At a City Commission meeting last night, nearly twenty residents spoke out in opposition to proposed changes (page 1, 2, 3) in Grand Rapids' Hindering and Opposing (H&O) ordinance. The proposed changes to the ordinance are meant to clarify the City's existing ordinance which has been at the center of controversy since the Urban League released a study showing that African Americans make up a disproportionate amount of those arrested for Hindering and Opposing.
However, the consensus of those speaking at the public hearing was that the proposed changes are too broad. County Commissioner Paul Mayhue presented a detailed analysis of the new ordinance, objecting to almost every section of the ordinance. His comments were echoed by representatives of the Urban League, who once again cited their statistics on H&O arrests and pointed out that while the Grand Rapids Police Department (GRPD) criticized the Urban League's numbers, the GRPD's own numbers found that African-Americans made up 59% of H&O arrests while only making up 29% of the population. The Greater Grand Rapids chapter of the NAACP also spoke against the changes, arguing that they “broaden the net, not decrease it” and that they will increase the number of people arrested for H&O.
More interesting than the testimony of organizational representatives was that of residents who bear the brunt of the GRPD's abusive use of Hindering and Opposing charges. As was the case at another public hearing last week, numerous residents described calling the police for assistance only to be arrested later on H&O charges and seeing people arrested for simply asking questions about what the police were doing. Many residents also reported either being subjected to physical abuse themselves by the police or seeing people in their neighborhoods tackled or beaten. One woman described how the police beat her (resulting in permanent scars) once they determined that she was asking too many questions and arrested her for H&O and assault, although both charges were later dropped. Several of the speakers identified the core problem as one of race, specifically in terms of the predominantly white GRPD viewing all African-Americans as potential criminals. One resident event went as far as referring to the H&O ordinance as a “Jim Crow law in modern America,” suggesting that the H&O charge existed to systematically target African Americans. The experiences related during the hearing made it clear that Grand Rapids is faced with a systemic problem and that it is not simply the case of just a few “bad” officers making the police look bad.
Throughout the night most speakers indicated that they would like to work with the GRPD and that there was a need for a better ordinance so that the police and community could work together. However, if the resolution were to be adopted as it is currently worded, some residents cited the potential for civil disobedience, invoking the image of Martin Luther King's struggle for civil rights during the 1950's and 1960's. Nevertheless, a willingness to work together was apparent on the part of the City Commission and the community. Following the conclusion of the Public Hearing, Mayor Heartwell said it was “necessary” to send the ordinance to the Commission's Public Safety Commission in order to craft an ordinance which was more agreeable to the community.
