Human Rights Commission calls for AAPD accountability

SAM SO / DAILY
Ann Arbor residents gather at the Human Rights Commission meeting to discuss the formation of a review board for the AAPD at Ann Arbor City Hall January 10, 2018.

Seventy Ann Arbor residents 
called for increased accountability 
and transparency from the Ann 
Arbor Police Department at the Ann 
Arbor Human Rights Commission 
Wednesday. This comes after several 
local incidents of police brutality, 
and institutional responses many 
residents view as insufficient.
Because of the unprecedented 
number of residents in attendance, 
a member of the fire department 
stopped by on an anonymous tip to 
move the HRC to the City Council 
Workroom. 
Participants 
carried 
signs with slogans such as “Civilian 
Police Review Now!” and “No false 
solutions.”
Difficulties with relations between 
the AAPD and the Ann Arbor 
community erupted in 2014 when an 
AAPD officer shot and killed 40-year-

old Aura Rosser, a Black woman, after 
the officer claimed Rosser had moved 
towards him with a knife. 
Rosser’s death was not the only 
example of the AAPD’s questionable 
use of force. Since Rosser’s death, 
numerous incidents such as the 
violent arrest of Ciaeem Slaton at 
the Blake Transit Center, the rough 
handling of University of Michigan 
student Dyshon Toxey and alleged 
mistreatment 
of 
several 
Black 
students during tailgates have led 
residents to question whether these 
are issues of race and how the AAPD 
can be held accountable for their 
actions.
Residents have reacted to the 
tenuous relationship between the 
police and citizens through various 
protests and initiatives calling for 
a new way of policing the AAPD. 
While the Ann Arbor City Council 
initially responded to the uproar in 
early 2017 by approving a $200,000 

contract with a consulting firm, 
Hillard Heintze LLC, many residents 
considered the unsatisfying, and even 
counteractive. 
Long-time Ann Arbor resident 
Shirley Beckley expressed frustration 
with the long-standing impasse in 
relations with AAPD.
“This is not a problem we should 
still be struggling with,” she said. “We 
should not still be struggling with 
issues from the 1970s.”
She addressed City Administrator 
Howard Lazarus later in the meeting.
“I don’t trust you,” she stated. “I 
don’t trust the police. No one has 
apologized for killing Aura Rosser. 
Not yet. But you ask us to trust you. 
Trust is earned.”
Transforming Justice Washtenaw, 
a group that advocates for restorative 
alternatives 
to 
policing 
and 
incarceration, opened the HRC 
meeting with members Lori Saginaw 
and Julie Quiroz reading a statement 

they sent to the mayor, City Council, 
city administrator and HRC prior 
to the meeting. The statement 
requested the formation of a Civilian 
Police Review Board instead of the 
“Co-Produced Policing Committee” 
the city is pursuing. 
“We call on the Ann Arbor City 
Council to take immediate steps 
directing the city administrator 
to put in place a Civilian Police 
Review Board that is independent, 
transparent, 
representative 
and 
adequately funded, based on the 
specific features outlined below. This 
CPRB should be in place no later than 
January 2019,” Saginaw said.
Several HRC members, including 
Dwight Wilson, shared a sense of 
urgency.
“We need to stop dancing around 
and just do this. We have all kinds 
of people telling us to do it, and even 
if we didn’t, common sense should 
tell us that we need to protect the 

citizens,” Wilson said.
The HRC formally proposed a 
CPRB a year after Rosser’s death in 
2015, and again with a unanimous 
statement in July 2016. AAPD chief 
Jim Baird, on the other hand, blasted 
the idea in the summer of 2016, 
arguing 
implementing 
oversight 
before a third-party review would be 
too hasty. 
“Because the commission’s report 
blends the national discussion with 
the Rosser incident, I have concern 
that there may be an appetite to 
address national issues and concerns 
with local policy,” Baird wrote 
in a memo. “To presume that the 
Ann Arbor Police Department’s 
practices are not ‘positive’ and that 
a review board is the best way to 
‘ensure future adherence’ absent 
any supporting reference is ill 
advised...(civilian oversight) becomes 
a mechanism for people who are 
sometimes 
disenchanted 
with 

police departments to become more 
disenchanted, because all they see is 
the problem.”
Throughout the meeting residents 
emphasized the importance of a 
review board comprised of residents 
rather than the Hillard Heinze 
proposed 
Co-Produced 
Policing, 
which would include commissioners, 
policemen and council members.
Similarly, 
residents 
expressed 
doubt regarding the effectivity of a 
CPPC. The CPPC cannot conduct 
investigations and can only review 
from outside investigations via the 
AAPD’s Office of Internal Affairs, 
working as a third-party liaison 
between the public and the police. 
The residents argued a Civilian Police 
Review Board would take a more 
direct approach.

