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Legal advocacy groups call for GRPD to be investigated for racial profiling

The ACLU and Michigan Immigrant Rights Center published their formal complaints Tuesday regarding two separate incidents involving GRPD.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Two advocacy groups are calling on the Michigan Department of Civil Rights (MDCR) to investigate whether Grand Rapids police officers racially profiled a  war veteran and two teenagers.  

"Two basic things we expect of police," said ACLU Michigan staff attorney Miriam Aukerman on Tuesday. "One is to treat everyone fairly: you should not be treated differently based on how you look, how you talk or where you are from. The other thing we expect, I think, is that if the police do something wrong, they take responsibility for it."

Aukerman and Michigan Immigrant Rights Center staff attorney Hillary Scholten held a press conference Tuesday to address the two incidents. 

In November 2018, Jilmar Ramos-Gomez, 27, was arrested after gaining access to the helipad at Spectrum Butterworth Hospital. GRPD Captain Curt VanderKooi had been off work the day Ramos-Gomez, a former Marine, had been arrested, but he saw the story on the news that night. After seeing the story, VanderKooi emailed a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent to check Ramos-Gomez's legal status. GRPD said VanderKooi had no knowledge of the passport and ID that were found on Ramos- Gomez's person, upon his arrest. 

Read more: Kent County Sheriff announces changes to detention process after U.S. citizen was mistakenly held for deportation

The email correspondence between VanderKooi and ICE, which GRPD has deemed unprofessional in part, led to the eventual detainment of Ramos-Gomez, a legal U.S. citizen, by immigration officers. GRPD Interim Chief David Kiddle said that contacting federal authorities was not routine for his department, but that VanderKooi had done so out of concern for the threat to federal airspace. 

"We [filed Freedom of Information Acts for] only the last two years, and we have almost 89 instances of back and forth between Capt. VanderKooi and Immigration and Customs Enforcement," Scholten said on Tuesday.

"There's just a free flow of information in all kinds of cases, not just exceptional circumstances as the GRPD previously stated." 

On Friday, April 26, GRPD reinstated VanderKooi after nearly two months of administrative leave, and exonerated him of any wrongdoing. The initial Internal Affairs Unit (IAU) investigation was reopened in late February to review VanderKooi's email correspondences with ICE agents, and VanderKooi was subsequently placed on leave. 

Internal Affairs Unit report February 2019

Internal Affairs Unit report April 2019

Investigators wrote in the most recent report that 26 of the 87 correspondences between ICE and the Captain were initiated by VanderKooi. The IAU found that VanderKooi's inquiries and referrals to ICE from 2019 to 2017 were all justified. 

As captain of the Investigations Division, VanderKooi was previously in charge of the U-visa program, which provides protections for illegal immigrants who have been victims to certain violent crimes. 

The second IAU report reads in part: "These individuals' names were not referred to ICE, despite Captain VanderKooi's knowledge they were illegal aliens. They were not referred because they had not committed crimes and were not a danger to the public." 

Kiddle wrote in a statement that during the IAU investigation, the department found that the U-Visa program would be better suited for the records unit, who handles all other applications. 

"Our department is sensitive to the nature of citizenship status and we remain committed to developing a new policy that clearly defines expectations for how our officers interact with federal authorities, including ICE. The policy is expected to be completed in the near future," Kiddle wrote. 

The ACLU and MIRC have appealed GRPD's decision to reinstate VanderKooi, and they will go before the appeals board on May 15 at 4 p.m. at Grand Rapids City Hall. 

The second incident that the two groups are calling on the MDCR to investigate pertains to the stopping of two Latino teenagers. 

On March 11, two teenagers were walking in the middle of the street, when an officer pulled up and asked them to move to the sidewalk. The situation escalated to the point of the officer calling for emergency backup when the boys did not comply, and eventually the officer pulled his gun on the two boys. 

GRPD released body camera video shortly after the incident, and the officers involved were commended for their handling of the situation. 

The ACLU and MIRC said this was an instance of racial profiling that would not have happened in a different part of town. 

"Instead of recognizing that the officer had unnecessarily escalated the situation and violated the Youth Interaction Policy, the GRPD praised the interaction as a 'textbook example of how we expect our officers to conduct themselves,'" Aukerman said. "What I see, is an interaction that would never have happened in a wealthy white neighborhood." 

A spokeswomen for the MDCR said their office received "a lot of information" from the ACLU and will need time to process it, as well as, the testimonies from two public hearings held last month. She said they hope to announce their next steps in the coming weeks. 

► Emma Nicolas is a multimedia journalist. Have a news tip or question for Emma? Get in touch by email, Facebook or Twitter.

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