GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — An incident in downtown Grand Rapids on Friday night drew concerns on social media over an officer's response. I spoke with the police chief and a witness who captured some of what happened on video.
"We were standing here, on the night Friday,” recalls Daunte Travis. “Here we had a little commotion after the club had let out here."
Video shows the scene of the incident near Commerce and Oakes.
"They started chasing people down the street. It was a horrible scene," says Travis, who says he saw the whole thing, adding people were pepper sprayed. He tells me he saw one fight break out.
"It was unnecessary roughness from the police,” says Travis. “This is what we deal with, this type of morality in Grand Rapids with the GRPD."
Travis says the video he captured shows a calm crowd before police arrived. It was around 2:20 a.m., and the bars had just let out.
Later in the video, police are later seen taking out what officers say are pepper ball guns, which were fired at the ground to disperse the crowd.
"It's just got me shaken,” says Travis. “GRPD, they do what they want to do when they want to do it."
Travis says he feels the whole incident is racially motivated.
I asked Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Winstrom about that night.
"I've spoken to African American leaders in the community, and the response I’ve gotten is completely different," says Chief Winstrom.
Winstrom says videos posted to social media don't show the full story. He shared body camera video with FOX 17, saying it shows repeated fighting from multiple groups of people.
Watch the full video below. FOX 17 has chosen to mute the audio due to the potential presence of foul language.
"Police officers responded in, broke up the fights as they could, tried to move cars along. Eventually they got the situation under control. Thankful for that — as we've seen violent incidents downtown — that there were no serious injuries."
Winstrom says officers showed restraint, explaining things could have been worse.
"In July of ‘22, we had four individuals shot down at a similar event at César E. Chávez. In September of ’22, we had four individuals shot at the Blue Bridge at a similar pop-up party. Back in September of ‘23, Alana Vasquez was murdered at an intersection takeover,” Winstrom recalls. “We've seen the potential for gun violence."
Winstrom says five individuals were arrested for things like assault and failure to obey a lawful command from an officer.
"I had officers breaking up so many fights, they ran out of spray," he says.
Travis says police were heavy-handed.
"They came out here like it was a riot, like we were doing something wrong," says Travis.
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