue and we need to be direct," Rahinsky said.
Rahinsky said the department would rather address these incidents directly with those affected after an incident happens. But, in a responding Facebook post, Womack said he had already made a call to GRPD.
The chief played out a recording of the 911 call, with a modified voice as to not identify the caller.
"Somebody just shot one of my neighbors...she saw it from her window..." the caller says.
The dispatcher asks how the caller knows for certain that someone was shot.
"There was a lady she came out of her house and she said no no...don't shoot me," the caller replies.
The caller then says three shots rang out.
The chief went on to play the body worn camera footage from one of the responding officers.
Sobs can be heard from the 12-year-old girl as she backs toward the officers with her hands up. An officer tells her he will quick check her for weapons. The girl explains to police that she is 12 years old.
She tells police she's in her school uniform. The officer explains they will quickly pat her down for weapons before officers clear her. Officers then searched her 10-year-old brother without handcuffing him, a decision that the chief called an act of 'good judgement'. An officer compliments the boy's sweatshirt and asks him if he is scared—telling him he has nothing to be worried about.
"Officers did as they were trained to do," Rahinsky said after the body cam video played.
Rahinsky said the officer, who can be heard throughout the video, handled the situation with compassion.
The department is still conducting an internal review, however, the chief has said officers did their job correctly. When asked about the validity of the phone call, Rahinsky said he did not believe this call was a false report.
“The modified phone call with the voice being changed, does not do it justice. I heard the original call —there’s real concern in that callers voice,” Rahinsky said.
The chief said the mother of the boy and girl hung up on him when he tried to reach out Monday. He did not indicate if the department would attempt to reach out again.
This is the fourth high-profile incident in about two years where Grand Rapids Police officers handcuffed or pointed guns at unarmed black children. In all the cases, officers were responding to reports of a weapon or a shooting.
In April 2017, officers drew their weapons and held five boys, who were walking home, at gunpoint. Officers were dispatched when a resident in the area called 911 about a group of boys who had a gun outside the Salvation Army Kroc Center. Police stopped the group but found no weapons.
Later that year, in December 2017, an 11-year-old girl was handcuffed while police were looking for a suspect in the area. The body worn camera footage from that incident showed the girl sobbing and screaming, "No, please," as officers handcuffed her.
At the time, Rahinsky said that his biggest problem with the situation was that the 11-year-old should not have been treated like an adult by GRPD officers. This resulted in the department developing a Youth Interaction Policy, nicknamed the Honestie Policy, after the 11-year-old, Honestie Hodges.
The most recent publicized incident occurred in August when officers stopped three boys who were walking to get a pizza. A report of two teenage boys with a gun prompted officers to draw their weapons and handcuff the two 11-year-olds and the 17-year-old. After searching all three of them, officers found no weapons.
"Some of these issues transcend race. This didn't need to be a racialized issue; this is about police responding to a call," Rahinsky said.
Watch the full press conference:
Rahinsky reiterated Tuesday that anyone with concerns over how the department handles an incident should reach out directly to the department.
“I think any time race is an element of a conversation it tends to make people uncomfortable," the chief said. "Recognizing that, we want to be a party to those conversations and we are willing to be at the table."
Meanwhile, Commissioner Womack is now calling on all those effected by recent incidents to join him for a march outside GRPD Sunday Oct. 21 at 5 p.m.
Rose White contributed to this reporting.
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