When Christine Root became vice chair of the Independent Police Oversight Commission in East Lansing in January 2022, she knew that it was important to look into the ways that institutions with power influence their communities.
“Because police have the power to arrest people, and because they carry weapons, it’s an important agency to focus on,” Root said. “They have a lot of authority over people’s lives.”
Initially, the Human Rights Commission was responsible for taking complaints from the public regarding the East Lansing Police Department. As its role began to evolve in the community though, it met with City Council members and agreed that a separate commission needed to be created to handle situations related to the ELPD.
City Councilwoman Dana Watson was a member of the Human Rights Commission when it took complaints related to the police department. She values the importance of an independent oversight commission that is dedicated to handling complaints to serve the community.
“As we know, historically, the police have been able to function in a way that’s kind of imbalanced with the people that they serve and the consequences when there are problems,” Watson said. “It’s important to have groups like the independent commission that can take that deep dive. A group that’s dedicated to understanding policies, asking questions and making suggestions for change.”
The commission is not responsible for taking complaints from the public alone though. It is also there to make recommendations in regards to policy changes that it brings to the city council.
“The commission is entirely advisory, it’s the council that adopts laws,” Root said.
At every commission meeting, one representative from the ELPD has been present for its discussions. Appointed by the chief of police, Cpt. Chad Pride has been the representative present for all meetings.
“To be able to answer the questions that come up from the commission or give information or education on the things that go on within the police department, within the criminal justice system that may be the commission doesn’t have a full knowledge of, I think, that can be beneficial to the commission,” Pride said.
Pride has been captain of the ELPD for approximately three months but has been with the department for over 22 1/2 years. He has attended the meetings for the commission since its first one in November 2021.
“We truly want this oversight commission and the police department to work hand in hand,” Pride said. “We agree [with the commission] that we should be held accountable. We are a public entity and we report basically to the community.”
In November 2020, the East Lansing City Council declared racism a public health crisis, demonstrating that it believes racism is rooted in all institutions and must be addressed.
“People have described East Lansing as a sundown town, in the past,” Root said. “Where it wasn’t safe for Black people to be out on the street after sundown.”
Currently, the commission is working on providing policy recommendations to council regarding ensuring that officers cannot lie on its reports and that it must file its reports as soon as possible. Though these are already considered policies, the commission is advising that council should adopt an ordinance to further protect them.
“They just presented that ordinance the other night in reference to falsification of a police report or police document as a city ordinance,” Pride said. “There has been a state law enacted for years which has that same language. What the commission is looking at is trying to have this as local ordinance as well.”
Once the commission has made a recommendation to the police department, the city ordinance says that the ELPD has 21 days to respond to its request.
“If it’s a request in policy, the policy within 21 days is very tough to meet within that window,” Pride said. “It’s been one of those things that as long as I’m giving an update on what’s going on, they’ve been fine with that update.”
Pride said that the department has to face several obstacles to put recommendations provided by the commission into policy.
“We have to make sure we’re following different collective bargaining agreements, labor law, state law, federal law, all that stuff before we can put something in there [policy],” Pride said. “If we put something into policy and it doesn’t jive with those and we enforce that on our employees, then the city can be sued by the employee. We need to make sure that information is what we want in there.”
The commission consists of a diverse group of individuals. Together, the commission works to resolve issues in the community related to policing and create meaningful change for the city of East Lansing.
“Our commission represents our community,” Watson said. “I think if it wasn’t for our police oversight commission, we would’ve caught a lot more heat. But we have an independent police oversight commission that can look into incidents and can look into problems.”
Image provided by Sarah Laughner
East Lansing Police Department