A video of a raid by members of the city of Kalamazoo’s Department of Public Safety (KDPS) began making the rounds on social media last week because of the similarity to a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) practice of using masks to hide officers’ identities.
It’s a practice that is at odds with the KDPS’s push to increase trust in neighborhoods that have previously been the target of hardline police tactics.
The video led to complaints both on social media and at this week’s Kalamazoo City Commission meeting. “I don’t really see what the need for the masks are. Are they trying to intimidate the community? Why do they need to hide their faces?,” said Justin Suarez during a public comment period at Monday’s city commission meeting. He told commissioners that his child believed the masked officers were ICE agents looking for undocumented immigrants…