Use-of-force policies from major Michigan police agencies fail to meet anti-brutality demands

Use-of-force policies at major police agencies across Michigan fall woefully short of protecting citizens.

That’s the finding of an advocacy group that reviewed the policies at the request of MLive.

“Of the Michigan police departments’ use-of-force policies we reviewed, none met all of the standards for 8 Can’t Wait,” said DeRay Mckesson of the “8 Can’t Wait” campaign. “Across the board, we found that the use of force policies in Michigan allow for deadly force in nearly all circumstances.”

MLive obtained the policies from 12 agencies across the state, using the Freedom of Information Act, and had them reviewed by the “8 Can’t Wait” campaign, a leading advocacy group pushing for police reform nationwide. The group is urging police departments to implement eight policies on use of force that it says would go a long way toward protecting citizens.

On average, only two of the eight standards were in place at the Michigan police agencies examined by MLive and the “8 Can’t Wait” campaign.

The use-of-force policies in Grand Rapids and with the Michigan State Police met none of campaign’s eight benchmarks.

“It is evident the policies were designed to give police unrestricted power, not to protect the public, and now is the time for reform to keep our communities safe,” Mckesson said.

The death of George Floyd, which happened after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck during an arrest, was the spark that ignited protests across the country. Though also addressing larger issues of racial injustice, wholesale reform of policing in America is one of the most pressing demands of protesters. Their rally cry has been a call to “defund the police.”

The use-of-force policies on file in police departments across the country dictate how and why an officer can or cannot hold someone down or use a weapon. The policies address what factors officers should consider before deciding to use deadly force.

Because the policies, and adherence to them by individual officers, are so directly related to incidents like the one that led to Floyd’s death, they are squarely in the crosshairs of advocates of police reforms.

The “8 Can’t Wait” campaign seeks to replace policies that more broadly allow force to be used at the discretion of officers with revised language that better protects citizens. Mckesson makes no secret of the fact that the campaign aims to ensure officers have “less power” when it comes to deciding when to employ force.

Though not a cure-all, Mckesson said the policy changes are an immediate step all police agencies should take.

“They can do this today,”Mckesson said.

The Baltimore man co-founded Campaign Zero, which seeks to end police violence and advocates for police reforms, and is also an organizer for the “8 Can’t Wait” campaign. Campaign Zero grew out of the Ferguson, Missouri, police protests after the Aug. 9, 2014, fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer.

“8 Can’t Wait” advocates for police departments to include the following in their use of force policies:

• Requires De-Escalation. Officers must de-escalate situations, where possible, by communicating with subjects and using other techniques to reduce the likelihood that force will be used.

• Has Use of Force Continuum. A force continuum restricts the most severe types of force to use in the most extreme situations, with policy restrictions for use of each police weapon and tactic that is employed.

• Bans Chokeholds and Strangleholds. Chokeholds and other neck restraints banned in all situations.

• Requires Warning Before Shooting. Requires officers to give a verbal warning in all situations, when feasible, before using deadly force.

• Restricts Shooting at Moving Vehicles. Bans officers from shooting at moving vehicles unless occupants of the vehicle are using deadly force (not including the vehicle).

• Requires Exhaust All Other Means Before Shooting. Officers must exhaust all other alternatives, including not using force and using less lethal force, before using deadly force.

• Duty to Intervene. Officers must intervene and stop excessive force used by other officers and report any such incidents to a supervisor immediately.

• Requires Comprehensive Reporting. Officers must report every time they use force or threaten to use force against civilians, which includes when an officer points a firearm at someone.

The campaign offers up model versions of its recommended policies that police department can use to create their own.

For the analysis, MLive chose the police departments in the eight communities where it publishes newspapers as well as Detroit, Lansing, Traverse City and the Michigan State Police. The eight communities are Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Flint, Kalamazoo, Saginaw, Muskegon, Jackson and Bay City.

