KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) — Tuesday, the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety (KDPS) held a virtual press conference to continue discussions of a Proud Boys rally that turned violent in August.
During the conference, KDPS officials reviewed video footage from officer body cameras and bystander footage, while also providing a timeline of the event.
Members of the Proud Boys, identified as a classified hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, had previously spoken to other news outlets about the incident, saying that they had been attacked by counter-protesters first. Police said that they had been in contact with the organizer of the counter-protest at Arcadia Creek Festival Place, while no details were provided by the Proud Boys for their march.
They had also been told that about 20 to 30 people would be a part of the counter-protest, with the organizer suggesting to Public Safety Assistant Chief Vernon Coakley that police be in a different area. Coakley said that officers would be prepared to respond as needed.
Once police responded to the incident, nine people were arrested including an MLive reporter and a Legal Observer. Charges have since been dropped except for one, which involved resisting and obstruction of police. Public Safety Chief Karianne Thomas apologized for the reporter’s arrest during a previous press conference.
Criticism has been aimed at KDPS and city leaders for their response to the incident, saying that there was less police presence during this incident than there was for a Black Lives Matter march that took place earlier this year.
Public Safety Chief Karianne Thomas says that this was part of their strategy for the event, citing concerns that police presence would aggravate tensions.
“We had seen elsewhere and had experience that the visual of a police cruiser can sometimes cause people to damage those, and we wanted to avoid that,” Thomas said.
Coakley was in the area the day of the protest, August 15. Images and footage he provided revealed counter-protesters armed with assault rifles, while others were carrying batons and other weapons. Coakley added one appeared to have a “shank” on his arm.
“These individuals had a conversation with the counter-protest organizer, and what I observed after that conversation was these particular individuals placed at each entrance of the Arcadia Festival Site,” Coakley said. “Again, this was deemed a peaceful protest. I had contact with the organizer, and he stated that these people were anti-Proud Boys.”
He added that this changed the situation.
According to the presentation, police first observed the Proud Boys entering the area at 1:30 p.m., which was earlier than the advertised start time of 2 p.m. They started on Water Street from the Rose Street parking ramp.
“We later learned through intelligence that they intentionally marched early to throw of the timing of the scheduled event,” Assistant Chief David Boysen said.
The first altercation occurred when the two groups met near the Arcadia festival site. Video footage presented shows counter-protesters approaching the Proud Boys. Police explained that the first act of aggression came from a counter-protester, who had thrown a frozen drink in a cup at one of the Proud Boys. Another man in a gray tank top also entered the Proud Boys group.
Coakley said that the man who had been hit with the frozen drink was held back by other members of the Proud Boys.
At this point, members of the Proud Boys used pepper spray, which police said constituted a legal form of self-defense. Signs were broken and objects were thrown. Police said that a member of the Proud Boys had been knocked unconscious in this altercation.
“I must lead in, you can use pepper spray in defense of another, but this particular strike leads into additional fights, with some counter-protesters using sticks and other objects,” Coakley said.
At 1:33 p.m., police said their squads were ordered to move in on the area, authorizing the use of pepper spray and pepper balls as well. At this time, Coakley was searching for the counter-protester organizer to tell him to leave. He said that he had been able to contact him by 1:37 p.m.
By 1:47 p.m., a police zone had been fully established.
By then, the Proud Boys had turned onto Edwards Street, where they had been followed by counter-protesters, where another Proud Boy had been struck in the back of the head after using pepper spray.
A man wearing a gray tank top, identified as one of the instigators by police, was talked about in detail. Early reports indicated that the Proud Boys had assaulted a homeless man, which had sparked the violence, but police said during the conference that their investigation had not revealed any supporting evidence of this.
“Our investigation did not show that he was assaulted,” Assistant Chief Boysen said. “The stuff going around on social media said that he was assaulted and a glass bottle was thrown at him and he was just in the area, and that is not true. From our investigation, he engaged the protest in the street, and he was not singled out or attacked as it was reported.”
The Proud Boys were followed to Bronson Park by counter-protesters. This occupation lasted about six minutes, according to police. Afterwards, the Proud Boys went to the Rose Street parking garage, at which time Michigan State Police told them to leave under threat of arrest for trespassing. Michigan Avenue had been blocked by counter-protesters, and some were throwing objects at Proud Boy vehicles, police said.
Chief Thomas said that in total, there were three “skirmishes” that arose from the two groups meeting. The first lasted about a minute, the second about 49 seconds, and the third lasted about 34 seconds.
In response to having the Proud Boys leave, rather than making arrests, Assistant Chief Boysen said they wanted to get them out of town as fast as possible to deescalate the situation.
“We knew that the longer they stayed, the more fights we would have, and we just wanted them out of town,” Boysen said. “We just wanted them out of town, we did deploy officers to hold the people back so they could leave the ramp and leave town.”
