Local News Media demonstrates it’s subservience to the GRPD once again regarding the monitoring of immigrants

A week ago, I posted an article entitled, Flock cameras are being used in Kent County and Grand Rapids, but are they being used to get information for Immigration and Customs Enforcement?

The article talks about how Flock cameras are being used gather information in immigrants, specifically taking pictures of license plates. Police Departments are using this technology around the country and sharing the content with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Earlier this week, someone sent GR Rapid Response to ICE research on Flock, demonstrating that the GRPD was also using the technology. They wrote: 

These are logs from the Flock License Plate Reader System that I obtained that show the searches that Grand Rapids Police have used on the system.  It shows the plate searched, the officer that conducted the search, the reason for the search and the time of the search.

In the image above, you can see the data described in the research, with the reasons listed, many of which were Deportation Warrant. This is certainly alarming information and further demonstrates that the GRPD is cooperating with ICE, like the incident at the IASP office last Wednesday.

Despite the damning evidence, the Grand Rapids Police Department put out a statement denying that they were using said technology to obtain images of license plates of immigrants. Here is that statement: 

For Immediate Release

June 6, 2025

Statement on Alleged License Plate Reader Logs

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Please see the following statement from GRPD Chief Eric Winstrom: I want to assure our community that GRPD does not utilize license plate readers (LPRs) to conduct immigration-related investigations. A GRPD officer has been falsely identified on social media as conducting searches related to immigration enforcement actions. We are not the source of this document, and are unable to verify its origin, but can confirm no GRPD officers are using license plate readers to engage in immigration-related activity.

This would be in direct conflict with our policy which states in part: The GRPD is neither responsible for, nor has the authority to, enforce federal civil immigration laws used to detain or remove undocumented immigrants from the United States. This means that the GRPD does not serve as a civil immigration enforcement agency for the federal government. The department does not take on the responsibility of performing immigration functions unrelated to investigating and enforcing criminal violations.

Apparently such a statement was good enough for two local news media outlets, both of which never questioned Chief Winstrom’s statement. MLive and WZZM 13 both ran stories. The channel 13 story was dominated by the GRPD statement, with no verification or challenge to the GRPD narrative. The channel 13 story also included a link to their Foreign National’s Policy, which was developed after the embarrassing incident with Jilmar Ramos Gomez in 2018.

The MLive was a bit more nuanced, with comments from the GRPD and the Kalamazoo Police Department. MLive also included a quote from the person who did the research, stating: “It proves that surveillance technology is prone to abuse without three essential safeguards: stronger privacy protections, complete transparency in its use, and rigorous public oversight.”

So, not only do the news agencies fail to question the validity of the research and data, the continue to trumpet a comment from Chief Winstrom, that the GRPD does not engage in immigration related matters.

Even more disturbing is the fact that the local news agencies that ran stories on this issue didn’t even both to talk to Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE to get their take on this matter. Apparently, Chief Winstrom only speaks truth, so why bother talking to those most impacted by ICE arrests and detentions in Grand Rapids.