Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker determined that the GRPD was justified in shooting an unarmed Black man 7 times

On Friday, all four of the daily news agencies in Grand Rapids ran stories about a Press Conference held by Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker, where Becker announced that the GRPD cops ,who shot a killed a man who was clearly struggling with mental health issues, were justified in using deadly force.

According to MLive, during the Press Conference, Becker stated:

“In reviewing the in-car video of (the first officer on scene), it would appear to any reasonable person that Mr. Wymer had a gun. … The lighter he held closely resembled a gun; it would be virtually impossible for any person to think it was a lighter when viewing it at night, from a distance, and in the way Mr. Wymer was using it. Every police officer, EMS workers, and civilian who saw Mr. Wymer that night clearly believed he had a gun.”

In the WOODTV8 coverage, Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker further explained his decision in finding the GRPD cops justified in what they did, saying:

“People have a right to use deadly force in the defense of others,” Becker said. “It doesn’t matter that the people who actually were maybe in the danger — as the person perceived it — didn’t fire. You still have a right to use immediately deadly force when you perceive that it may be necessary to protect the lives of others, and that’s what these three officers were doing. They thought their fellow officer (was) in danger. …. One of the officers said, ‘He’s pointing the gun at me.’ And so they reacted at that point in time.”

I highlighted some of the rhetoric from Chris Becker in this statements, mostly to point out the absurdity of his claims. He uses terms like “reasonable person” and “virtually impossible” as if they were absolutes, when in fact there was nothing absolutely about this situation. The GRPD was primarily interested in protecting themselves and demonstrated zero concern for the man they shot seven times.

The Kent County Prosecutor was also quoted at the end of the MLive story, making an absurd comment, which was unquestioned by the reporter: 

Becker said that events unfolded so quickly that it would have been difficult to de-escalate. Grand Rapids police work with social workers to help those having a mental-health crisis but “social workers aren’t trained to go in harm’s way like a police officer does,” he said.

Chris Becker wants us all to believe that there was no opportunity for de-escalation in this instance, but that is just plain false. The cops could have decided to stand down and allowed time for mental health workers to arrive, especially since the man they shot and killed a a history of with mental health issues. The cops could have stayed behind their cars if they feared for their life, but according to Becker there just wasn’t enough time. This is bullshit, since time was the most important aspect of this situation.

To their credit, both WXMI 17 and WOODTV8 did contact a family member of the man that was killed by the GRPD, allowing them an opportunity to respond. In the WXMI 17 coverage, a sister stated:

“I was very disappointed that it turned out he [Hank Wymer] did not have a gun and that it was a cigarette lighter and for them to say that it looked enough like a handgun to shoot him seven times,” Naomi said. “That just seems crazy to me.

“I think this has left us with a lot more questions, particularly the hospital that he was released from that day. [Hank] told them that he was going to commit suicide by cop, so why was he released?

Naomi would go on to say, “I would like to seek some legal action and fight this because it doesn’t seem right to me.”

“I didn’t expect [the officers who shot Mr. Wymer] would go to jail, but I thought there would be some kind of repercussion for killing a man who didn’t have a weapon.”

In the WOODTV8 story, the same sister said, “I think based on the phone calls of what he was doing, pacing around and waving a gun-like object, made it clear that he was in a mental health crisis.So it is really strange to me that they didn’t send some kind of mental health crisis team, that they didn’t ask him any questions, that they literally said drop it over and over when he said “shoot me.”

It is clear to this writer that the GRPD does not keep people safe, especially BIPOC people and other marginalized communities, along with those that are struggling with mental health issues. The GRPD’s first impulse was to protect themselves and to ignore someone that was clearly in distress.

So what do we do and how can we organize in such a way as to provide community care, especially during a crisis? First, we need to do no harm in these situations and stop calling the cops. The group Interrupting Criminalization has a great list of for Health Care providers in a document titled, Beyond Do No Harm. Principle #5 says, Stop calling police on people with unmet mental health or medical needs. 

In addition, Interrupting Criminalization has an excellent document called, A Checklist for Assessing Mental Health Response Models. This checklist provides important and robust questions about what we in community need to think about regarding response for those having a mental health crisis and why it is important to not do this work with the GRPD or any other cops. 

To people who have not bought into the copaganda, this situation could clearly have been dealt with differently, especially if mental health workers were involved. However, the Kent County Prosecutor demonstrated his loyalty to the carceral state, by protecting the cops who killed an unarmed man. As long as the City of Grand Rapids continues to provide massive budget amounts to the cops instead of investing in care, this scenario will be repeated over and over again. The system once again demonstrates that blue lives do matter more than Black Lives.