GRACE KAY
Daily Staff Reporter

Teen arrested at Blake Transit 
Center, sparks local uproar

Family seeking an apology 
after a 16-year-old Black boy was 
arrested at the Blake Transit 
Center Tuesday night. The incident 
was first reported in a press release 
from the Collective Against White 
Supremacy.
The press release detailed an 
incident where Ciaeem Slaton, a 
student at Pathways to Success 
Academic Campus in Ann Arbor, 
was reportedly confronted by an 
Ann Arbor Police Department 
officer while waiting for a bus. 
The officer, who is also Black, 
demanded to see Slaton and his 
friends’ school ID cards, though 
they had not received their physical 
IDs from the school yet. After 
the initial encounter, the officer 
reportedly dragged Slaton by his 
backpack into the station.
An accompanying video shows 
Slaton being arrested while other 
teens tell Slaton to comply with the 
arrest.
“The officer drew his taser 
which appears to be pointed at 
Slaton,” the press release read. 
“After the video, Ciaeem was given 
a ‘trespass’ charge, which means 
he is not allowed to use the Ann 
Arbor or Ypsilanti busses or be at 
the bus station for an entire year.”
Slaton was released from police 
custody while still at the bus 
station.
The Slaton family is asking for an 
apology from AAPD and the officer 
in question for the arrest. They are 
also asking for compensation for 
Slaton’s reported physical injuries 
and for his charges to be dropped. 

According to the release, Slaton 
needs to use the bus system to get 
to school — as a result, the Slaton 
family sees the trespass charge as 
unfair to his education.
According to MLive, Jim Baird, 
the Ann Arbor Police Chief, wrote 
an email to Ann Arbor City Council 
and explained the video footage 
took place before the arrival of 
additional police officers.
“Any use of force by Ann Arbor 
Police 
Department 
personnel 
receives a review at three levels 
in the organization,” he wrote. 
“In addition, because some of 
the inquiries I received could be 
characterized as complaints, a 
personnel complaint has been 
initiated and will be investigated 
by our professional standards 
section.”
Anna Lemler, a University alum 
and organizer with Collective 
Against White Supremacy, said 
CAWS has reached out to Slaton’s 
mother for support; they have 
offered to help with grocery 
shopping, contacting media outlets 
and raising funds for legal costs. 
Lemler said there were officers 
stationed in the area surrounding 
the Transit Center to respond 
to a fight that happened earlier. 
Lemler said she thinks that is why 
there was a larger police presence, 
though she believes there are 
usually one or two AAPD cops 
stationed there that are hired by 
the Transit Center.
“It sounds like there was some 
high energy because of that fight 
and so he got there for a different 
reason, to take the bus home, and 
the cop said, ‘You need to leave,’” 
she said. “So he started to walk 

away from the crowd and the cop 
came up and approached him 
again, and that’s when he asked for 
his ID.”
Lemler 
said 
it 
is 
her 
understanding that because Slaton 
was asked to leave, he was charged 
with trespassing.
“I didn’t understand how he’s 
trespassing as a resident of Ann 
Arbor in a public bus station, 
waiting for a bus to go home, but it’s 
because the officer had said that he 
needed to go, that because he didn’t 
(leave) quick enough or something, 
that’s what the trespass charge is,” 
she said.
She explained because Slaton 
didn’t have his ID, the officer did 
not know that he was a minor.
“Even though he’s a Black 
cop, he is still an individual that, 
by his profession, is trained in 
policies and practices that are 
institutionally racist and target 
youths of color,” she said. “Even 
though he’s Black, doesn’t mean 
this isn’t a part of institutional 
racism. These young people at the 
Transit Center are harassed all the 
time by cops and by security there 
so this is a repeated issue ... Ann 
Arbor is full of white liberalism, 
and I am white, and I think many 
white folks in particular want to 
believe that racism doesn’t exist 
here, but it definitely does.”
Protests against police brutality 
have been prevalent in Ann Arbor 
since the 2014 shooting of Aura 
Rosser. Rosser, a Black woman 
with a mental illness, was killed by 
an Ann Arbor police officer.

