Last Tuesday’s East Lansing City Council meeting painted a portrait of the downtown area, one that is a hub for violence and crime when the clock hits midnight.
“This downtown is not secure,” a business owner declared in front of the meeting. His speech included an anecdote about how he lost seven employees after a group of teens harassed them and later pepper-sprayed one. Although he called the police on the group, he said they were back the next week engaging in similar activities. For some, incidents like this serve as proof that the department is not doing enough to combat crime.
But that’s not quite the case. Recent weeks has actually shown the department overstepping their boundaries a number of times in ways that reveals a much deeper reckoning the city needs to have with its police force…