HOLLAND (WHTC-AM/FM) — The rally and forum at Maple Avenue Ministries Monday night attracted more than 100 people, most there to examie some hard questons about community policing.
No police officials were present, perhaps, as some attending suggested, to avoid further inflaming a situation.
Rev. Denise Kingdom Grier, who organized the event after witnessing a critical-incident traffice stop in the church’s parking lot Friday, said she is open to working with police and city officials to improve relationships. (Listen to her complete remarks.)
She said people who witnessed or were involved in the traffic stop, especially children watching from across the street, were traumatized, including police and those involved in the traffic stop who were not arrested.
Saying she wants to live in a safe community, a place where police come when called, Kingdom Grier, said “I’m not anti-police.”
One of her nephews is a Detroit police officer, she said, noting that she was not happy with another nephew, who was among passengers in the stopped car and not arrested or cited by police.
Kingdom Grier, a social worker for several years before pusuing advanced theology degrees at Western Theological Seminary, said what happened Friday is part of a national conversation on police, guns and people of color. She listed the names of several black Americans who died in police incidents in which they were unarmed. Such incidents, she said, have created a sense of fear among people of color, as well are hurt and anger.
As the forum was about to get underway, Holland Department of Public Safety issued a statement on the traffic stop and subsequent arrest of a domestic violence suspect.
