The reality is, “Young unarmed nonsuicidal male victims of fatal use of force are 13 times more likely to be Black than White” (Schimmack & Carlsson, 2021). Police brutality is a public health issue. A disease doesn’t have to manifest in a viral form for it to plague a nation.

I am an undergraduate student at Michigan State University (MSU) interested in policy and public health, and international affairs. In order to apply my interest in research, I met a professor who had an idea to examine how the policies of different police departments impact the police related mortality. This work was unprecedented in our State of Michigan and our findings could have a major impact on how policies are used to curb police brutality.

When we began looking for all Michigan use of force policies at the county level, we found only 3 of 83 policies online, two of which were posted on the respective department websites. We know controlling policy impacts police behavior, so the lack of data, notably data that is easily accessible to us, was concerning. This created the necessity to re-shift our focus to highlight the (lack of) transparency of our institutions with their administrations, and we have expanded to sample more Michigan cities as well.

With the necessity to share these telling results and highlight my student work, I submitted my research to MSU’s Undergraduate Research Fair and ended up winning first place in the Epidemiology and Biostatistics department. However, shortly after winning this award, I was sadly reminded of the impact these policies have. In the case of Patrick Lyoya, he was shot by Grand Rapids police during a traffic stop. Patrick Lyoya should be alive today and with his two children, and if policies can make a difference, we must start now.

Grand Rapids is one of the most populous cities in Michigan, and was one of the sampled cities that happened to have their use of force policy posted on their website. The following is a sample of their goals:

“1. Use only a reasonable amount of force to conduct law enforcement activities.

2. Use only a reasonable amount of force to save lives, overcome resistance, maintain an advantage, and protect property.

3. Use deadly force only to defend themselves, another officer, or another person against a reasonable threat of death or serious bodily injury; or to prevent the escape of a subject who is fleeing from an inherently violent felony crime, when the officer has probable cause to believe the subject poses a reasonable threat of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or others.”

In the case of Patrick Lyoya, which one of these goals was met? It is vague guidelines such as “reasonable amount of force” that are left to interpretation, that leave room for exploitation. Furthermore, the situation was never at an escalated point to remotely justify using deadly force for “defence” - Patrick Lyoya was walking away when he was murdered.

Transparent policing is a major step towards equitable policing and accountability. However, when policies are not practiced, this brings up a potential issue of departments being purely performative with their transparency.

In the case of Grand Rapids, is the transparency of this department purely performative?