Following Meeting with Homeowners, ELPD to Pursue New Trauma and Stress Reaction Training for All Officers
EAST LANSING, MI — In the interest of transparency and maintaining the trust of its citizens, the City of East Lansing has released the following statement in response to citizen concerns about a recent East Lansing Police Department (ELPD) response to a home alarm call.
STATEMENTS FROM CITY OFFICIALS
East Lansing City Manager Robert Belleman:
“On behalf of the City of East Lansing, I offer our sincere apology for the harsh memories awakened in Mr. Williams and Ms. Bidwell after their encounter with police officers who responded to the alarm at their home. Our intent, as always, was to ensure their safety, not trigger historical trauma. We maintain full confidence in our officers and, at the same time, based on this encounter and subsequent conversations with the homeowners, we will also continue to explore ways to ensure that all officers receive trauma and stress reaction training. Our goal remains that every City resident feels assured in their interactions with police and other City representatives, while allowing police officers to fulfill their duty to keep us safe.”
ELPD Interim Police Chief Chad Pride:
“After thoroughly reviewing our department’s response to the home alarm notification, I am 100% confident that our officer’s response followed ELPD procedures. Our priority is to ensure the safety and well-being of City residents, visitors and our officers, especially when responding to any home or business alarm. Although I have never walked in the homeowners’ shoes, I understand the importance of our employees learning about cultural differences and how one may feel about a police response in a stressful situation. We are always open to enhancing our officers’ skills to maintain and improve the community’s trust and confidence, and we will continue to be. I apologize for how this response has made the homeowners feel; that was never our intention.”
BACKGROUND
ELPD responds to home alarm calls on a regular basis and has extensive experience in doing so because their mission is to ensure the safety of City residents. It has responded to 210 breaking and entering alarm calls year to date in 2024.
On one such home alarm response call, occurring during the mid-morning of Sunday, Aug. 25, 2024 ELPD officers reported to a residence in the Glencairn neighborhood. Upon arriving at the scene, officers attempted to make contact with the home’s occupants but did not receive a response. Due to the lack of response from inside the house, officers checked and then opened the unlocked front door as part of routine procedure to verify the identity of persons inside and ensure their safety.
Officers did not enter the home or display weapons. However, upon opening the door, officers were met by unidentified occupants who approached from inside. Upon exercising standard safety protocols and questioning, ELPD determined the occupants were the homeowners. The alarm call was confirmed to be an accidental one, triggered by the earlier departure of a guest at the home. Police then departed the scene.
Homeowners Jan Bidwell, who is white, and James Williams, who is Black, found the interaction unsatisfactory and later contacted City officials to make a complaint about how they experienced ELPD’s handling of the alarm response.
CITY OFFICIALS MEET WITH HOMEOWNERS, PROPOSE ADDITIONAL TRAINING
Subsequently, on Friday, Aug. 30, 2024, ELPD Deputy Police Chief Jennifer Brown, City of East Lansing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Director Elaine Hardy and City Manager Robert Belleman voluntarily met in person with the homeowners. Interim Chief Chad Pride joined the meeting via cellphone. The purpose of the meeting was to gain insight from the homeowners about how the ELPD response to their false alarm was received in the context of their life experiences, offer information about standard ELPD procedures and obligations in cases of home alarm calls and review bodycam footage of the incident together.
The meeting resulted in the City agreeing to adjust its law enforcement training to include cultural sensitivity training. ELPD also agreed to arrange for Ms. Bidwell to meet with ELPD social workers to provide input regarding the types of training she believes ELPD should include in future programs.
WHAT IS NEXT?
While City officials will maintain an open line of communication with the homeowners in this situation and community members in general, the police department has completed its internal investigation of its home alarm response. The East Lansing Independent Police Oversight Commission met on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024 to review ELPD body camera footage of the interaction in a closed session, in accordance with private home privacy protections under the Body-Worn Camera Act. The Commission took no action regarding the alarm response interaction with the homeowners at that time. The Commission did later adopt a formal complaint against one police officer involved in the situation for insensitive comments made about a fellow police officer prior to the encounter with the residents. The specific complaint can be found online at www.cityofeastlansing.com/DocumentCenter/View/15093/ELIPOC-Complaint-9-4-24-PDF.
We have contacted Jan Bidwell for a comment.
She said, “We want to use this opportunity to help law enforcement learn how trauma reactions deeply affect people who feel frightened for their lives. ELPD agreed to more education about how to turn the temperature down when regular protocol feels threatening to citizens.”
Note: This is a press release.
