Her third-grade son spoke of becoming a policeman, but then he witnessed a vice squad’s misconduct.
The experience caused a 180-degree change in De’Ronnie Sparks’ outlook, says his mother, Rosemary Dugan. who spoke during a March 18 forum on law enforcement.
They were together in line at a fast food drive-thru, she said, when state officers with high-powered rifles surrounded the car in an apparent case of mistaken identity.
“His dream was taken away that day, all because of overzealous police officers and because we had stopped for a Happy Meal,” Rosemary said of De’Ronnie, who eventually graduated two years ago from Arthur Hill High School.
Among two dozen participants at the event, organized by Community Alliance for the People, several said they were reminded of similar protest meetings through the years, all the way back to the civil rights era of the 1960s.
The difference this time was that Saginaw city police were not the target of complaints. Instead the focus was on Michigan State Police officers who increasingly are assigned to local streets to help make up for budget cuts at City Hall. This was not a part of the pre-meeting agenda set by C.A.P. Chairman Jeff Bulls, but the theme emerged with one testimonial after another.
Dugan’s story was from a decade ago, but others were as recent as last month, coming on top of videos of state police officers beating unarmed citizens first. in an incident on Hartsuff Street, and then in another case on Webber.
Terry Reed, for example, told of a car stuck in front of his tire store on East Genesee near Holland during one of Saginaw’s late-winter snow storms. A tow truck arrived and a city cop was directing traffic, he said, but then an MSP officer came to the scene and pulled his weapon on the stranded motorist, stopping only after Reed protested from outside his storefront.
A story from Terrilyn Collins was somewhat similar to Dugan’s account, but in her case the MSP drug raid was directed at her home, not at her car. Her adult son and even her 88-year-old mother were roughed up, she said.
Bulls offered his view of the current state of affairs with state police. He noted that the increased Bridgeport Post presence began in 2012, when former Gov. Rick Snyder and the Republican Legislature approved an increase in state police funding to assist hard-pressed cities along the I-75 corridor, beginning with Detroit and moving northbound to Pontiac, Flint and Saginaw.
He described the infusion as “racist” because only Black-majority towns were included, not Bay City or Midland, for example, and because the state officers are given free reign compared to city police who must follow 911 dispatch calls. State officers performed 5,800 traffic stops last year and most were forms of harassment, he added, with only a small fraction charged for speeding or other offenses. Rear car panel lights sometimes are cited, sometimes even the small one atop the license plate.
Troubles with state police have become so severe, said Bulls, that city leaders should ask them to stay out of Saginaw, as has occurred in Detroit. He pegged the city’s MSP count at 23, or about half of the city’s remaining manpower that varies between 40 and 50, down from 150 at the turn of the millennium. His idea drew mixed reactions even from the most devoted C.A.P. supporters, and an outright challenge from Councilman Reggie Williams II, who attended at downtown’s SVRC Marketplace. Councilwoman Monique Lamar Silvia also was present.
Williams is a former city police sergeant and now Buena Vista’s police chief. He offered no remarks on any of the testimonies that involve state officers, other than those with cases recorded on video, beyond suggesting that people should pursue their complaints, even if they may feel fearful or that the system is against them, in order to better hold law enforcement accountable.
Without the state officers, he asked, “Do you have any idea what the City of Saginaw would look like in six months?” He added that traffic stops must involve a cause and action, but one benefit is that guns are removed from circulation.
When resident Charles Allen asserted that he worries more about cops than about guns, and that the cops have stopped him four times in the past two years because of racial profiling, Williams responded that he still remains an occasional victim at the hands of officers who may not realize his law enforcement status.
When Williams asked where funds could be found to replace MSP officers with city officers, Bulls responded that more police are not needed, and that more social programs are needed, not more cops.
One priority, participants agreed, should be improved training and pre-hire screening of police applicants.
Saginaw Police Chief Robert Ruth, who started in 2015, is widely credited for adopting reforms in the wake of the 2012 city police slaying of Milton Hall, a 49-year-old who was mentally ill, in the Riverview Plaza parking lot.
Saginaw’s force now is about one-third ethnic minority or female, but the state police have not come close to a similar ratio of integration. One participant said, “Let our Black officers patrol the East Side.”
In an interview earlier this month, Ruth said: “I do feel the general public does distinguish between the SPD & MSP. I also know that both departments have done a lot to engage the community to help build bridges. We have both had issues over the years with a few officers not following policy and procedures. Just like any other business or organization dealing with improper conduct by one of its members. The key is both SPD and MSP have taken the necessary steps to put protocols in place to help recognize a violation, conduct an investigation and issue discipline to ensure it doesn’t happen again. We build trust with our community when they see action being taken to correct an employee issue. You can’t let one bad apple ruin the barrel.”
After the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd in May 2020, protests nationwide and in Metro Saginaw have led to calls for reform. The County Board of Commissioners has rejected repeated pleas for a study to consider reducing the jail population at the rear of the courthouse campus, but the City Council formed a Citizens Police Advisory Commission that so far has remained silent on police conduct issues. The next meeting is at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 18, at City Hall.
Previously, the now-defunct Human Relations Commission attempted to explore citizen complaints, but police chiefs in the past declined to release details. Therefore, at one point during the 1980s, the HRC adopted a policy to release the number of complaints. Most officers had one or two on file, if any, but a pair with more than eight apiece were investigated and eventually discharged. Mayor Pro-Tem Annie Boensch’s proposal to revive the HRC, founded in 1958 under Henry Marsh before he became a councilman and mayor, is remaining on ice.
The idea in that pre-video era was that if individual cases were difficult to adjudicate, an unusual number of grievances would provide another form of evidence. Even this sort of process, however, would not guarantee results. Floyd’s killer, former Officer Derek Chauvin, had 17 complaints on file but still was assigned active duty. In Saginaw, as in police forces regardless of size, internal affairs probes are conducted.
Community Alliance for the People will consider suggestions sent to its Facebook page. Monthly forums are at 1 p.m. on the third Saturday of the month in the former Saginaw News building on South Washington at Federal.
A video of today’s meeting is available on their Facebook page.
