The Stop the Violence, Keep the Peace, Unity Walk in Grand Rapids normalizes structural violence with the GRPD as a cosponsor

This coming Saturday from 11 – 2pm, a coalition of groups is hosting what they are calling a Stop the Violence, Keep the Peace Unity Walk at Rosa Parks Circle.

The description for this event is as follows:

STOP THE HATE: Grand Rapids, It’s Time to Change the Narrative Grand Rapids and Surrounding Cities: Your Voice is the Catalyst for Change.Tired of the headlines? Ready to move past the ‘new norm’ of division, rising vehicle thefts, violent offenses, and the systemic challenges that pull our youth out of the community? The time for dialogue is over—the time for action and unity is now.

The narrative sounds positive, but how exactly are people going to stop the violence and keep the peace when the Grand Rapids Police Department (GRPD) is a cosponsor of the event?

The GRPD rarely ever prevents crime from happening, since they primarily show up after some form of violence has occurred. From my 12 month local news monitoring project 2024, of the 673 stories that centered around crime, there were only 11 stories about the GRPD actually preventing crime, which means in most of the stories the GRPD showed up after a crime had been committed.

In addition, the GRPD have a long track record of targeting Black and Brown neighborhoods, often engaging in surveillance, intimidation, assault and racial profiling. For those that were paying attention to the trial of the former GRPD cop who, during a routine traffic violation, shot and killed Patrick Lyoya in the back of the head while sitting on top of him. We now know that the former GRPD cop suffered no consequences as there was a mistrial and even the Kent County Prosecutor said he would not re-try the case. How it is that the GRPD can kill a Black man, an unarmed Black man, and still suffer no consequences?

What a great deal of research shows is that when Black and Brown communities have their needs met economically, crime reduces. We know that what actually brings peace and safety is safe, accessible, quality, and stable housing, well-funded public schools and other public institutions like libraries and cultural centers, accessible and quality health care for all, including community-based, non-coercive mental health services, and ending the criminalization of unmet mental health needs and drug use. Additionally, many communities are already relying on non-police intervention and violence prevention programs that we know to be both effective and highly under-resourced compared to police. Interrupting Criminalization produced an excellent report entitled Cops Don’t Stop Violence, which deconstructs the whole notion of crime, how crime data is misused to serve policing interests and how police consistently engage in their own crimes against people they stop, detain and arrest.

The report is well researched and full of data, that is presented in a very readable fashion. The report concludes with the following statement:

It’s time to recognize that decades of pouring more money, resources, and legitimacy into policing in an effort to increase safety have failed — because policing is functioning as it is intended to: to contain, control, and criminalize Black and Brown communities rather than to prevent and reduce violence. It’s time to invest in meeting community needs and building non-police community safety strategies. It’s time to invest in just recovery.

Now if you look at the 2026 Grand Rapids City Budget for FY2026, you see that there is over $70 million allocated for the GRPD. If $70 million of public tax dollars was used to make sure that Black and Brown neighborhoods had all of their needs met, the GRPD would be obsolete. This gets to the issue of structural violence, which the police do not address. For instance if everyone made a living wage, there would be little to no crime.

Instead, the GRPD will have a platform at this march and rally, along with people like Johnny Brann, the founder of Voice for the Badge, which is nothing more than a cheerleader for the GRPD.

I salute the groups like Mothers on a Mission, but we can’t keep inviting cops to peace events, not talk about structural and systemic violence and then expect different results.