GRPD Chief Winstrom engages in a little Copaganda and the local news media never questions it

Last week, WXMI 17 posted a story after they submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the City of Grand Rapids regarding the cost of providing the police department to protect the Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, when he spoke in town back in July. According to the Fox 17 story, the cost of having the GRPD protect the Trump event was $69,000.00.

Unfortunately, the Fox 17 story did not center on the cost of having the GRPD provide protection for the presidential candidate. Instead, the story provided a platform for Chief Winstrom to make claims that the channel 17 reporter did not question or verify. Here are some of Winstrom’s comments: 

“We have a strong law enforcement community here, and everybody stepped up and helped out, and we were able to properly staff the event.” 

“We had about 30,000 total visitors. We had a line that stretched over a mile and a half,” Winstrom said. “What we knew was that it’s our job to keep everybody in the city safe.”

While these sentiments from Chief Winstrom sound nice, they are simply well crafted responses to give the appearance that the GRPD exit to keep people safe, when in fact they do not. 

According to a report the group Interrupting Criminalization, entitled, Cops Don’t Stop Violence:

Addressing rising rates of violence requires deep investments in meeting our communities’ economic and social needs and in community-based violence prevention and interruption programs — NOT more policing. The bottom line is that police don’t stop violence, no matter how high their budgets are. It’s time to stop falling for cops’ fearmongering and throwing good money after bad in pursuit of safety cops are not set up to deliver. 

We know that prisons and police don’t keep us safe or deter violence — and that they contribute tremendous amounts of violence to our communities. We know that research shows — and even some cops agree — that the best way to reduce violence and increase safety is to increase access to housing, healthcare, including mental health care, education, accessible, sustainable and living wage jobs, and community care, connection, and programs. It is this knowledge that is informing and driving campaigns to defund police and invest in community safety — because we know that is the only path forward toward safer, more just communities.

Since January 1st, I have been tracking news stories on public safety in Grand Rapids. From the beginning of the year through August 27th, there have been 360 stories that center the GRPD. Of those 360 stories, there were only 11 stories where the GRPD actually prevented violence. In the other 349 stories, the GRPD showed up after violence/harm had already been done. 

The data I have been collecting on local news coverage clearly demonstrates that despite Chief Winstrom’s claim that the GRPD protects people, the exact opposite happens, unless of course you are a Presidential candidate speaking in Grand Rapids.