Grand Rapids Police Department officers handcuffed an 11-year-old black girl while pursuing a middle-aged white suspect.
Body camera footage released by the Grand Rapids Police Department show police officers pointing a gun at 11-year-old Honestie Hodges, before handcuffing the young girl and placing her in a police cruiser.
Police had been looking for Hodges 40-year-old Caucasian aunt, who was a suspect in stabbing before detaining the young girl. Grand Rapids Police Department Chief David Rahinsky said the footage made him sick.
“Listening to the 11-year-old’s response makes my stomach turn. It makes me physically nauseous. To say anything less than that would be insincere.”
Rahinsky added that the officers’ conduct was inappropriate for an 11-year-old girl.
“That is someone who lives in Grand Rapids that is someone who should feel safe running to an officer and not have her response be anything other than reassuring.”
The Grand Rapids Police Department faced similar criticism last April when officers ordered five young African-American youths to the ground at gunpoint as one cried uncontrollably. Those youths were detained and then released without charges.
After an independent traffic report concluded that Grand Rapids Police were twice as likely to pull over black drivers, the Department responded to accusations of racial bias by hiring consulting group 21st Century Policing to review the police department’s policy and procedures. With this latest incident, Rahinsky says, the department has a ways to go.
“We have work to. We’ve got work to as a profession, we have a work to do as an agency, and we’ve got hard discussions to have as a community.”