A number of people gathered outside Grand Rapids city hall before the City Commissioners meeting Tuesday evening to ‘pray for change' in response to five African-American youths who were ordered to the ground by Grand Rapids Police officers at gunpoint. Police had mistakenly identified one of the children as a suspect with a gun before releasing the boys without charges.
“We’re praying for the good of our city," Rev. Stedford Sims, the grandfather of one of the youths said. "I grew up in Grand Rapids, this is a wonderful place to live. But we cannot ignore the challenges that we have. And one of the challenges that we have in America and Grand Rapids is the fact that children of color have to watch out for harm to their bodies every time they walk out of the door. And that is just not right,” he said.
Video obtained from body cameras worn by the police officers has since gone viral. In the video one of the children cries uncontrollably as police point a gun at him. The boys’ mother Jarquetta Sims says seeing her children traumatized was one of her worst nightmares.
“Of course it broke my heart," Sims said. "We keep our kids busy so we wouldn’t have to deal with things like this. Being a black mother, being black parents, that’s one of our biggest fears is what happened to them.”
While Grand Rapids Police Chief David Rahinsky told the city commission the officers were following protocol and did nothing wrong, the police department has come under scrutiny in the past few weeks—an independent traffic study released last month found that Grand Rapids police officers are twice as likely to pull over black drivers over non-black drivers.
Rahinsky apologized to the parents of the children on behalf of the police officers involved.