Following this, police officials discussed the arrests of the MLive Reporter and Legal Observer, providing body cam footage of each.
“We’re showing these two arrests, these are two of the most talked-about requests,” Chief Thomas said. “On August 16 at the press conference, I did apologize for the request of the MLive reporter. As you can see from the video, the MLive reporter was interfering with them trying to clear that area, but we also know we need the media to cover these events, we want the media there.”
Chief Thomas says that going forward, education will be crucial to prevent future media arrests. This is discussed in the subcommittee report released last month, highlighting media relations with police. A draft of that plan can now be viewed at the City of Kalamazoo website.
“As we move forward, and as we’ve seen in the subcommittee report, we have to get better at that and there has to be education both of my officers as well as the media so that that’s easily identifiable, and everyone knows what is allowed and what isn’t allowed, and everyone is easily recognizable,” Thomas said. “These are definitely learning lessons that we have to take and figure out how we get better in these types of situations so that they don’t occur again.”
Coakley said better briefings between police and media could help make participants more easily identifiable.
“In these types of demonstrations, protests or any event, what we’re going to do is have a title of media in the operation plan, so the officers are aware before going out, and even talking about it after that, a debriefing about the incident and including the media situation,” Coakley said.
All materials used in the presentation, along with additional videos, will be released on the KDPS transparency page this week, according to Chief Thomas.
Acknowledging that the police had intentionally chosen a less visible presence as a part of that strategy based on the information they had at the time, Chief Thomas says other methods will be explored.
“What transpired that day is not something we want to see repeated, not something that’s acceptable here for the residents of Kalamazoo,” Thomas said. “Therefore, we will explore other techniques of safe separation based on intelligence, lessons learned, what’s going on across the country, and try to communicate those plans and have more input moving forward. At the end of the day, KDPS has to have an operational plan that keeps both officers and citizens safe, and we will continue to try to do our very best.”
She reiterated that a heavy police presence can make a volatile situation worse, and that groups wishing to demonstrate in Kalamazoo will be monitored better in the future.
“We know that neither the Proud Boys nor the counter-protesters operated with us in good faith of the true intent that day, and disinformation was used to guide our actions,” Thomas said. “We are going to continue to increase our communication and our intelligence so that we can develop strategy with a real understanding of these groups.”
Questions were then raised by various news media representatives on the response, such as why the Proud Boys were allowed to protest in the first place. Thomas said that it was a matter of constitutional rights.
“We are the position to allow everyone to exercise their First Amendment right to protest,” Thomas said. “We made that strategic decision that day, based on the information we had, and the intent we had from the counter-organizers. We had hoped that, even with a hate group, that it would just be the verbal back-and-forth, and that’s not what happened that day.”
Questions were raised as to how this response compares to the Black Lives Matter march that took place back in May, which featured a heavy police presence.
“One of the things we learned in that protest that we heard very loudly is that people don’t like to see our officers in riot gear out at protests because they find it offensive,” Thomas said. “They find that it accelerates what is happening, and so as we move forward from May to the August 15 protest, we kept those officers and that gear in the background.”
She said that the response did not have anything to do with the viewpoints of each group.
When asked what they could have done differently, Thomas said that KDPS must always have a response plan, but that improvements can always be made.
“The best operational plan is to have one and carry it forward,” Thomas said. “Never having a plan and not putting a plan into place is gonna be the worst thing you can do. We made a decision that day in this operational plan.”
She said future plans will implement lessons learned from previous protests, as well as with similar events around the country.
In particular, she said that better communication needs to be established across the board.
“Trying to communicate even more with the groups coming into town and more intelligence, there’s always more you can do,” Thomas said. “We are committed to continuous improvement.”
She pointed to the counter-protest itself as an example.
“We had conversations several times that week with the counter-protest organizer who kept telling us it was going to be a peaceful protest, 20 to 30 people,” Thomas said. “We never anticipated that we would have the Michigan Defense league there with armed rifles and with other weapons in order to face off with whatever the Proud Boys had in mind. Always having the same information afterwards makes us look back, but we didn’t have that information at the time.”
Confirming that the first act of aggression was by a counter-protester, officials also said that some charges could still be sought against those involved. Assistant Chief Boysen confirmed that the event is still being investigated at this time.
“I’ve assigned detectives to thoroughly go through all the video footage, body cam footage, social media footage, much of which we have shown you today,” Boysen said. “The investigation shows that most of the felonious assaults in those that were armed with weapons like clubs were from the counter-protesters. We do have some cases involving the Proud Boys that would maybe be fighting cases, which would be a city ordinance violation, but those are ongoing and we’re working to identify those.”
Officials also confirmed that charges relating to incitement against Proud Boys members are not currently being sought.
The material shared during the conference will be made available on the KDPS transparency page sometime this week. That website can be found at this link.
A video of the press conference can be viewed through WOOD TV at this link.
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