MLive submitted each police department’s use of force policy — received in response to Freedom of Information Act requests — to 8 Can’t Wait. At MLive’s request, Mckesson analyzed the policies to assess how they stacked up against the advocacy group’s standards on each point.

Here is his analysis of use of force policies from the state police and those 11 city police departments:

8 Can't Wait analysis — An analysis by 8 Can't Wait shows how police department use-of-force polices compare to the demands of 8 Can't Wait.

On average, only about two of the eight standards were met by the 12 police agencies. Two of the policies — from Michigan State Police and the Grand Rapids Police Department — met none of the eight.

The Michigan State Police is familiar with and supports the concepts of 8 Can’t Wait, spokeswoman Shanon Banner said, and a review of the agency’s official orders as a whole would show alignment with some of the recommendations of the group, though they are not all included in the state police use-of-force policy.

Michigan State Police members are not trained to perform any sort of chokehold or stranglehold, she said, and under the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards subject control continuum, a statewide training guide for officers respond to resistance, those would be considered a last resort, and therefore considered deadly force.

The MSP does not have a “duty to intervene” policy, she said, but the agency is supportive of modifying its existing policy to clarify that officers are expected to intervene to prevent excessive force by another officer, rather than just report it.

Only one use-of-force policy, Saginaw Police Department’s newly rewritten policy, met more than half of the standards, Mckesson said. Saginaw’s new policy met seven of the eight standards.

In the wake of those changes, a Saginaw police officer was suspended without pay due to an excessive force complaint, the city announced in a July 14 news release. The officer was fired July 17 and a Michigan State Police investigation continues into whether criminal charges are warranted. The officer is accused of striking a 57-year-old woman several times when she spit on him after her arrest.

The departmental policies dictate how police interact with citizens. Those interactions can have lasting effects.

Bomesa Sims, 41, said his sons have been fearful of police ever since an incident in March 2017 when Grand Rapids officers held the teenagers at gunpoint. He said the use of force was not appropriate, especially since the group of five males were all minors.

After playing basketball nearby, the teens were walking to a home in the neighborhood when officers stopped them. Police held them at gunpoint, patted them down and placed them in the back of a police vehicle before, eventually, the teens were allowed to leave, Sims said. The officers should have used discretion, he said.

“It just seems when you are dealing with a group of young Black boys, there’s no discretion,” Sims said. “They’re automatically a threat. They’re automatically afraid of them. And I don’t think that’s fair.”

Officers should have asked his sons a question instead of drawing their guns, he said. Officers were not sympathetic when parents complained about the handling of the situation, he said.

“They basically told us our boys were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Sims said.

Police said they received a report of someone with a gun in the area. Sims says that is an excuse police gave for their behavior.

“In my eyes, it’s because these are young Black kids and they’re already deemed aggressive or a threat,” he said.

Sims met with Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss and other city officials following the 2017 incident.

Now, as his oldest son heads off to college, he said the memory of the interaction with police officers remains one of fear for the young men.

“Nothing really materialized,” Sims said in July 2020, three years after the incident. The city paid for a study, he said.

“We got into rooms with all these important people but at the end of the day, it just went away,” Sims said. “They just stopped talking about it.”

Bliss said the incident was unacceptable, and the department changed its policy dealing with youth following the incident.

The Youth Interaction Policy was adopted in 2018 after it was informed by residents and community partners, she said in a July 2020 email to MLive. It codified expectations related to how police officers are expected to respond to youth and provides clear guidance on issues such as use of restraints on minors and parental notification, she said.

“It’s important to know that we have been, and remain, committed to substantive and meaningful changes in policing,” Bliss said.

The mayor, reelected to her second term in 2019, admits the city has more work to do, in the area of policing and beyond.

Responding to questions from MLive about changes to the Grand Rapids Police Department’s use of force policy, Bliss said the policy is being reviewed and updated to clearly include recommendations from “8 Can’t Wait.”

Currently, Grand Rapids meets none of the campaign’s demands, Mckesson said.

