CITIZENS SPEAK OUT AGAINST POLICE HARASSMENT

Group calls for creation of police-review board to curb incidents of
unfairness.

Arnetta Grable traveled from Detroit to share the story of how her
20-year-old son, who had no criminal record, was killed in 1996 by a Detroit
police officer after being pulled over for "suspicious circumstances."

Lucas Campbell came from Parchment to say that teen-agers of any color are
the targets of police harassment in that city.

Former Kalamazoo police officer Franklin Thompson came to say he was
disgusted that city administrators were not "standing up" to quickly resolve
questions of police brutality in the city. Thompson was referring to
lawsuits against the city in which more than 20 men have claimed since
September that they were mistreated by Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety
officers and in the city jail.

The three were among more than a dozen who spoke at the Kalamazoo YWCA
Saturday in a "Community Speak-Out Against Police Brutality." Twenty-five
people attended the event, sponsored by the Black Autonomy Network of
Community Organizers.

JoNina Abron, a Western Michigan University journalism professor and Midwest
regional facilitator for BANCO, said the issue of police brutality and
racial profiling in Kalamazoo came to a head in the case of Beryl Wilson.
Wilson, charged with interfering with an officer, went on trial in district
court Friday.

Wilson was arrested by Kalamazoo Public Safety officers in September after
being stopped for an allegedly faulty light on his car. After being
arrested, he has said, he was stripped and forced to spend eight hours naked
in the city jail.

"It is clear from the people we heard speak today that police brutality is
not limited to the city jail," Abron said. "We heard solid evidence that we
have a serious problem."

Kalamazoo Public Safety Chief Gary Hetrick said his department had not sent
a representative to the speak-out because of scheduling conflicts. Hetrick
said he recently met with Alexander Lipsey, president of the Kalamazoo
chapter of the NAACP, and several ministers from the city's Northside
Ministerial Alliance to discuss the problem.

"This is a national issue that is going on in our country today," Hetrick
said. "We are working together on some joint measures in this area."

Abron said Wilson and the other black men allegedly abused in the city jail
are victims of racial profiling, a police practice that illegally targets
nonwhite motorists as likely drug offenders.

She cited a 1999 report by the American Civil Liberties Union, "Driving
While Black: Racial Profiling on our Nation's Highways," that links the
1980s war on drugs to the disproportionate number of people of color pulled
over, arrested and convicted on drug charges.

The study concluded that even though blacks make up only 13 percent of
America's drug users, they account for 37 percent of those arrested on drug
charges, 55 percent of those convicted and 74 percent of all drug offenders
sentenced to prison.

Abron said the city needs to create a citizen-elected police-control board
to curb the problem.

"Police brutality is a symptom of the economic and social problems that
disproportionately affect people of color in the United States," she said.
"The role of the police is to keep the peace, and in order to do this, they
must commit acts of brutality.

"Laws are consistently changed, overlooked and ignored in order to pardon
police officers who kill or abuse people," she said. "The police must be
held accountable for their actions and live up to the laws they are supposed
to enforce."

Kalamazoo Attorney Fred Royce, who represents 22 individuals claiming to be
victims of police brutality in the city, told those at the "Speak-Out"
meeting that he supports the control-board idea.

"Accountability comes when you start to point out evil," Royce said. "People
are gathering to point their fingers, ask what is wrong, and say what we can
do to change that."

Dale Hyatt, a member of the Kalamazoo Community Relations Board and chief of
the Southeastern Cherokee Council, said the key to problems with racism lies
in individual hearts. People need to look within and cast out any hatred
they have for others, he said.

"Then we can build a stronger community for everyone," Hyatt said. "The only
way to make our lives better is to stand together as one group of people.
People are oppressed all over."

An organizational meeting for a Southwest Michigan Coalition against Racism
and Police Brutality is scheduled for 2 p.m. March 18 at the Powell Library,
1000 Patterson, Kalamazoo.