Grand Rapids City Manager picks Joe Trigg to be the next Chief of Police, because he is “someone who loves justice?”

It is not surprising that City Manager Mark Washington would chose Joe Trigg to be the next Chief of Police for Grand Rapids.

There were numerous entities that weighed in the choice of Trigg, including the police apologist group Voice for the Badge and the Grand Rapids Businessman page, which has demonstrated over the past year that they love the cops.

The Gerald R. Ford Metro Lodge #97, Fraternal Order of Police also weighed in on the choice, stating on their Facebook page, “We are in great hands. A solid leader who has proven himself worthy of the job. The department and the city of Grand Rapids both win with this selection. Congratulations Chief Trigg!!!”

The City of Grand Rapids released a statement about the new Police Chief, with City Manager Mark Washington stating, “Chief Trigg embodies exactly what our community told us they want in their next police chief — someone who loves justice, who understands that public safety is not achieved by law enforcement alone, but through strong partnerships with the community.”

Washington went on to say:

This is a pivotal moment for policing in Grand Rapids. We need a leader who brings innovative, forward‑thinking approaches to public safety, and who can unite officers, residents and community partners around shared goals. Chief Trigg has shown he can do that. His experience, his compassion and his commitment to justice make him the right person to guide the department into its next chapter.

I agree with City Manager Washington that this is a pivotal moment for Grand Rapids, but for entirely different reasons. For several years now the City of Grand Rapids has lost significant trust in the GRPD, beginning around 2015 and ensuing years where Black children were stopped at gunpoint by GRPD cops, how the GRPD handled the George Floyd protests in 2020, the murder of Patrick Lyoya, Hank Wymer in late 2024 and the most recent GRPD shooting of Da’Quain Johnson in February.

• Joe Trigg has been part of the GRPD through all of this, which means that he has been supportive of and complicit in the GRPD’s practice of:
• Brutalizing Black and Brown residents
• Harassing and intimidating Black and Brown residents
• Adopting a similar PR role to that of Chief Eric Winstrom. Winstrom spoke highly of Joe Trigg, which should also be a concern for people who haven’t bought into the GRPD copaganda.
• Ongoing GRPD cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
• Trigg’s role as Deputy Chief of Police to endorse the County Prosecutor’s decision to not re-charge and try Christopher Schurr for shooting Patrick Lyoya in the back of the head.
• Joe Trigg’s role in the copaganda TV series All Access GRPD, which was a scripted show that made the GRPD out to be saviors of the community.
• Trigg’s role with criminalizing activists and organizers in Grand Rapids.

However, while the selection of Trigg to lead the Grand Rapids Police Department is getting headlines, what we need to understand is that the GRPD, like any police department is an institution that operates out of power, with the constant threat of using deadly force, specifically for the purpose of protecting power and maintaining business as usual.

As Andrea Ritchie and Mariame Kaba say in their book, No More Police: A Case for Abolition:

We want folks to come away with the understanding that police are not producing safety. They are not preventing or interrupting violence. They’re not healing and transforming people from violence. More than half of survivors of violence don’t even turn to the system for help, because of the harms of policing and it doesn’t meet their needs. And police are perpetrating and perpetuating violence, including by stealing all the resources that we need to actually create increased wellbeing in our communities through meeting material needs and having skills ourselves to intervene in and de-escalate and address conflict, and to hold each other accountable. 

Don’t be fooled or lulled into complacency by the decision of the non-elected City Manager to make Joe Trigg the new GRPD Chief. Instead, continue to be vigilant and join in the fight to defund and abolish the GRPD.