Bliss said the proposed changes will ban the use of chokeholds, require de-escalation, require verbal warnings, require exhausting all reasonable alternatives before resorting to deadly force, ban shooting into moving vehicles and require officers to intervene to stop excessive force used by other officers and to report these incidents immediately.

Training versus policy

The Flint City Council passed a measure June 8 to update the code of conduct for the department that includes a duty to intervene for all sworn and un-sworn officers to protect residents from any mistreatment by another officer.

Interim Flint Police Chief Phil Hart said he would consider making other changes based on ideas from 8 Can’t Wait, such as banning shooting at moving vehicles.

Using a chokehold is considered deadly force under Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement standards, according to Hart, and has been “banned” since the 1980s. Four of the agencies reviewed by 8 Can’t Wait — Saginaw, Muskegon, Jackson and Detroit — specifically ban chokeholds in their use of force policies, while the others do not.

The MCOLES document describes chokeholds as a last resort.

Police officers in Michigan are required to learn and utilize a de-escalation scale, Hart said.

The interim chief in Flint worked for Michigan State Police for more than two decades, where he rose to the rank of Flint post commander. He later served as undersheriff at the Saginaw County Sheriff’s Office. Hart is currently running for election to Genesee County sheriff.

Hart and other officials said some of the ideas demanded by 8 Can’t Wait are already reflected in training his officers go through.

When an officer draws a weapon, he said, they are taught to say, “City police, drop your weapon, put your hands where I can see them.”

Departments may train on the ideas, but they only get a pass in Mckesson’s analysis if it is actually written down in the police department’s use-of-force policy, he said. Training alone doesn’t count.

The demands aim to set a new standard for police powers when it comes to departmental use of force policies, which are meant to ensure officers will be punished if they don’t follow the policies, Mckesson said.

Police use-of-force policies typically include information about which techniques officers can use and when, and outline things such as using “pain compliance,” and how to respond to resistance and other situations.

James Tignanelli, who has served as the president of the Police Officers Association of Michigan (POAM) since 1993, said it is "impossible" to create a comprehensive policy to outline how much force to use, how you can use it, and when you can use it. Because no one can predict every situation officers will face, he said.

"The fact of the matter is, if a guy is struggling to get my gun, if a guy's got the best of me, if a guy's twice my size, if I had to do whatever I had to do to save my life and the lives of others, I can't say, 'Well, I better not do that'," Tignanelli said.

Bad officers are found and eliminated, Tiganelli said. But the rules about confrontation or altercation between two people can go out the window when dealing with human beings, he said, giving an example of how officers are expected to respond to having unknown liquids thrown at them.

"These are just people, they have kids that play soccer and they have birthday cakes. I think sometimes people are getting the impression that these guys are all robots. They're not. They're really not, they go home. They'd like to," he said.

The Police Officers Association of Michigan represents about 10,000 officers at departments across the state. They made about 12,500,000 contacts with people in a year, he said, and five officers were discharged last year, calling it a pretty good number.

Differences between what “8 Can’t Wait” wants to see in the policies, and what cities have adopted can amount to a small number of words. But those words could make a big difference to a person interacting with police, Mckesson said. For example, 8 Can’t Wait wants policies to outright require de-escalation based on certain factors, rather than merely including de-escalation as one among other options for officers.

Some of the departmental policies in Michigan cities have recently been updated, and in other cases changes have been proposed.

The city of Kalamazoo is considering making changes to the use-of-force policies now. The city of Lansing is holding three sessions this summer to talk to citizens about the use of force policy and get feedback.

The city of Jackson is currently going through a review process of use of force policies, Director of Police and Fire Services Elmer Hitt said, and he has looked at 8 Can’t Wait. He said he believes the policy meets more than two of the campaign’s standards, disagreeing with the 8 Can’t Wait analysis. He said all of the eight areas areas are addressed in training or in the policy itself.

