EAST LANSING, Mich. — The East Lansing independent Police Oversight Commission is demanding several changes to the way the city’s police department operates and now some community stakeholders are weighing in.
“When we talk about Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Sandra Bland, Stevante Clark, Tamir Rice, Eric Gardner. I mean we could be here all day and go on and on. Why does this keep happening?" said Pastor Sean Holland of Epicenter of Worship in Lansing.
This week the East Lansing Police Oversight Commission held a special meeting to introduce and adopt several resolutions in the wake of the April 25 shooting of a man at the Meijer store on Lake Lansing Road.
The shooting has since been handed over to Michigan State Police for a full investigation.
Some of the resolutions call for a forensic review of the footage from that day, a look at the kind of bias-driven 911 training that officers and dispatchers receive, and a second demand for the release of the remaining footage from the day of the shooting.
Although some members of the community feel the resolutions are a good start, others say that more needs to be done.
“I think they should have put a matrix in place for the absolute process that MSP uses. Is it the same process for every district and every situation?” asked Holland.
One member of the commission says she’s happy with how her colleagues are holding the police department accountable but feels the department needs to be more forthcoming with information in the case.
“The resolution that I introduced on Monday was for the release of some additional video from inside the Meijer store because that could be very important for us to know what was actually going on before the chase," said Chris Root of the East Lansing Police Oversight Commission.
That resolution passed overwhelmingly.
“In the end we gave them 7 days to turn in the video from inside the store and an additional two weeks to turn over the video from the parking lot," said Root.
Both officers involved in the shooting are on administrative leave.
Beginning next month, the Commission will meet on the first Wednesday of the month at the Hannah Community Center on Abbot Road in East Lansing.
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