EAST LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — A sociologist hired by the East Lansing Independent Police Oversight Commission to analyze use of force by the department says it reveals “a racial disparity.”
Cedrick Heraux was hired to review 2024 East Lansing Police data on the use of force. His report on the data was presented Wednesday night to the Commission.
“So the data shows that there is a racial disparity. Right. The question is always, what is the cause of the disparity? And that’s usually difficult to figure out depending on what your benchmark is. Are we looking at, you know, what percentage of East Lansing population is black or what percentage of people who visit East Lansing are Black and those sorts of things,” he says.
U.S. Census data shows 12 percent of East Lansing residents identify as Black/African American. But data on use of force — or response to resistance — from last year revealed white people accounted for 48.5 percent of the people subjected to use of force. Black/African Americans accounted for 46.2 percent of the people subjected to use of force…