Hitt said he doesn’t agree with every part of the campaign, such as the call to ban shooting at moving vehicles.

“I think it’s reasonable to understand that there could be a situation where an officer could have to engage a moving vehicle to prevent it from seriously injuring or killing people,” Hitt said.

He is confident the department has solid policies in place now, Hitt said, though he is open to the idea of making additions or re-wordings.

“We certainly are taking a look at our policies and hoping to revamp them or making changes if we determine there is a need of some type there,” Hitt said.

Muskegon Chief Jeff Lewis said policing is an ever-evolving service that has to change to meet the needs of the community, and he welcomes community input.

“How can I provide a public service if I don’t get any feedback? If you never tell me what you want, how the heck am I supposed to meet your needs?” Lewis said.

The changes come as protests across the country are urging police agencies to change and become more transparent. Some of the questionable police tactics protesters are against have been on display during the protests, as officers in Michigan have fired tear gas at people lying on the ground, shot rubber bullets at journalists, and struck protesters with a police vehicle.

Access to policies

How easily accessible each city police department’s use of force policy is varies from place to place.

Departments in Grand Rapids, Lansing and Bay City have posted their use-of-force policies online.

Ann Arbor joined that group when the department posted the department policies on its website on July 1. Kalamazoo announced on July 14 the publication of public safety policies, training and recruiting documents, budget information, union contracts and other information on a new “KDPS Transparency” page on the city’s website.

MLive has published the use-of-force policies obtained through FOIA:

The city of Jackson first denied a FOIA request for the police department’s use-of-force policy, but then later reversed course and released its full policy.

The city of Kalamazoo first released a redacted version of its use-of-force policy, but later released an unredacted copy to MLive. The city has released redacted versions of the policy in response to prior FOIA requests from members of the community.

Officer buy-in crucial

City leaders across Michigan say they are committed to change. Conversations are happening about defunding police in Grand Rapids, and giving more power to a citizens police advisory board in Kalamazoo, for example.

Chris White, director of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, said he wants to see changes in use of force policies, but the changes must include input from citizens before they happen.

“What we see is law enforcement hurrying up to make these changes absent of the community and then turning it around and calling it community policing,” he said. “If we’re not in on the front end, it could lead to more problems.”

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Mark Fancher said he sees some value in reforms being proposed, but believes even if all the ideas are implemented it still will not solve the problem. He says the underlying issue is in police culture and the attitudes of police officers. Until those things change, he said, no updated policies, oversight boards or other reforms will solve the issue.

“If the police as a unit of personnel really reject all of that, don’t respect it, don’t have any intention of complying with it, then it’s all for naught,” Fancher said.

Ultimately, it comes down to whether the officers themselves are willing to change, Fancher said. While there may be obstacles for police chiefs who need to discipline officers in some cases, there are no obstacles to rewarding officers for good behavior, he said. Fancher recommends departments do that.

Mckesson said he agrees that more needs to be done on police reform beyond the changes to use of force policies he is advocating. But, as the campaign’s name suggests, “common-sense” changes 8 Can’t Wait proposes can, and should, be made quickly, he said.

Though most of the Michigan policies reviewed by Mckesson met less than half of the eight standards, there was one that fared much better.

The Saginaw Police Department’s newly updated policy meets seven of the campaign’s eight demands, Mckesson said, only failing to meet the “comprehensive reporting” requirement, to require officers to report each time they use force or threaten to use force against civilians, including whenever they point a gun at someone.

That shows changes can be made by departments, Mckesson said.

“It can be done,” Mckesson said.

But one city’s use of force policy is far from the ultimate goal. Mckesson wants to see it happen everywhere.

“We are never just planning for the largest cities,” he said. “We are planning for the 18,000 police departments (nationwide). Because people deserve justice in every city right every town, every rural community.”

Editor’s note: An error was corrected in the graphic to show that Kalamazoo received a “Y” in the two additional categories -- comprehensive reporting and use of force continuum.

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