MATT HARMON
Daily News Editor

Black students speak out against 
overpolicing in Ann Arbor

University of Michigan student 
Dyshon Toxey doesn’t smile much 
anymore. 
An 
LSA 
senior, 
Toxey 
is 
finishing his degree in cognitive 
science and mathematics, and 
is involved in a number of 
development programs for fellow 
first-generation students. Toxey is 
Black, and said he often took pride 
in his perfectly straight, groomed 
set of teeth to build connections 
in Black circles and beyond — he’s 
known as a community mentor 
with an easygoing demeanor and 
an even easier smile. 
That is, he was until last 
April, when Toxey was detained, 
body slammed and handcuffed 
outside 
Hill 
Auditorium 
for 
alleged disorderly conduct at the 
SpringFest concert headlined by 
Migos.
Toxey recounted event staff 
asking him and his friends — all 
Black students — to fill in the 
front rows of the concert, then 
being asked by security guards 
to leave shortly thereafter. When 
a white Ann Arbor police officer 
attempted 
to 
grab 
ahold 
of 
him, Toxey, who admits he was 
intoxicated, said he panicked. 
“I ran,” he said. “There was 
no one to protect me, no one was 
videotaping. I really was not 
trying to get into an altercation.”
When Toxey came to a stop near 
the Panera on North University 
Avenue, he said the officer threw 
him to the ground and kneed him 
in the back, knocking a tooth out 
and spraining Toxey’s wrist in 

the process. Toxey said he was 
later transported to the University 
Hospital and released hours later, 
with stitches, crutches and a bill 
totaling nearly $7,000 in medical 
fees. The University’s Division of 
Public Security and Safety notes 
the case as closed in its crime 
log. Toxey, the report details, was 
taken to the emergency room for 
“treatment of injuries sustained 
during a fall when he was fleeing.”
Despite 
protests 
from 
his 
parents, Toxey didn’t inquire into 
his record; he wanted to brush the 
incident aside, take his final exams 
and return to his family and home 
in Harlem, New York. He said 
he was never notified about his 
charges again.
“(The cop) kept saying, ‘I told 
you not to run,’ ” Toxey said. “ ‘I 
told you not to run.’ And then I 
never heard anything from them 
again.” 
A few other Black students 
who were present at the concert 
corroborate Toxey’s account, but 
they agree on more than just his 
take on the night’s events. Toxey’s 
fate was not surprising to them. 
The Black community on campus 
and in Ann Arbor, many students 
claim, is more frequently and 
aggressively policed in student 
life than other demographics at 
the University. More stringent 
law 
enforcement, 
then, 
does 
little to close the gap between 
Black students’ lives outside of 
the classroom and mainstream 
perceptions 
of 
the 
glorified 
Michigan experience.
Many lament that few qualifiers 
can 
spare 
Black 
students, 
especially Black men. For all of 

LSA freshman Rashan Gary’s 
acclaim as a highly recruited 
defensive tackle on the football 
team, he said he witnessed similar 
stereotyping while interviewing 
an Ann Arbor Police Department 
officer for a class project on 
community relations. The cop 
said, if he had seen Gary, 6’5” feet 
tall and 287 pounds, on the street 
late at night without context, he’d 
have reason to be scared.
“He was straight up about 
it, that I could be dangerous or 
something,” Gary said.
The suspicion is then often 
institutionalized. As recently as 
two weeks ago, in a carjacking 
case in downtown Ann Arbor, 
AAPD Detective Lt. Matt Lige told 
MLive the suspect was described 
as “a light-skinned black male.” 
The department arrested a white 
17 year old for the crime three days 
later.
Elizabeth 
James, 
program 
associate 
director 
of 
the 
Department 
of 
Afroamerican 
and African Studies, pointed to 
the mistaken identity case as a 
microcosm of larger systemic 
issues 
in 
local 
forces. 
The 
discrepancy in policing, she said, 
is something she’s been aware of 
since she began working in Ann 
Arbor in the early ’90s.
“What do we do with our 
tall men … or our darker men?” 
she asked. “There’s a double 
consciousness for Black students 
that’s always resting on your 
shoulder. Your party’s going to be 
shut down … even when it’s in the 
(Michigan) Union. You’ve got to 
walk more delicately, and you 
have to be twice as good.” 

RIYAH BASHA
Managing News Editor

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Fall 2018 — 1E
ANN ARBOR
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

