KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) — Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety (KDPS) Chief Karianne Thomas has addressed concerns over police activity during city protests for George Floyd that occurred over the weekend.
During a virtual City meeting Monday night, Thomas spoke with Commissioners over concerns that were raised by citizens during the meeting, specifically when officers in riot gear were deployed. Thomas was requested to speak by city representatives, including Vice Mayor Patrese Griffin and City Manager Jim Ritsema.
Before Thomas gave her presentation, Ritsema spoke about the protests in general.
“We stand in solidarity with protesters that are protesting legitimate concerns, deep-seated concerns, and we want to be there with them side-by-side,” Ritsema said. “Unfortunately, we have what appears to be outside agitators and people who want to resort to violence and destruction, and that’s what we are concerned about.”
Ritsema’s comments come as concerns over protesters from separate groups surfaced Monday night.
Following this, Thomas gave her presentation over the weekend protest activity, as well as the response for KDPS. The matters concerned the Saturday protests in particular.
“We admire those who want their voices her and respect everyone’s right to peacefully protest,” Thomas said. “When we began planning that day for the overall strategy to manage large crowds and the protests, which we had anticipated, our goal was to provide security for protesters and associate peaceful activities. We went into it knowing that one of the goals was to march in certain streets and locations, and we wanted to provide that security when they wanted to block the streets, we wanted to allow that to occur as well as movements of the protesters.”
Thomas added that the intentions of the department were to keep an eye on the proceedings.
“Our intention was to be purposeful about our presence, yet visibly in the background, so as many folks that wanted to gather could, and we would maintain their safety,” Thomas said. “We always worry about large crowds and those wanting to do harm on large crowds, using vehicles or other manners. We really wanted to make sure none of that occurred at either event here.”
Thomas referred to the creation of the Kalamazoo Crowd Management Team that was created around two years ago.
“This is a team that regularly trains to respond to large crowds that uses national best practices in understanding crowd dynamics and responding to events that draw large crowds,” Thomas said. “We’re one of very few trained crowd management teams in the state, and it’s a team of approximately 24 officers. They can respond to different events anywhere from soft clothes up to full protective gear.”
Thomas said that part of the reason for creating such a team was in response to more violent responses to protests across the country at that time.
“We saw a need as people gather to peacefully protest around the country, we had seen many agencies in the media have a line of SWAT officers in full SWAT gear, or officers just spraying pepper spray in order to manage large crowds, and we didn’t want that image for public safety, we wanted another more professional manner to handle large crowds,” Thomas said.
Thomas estimated that Saturday protests drew around 3500-4000 participants, playing clips from the Saturday protests to illustrate the size of the crowd.
“At approximately 7 p.m. in one area of the crowd after they had marched, they had stopped on Michigan Avenue near the [Kalamazoo] Mall,” Thomas said. “In one area of the crowd, two KDPS cruisers with Public Safety Officers inside were surrounded by a very vocal and emotional group of protesters. There was an increasing level of agitation with that group.”
As a result of being surrounded, Thomas says the officers asked for assistance in getting away from the crowd.
“The officers relayed their situation back to the officers in command asking for assistance to get out of that crowd; it was during that situation that the Crowd Management Team was called to extract the officers,” Thomas said. “We had hoped to extract the police cruisers also, because what we’ve seen in other locations is that if you leave a police cruiser, they become a target. Often people will light them on fire, turn them over, but our main goal was to extract the officers and hopefully those cruisers.”
The Crowd Management Team was called in for the task, and Thomas played clips from a protester point of view of the cruisers.
Thomas noted that other protesters were probably unaware of the situation, as there was such a large number.
“The Crowd Management Team responded to the scene in two vans on the east side of the crowd where officers were trapped,” Thomas said. “They were in fully marked protective equipment, called riot gear by some, and upon their arrival and exiting the vehicle and forming the line, the crowd shifted their focus away from those enveloped officers, allowing KDPS to extract both the officers and the cruisers.”
The idea of changing the focus of the crowd was intentional.
“One of the techniques is to shift the attention of the crowd away from what’s causing agitation,’ Thomas said. “One the team arrived and lined up, the crowd shifted to see what that was and we were able to get those cruisers and officers out. Our goal also was to get the protesters moving again so that we could move. When two large crowds stay in one location and then get bored, that’s when we tend to see acts happen that we don’t want to see. Upon arrival, they formed a line, and those vehicles were able to exit, but the crowd quickly survived that crowd management team. Once the vehicles were out, the crowd management team was told to exit the area also. We only brought the team in to handle that situation, and then have them exit and go back to their staging area.”
Thomas said they were only active for about 12 minutes of the whole day. The rest of the day was handled by KDPS officers, but Thomas acknowledges that there may have been a misunderstanding to the department’s intentions.
“I fully understand that the sight of officers in riot gear was shocking and traumatizing, especially to those that were protesting peacefully and fully unaware of what was occurring in a different portion of that protest, and I’m sure that crowd didn’t know what was happening at the other end.” Thomas said. “Our intent was never to increase the agitation of the crowd, it wasn’t to get the crowd riled up, it was to allow the extraction of the officers and to move the crowd. I really do want to apologize if anyone thought our motives and actions were different.”
Thomas said the protests remained mostly peaceful, pointing out that there were no injuries to any protesters or officers alike, along with no arrests during the entire day.
“I’m really thankful for that because this was a peaceful protest, but there were portions and times when it became a volatile situation,” Thomas said. “This was only utilized when necessary, and it was withdrawn when the situation was handled.”
Thomas confirmed that there were snipers posted on the top of a building, but this was done in case counter-protesters showed up. The snipers were there to verify if they were arriving or not.
Thomas is hopeful that any further protests are able to remain peaceful, as reports begin to surface of crowd instigators.
“It’s my responsibility to ensure the safety of all of those involved, for the protesters and the officers,” Thomas said. “That lies on my shoulders for this entire city, and I take that very, very seriously. In other cities, we’ve seen instigators come to scheduled protest events and make it something it’s not intended to be. We have credible intelligence that that may occur here in Kalamazoo, which means that KDPS may have to respond to a level to maintain safety for all. That may include, somewhere down the road, pepper spray or tear gas or curfews, and all of those will only be used as a last resort, and only when absolutely necessary. We don’t want outside agitators creating a situation of something that is supposed to speak and allow everyone to have their voices her.”
Vice Mayor Patrese Griffin added that she had previously asked questions about the tactics employed, owing to Thomas’ testimony, adding that large-scale changes will not happen overnight.
“We need to make sure that no officers are on the necks of anybody in this community, that’s what I’m interested in,” Griffin said. “No one’s perfect, no department is perfect, no systems are perfect, we got that, we’re clear on that. But what are we going to do for Kalamazoo to make sure that doesn’t happen?”
Griffin added that transparency is key to change.
“I’m interested in transparency, I’m interested in letting the community know what their procedures are, I’m interested in wanting to know what officers, what their rates are as far as violent behaviors,” Griffin said. “Are there patterns of violent behavior, is there something we can do with that? That’s what I’m interested in [with] actual system change, and I know there are folks out there in the community that are interested in that, so I’m hoping that you stay on that with us.”
The full city meeting can be viewed online at the City of Kalamazoo Youtube page.
