The city of Grand Rapids is currently being sued by the ACLU of Michigan for violating the Freedom of Information Act for taking nearly a year to respond to a request that the Grand Rapids Police Department said would take only about two hours of labor to complete, alleging that the city has violated the transparency statute.
Thus far, the courts in that case have ruled with the city. But in the wake of the 12th officer-involved shooting in Grand Rapids since 2022, broader questions about the department’s transparency, including through FOIA, are being raised.
A month after the fatal shooting by police of Da’Quain Johnson by a Grand Rapids Police Department officer, the name of the officers involved in that shooting have not yet been released by the department. That means more time has passed in this case than it took the department to release the name of the officer who shot and killed Patrick Lyoya in 2022 — Christopher Schurr, whose name was released exactly three weeks after Lyoya’s death. The charges against Schurr ended in a mistrial, with the prosecutor later deciding not to seek a new trial…