Protesters came to Saginaw's city council meeting in droves Monday night after videos surfaced online over the weekend of police officers striking a woman while she was being arrested in the city’s downtown.
Multiple videos show Stephanie Nicole Anderson, 43, being arrested by several Saginaw police officers. The officers can be seen tasing Anderson, forcing her to the ground and then punching her several times while she’s lying face down being detained.
Circumstances that lead to Anderson’s arrest remain unclear. She was arrested on charges of resisting and obstructing a police officer and has not been formally charged by the Saginaw County prosecutor’s office. She was released from jail shortly after the incident.
“When we got her out of jail, she had pus running out of her face,” said Anderson’s mother, Sharon Anderson, who spoke with WCMU ahead of Monday’s city council meeting.
“She's back in the hospital now,” Sharon continued. "Her right eye is messed up. She can't see out of it. It's bad in the back of her face… but she also got a lot of pain going on."
The Saginaw Police Department said in a news release that they're opening their own internal affairs investigation into the use-of-force incident involving its officers. Both the officer and sergeant directly involved in the arrest have been placed on administrative duty, according to the release.
“We have been actively engaging with community leaders to ensure open communication and maintain public trust during this process,” the release said. "Chief Robert Ruth condemns all violence in any form, whether from parties involved or uninvolved."
The Michigan State Police have also launched their own independent investigation into the incident at the request of Saginaw city officials.
“Trust between our community and public safety servants demands thorough and timely investigations when the public has questions about use of force,” said state Sen. Chedrick Greene, D-Saginaw, a former Saginaw fire captain who represents the city in the legislature.
“It is imperative that findings from both investigations be delivered with as much transparency as possible, and accountability if the findings warrant,” Greene said.
Dozens of protestors marched to the city council from Ojibway Island, a local park near the Anderson Enrichment Center, the site of meeting Monday evening.
Protestors carried signs calling for justice for Stephanie and chants of “stop police brutality” rang out once people tried to enter the council’s meeting room. The room was unable to hold everyone who wanted to attend the meeting and a separate room was set up for people to watch a livestream.
Most of the regularly scheduled meeting was dominated by the use-of-force incident, with several people starting off the two-hour gathering with public comments calling for accountability, a transparent investigation and a review of internal Saginaw police policies, including training and use of force, to avoid incidents like this in the future. Several people also called for the termination of the officers involved in the incident.
“Let me be clear, we are not here to determine guilt or innocence from a video,” said Jeff Bulls, president and founder of the Saginaw Community Alliance, a grassroots advocacy group, during the public comment period.
Ahead of the meeting, Bulls told WCMU this incident is part of a wider pattern within the Saginaw Police Department that’s been escalating over the past several weeks.
“The excuse is given that you're following policy," Bulls said during the public comment period. "Well, then we need to look at policy because clearly policy has failed."
All six of the present city council members, along with Mayor Brenda Moore and Mayor Pro Tempore Priscilla Garcia, condemned the arrest and told attendees that they too want answers and a transparent investigation into the incident. One member of the city council, Jacinta Seals, said the videos made her cry because she was so distraught by what she saw.
“I woke up to a video that turned my stomach,” Moore said. “I am totally appalled to those videos. Please don't think that any of us [the city council] up here are pleased.”
Several members of the council also asked attendees to continue to be engaged with city affairs and to not only come to meetings when something goes wrong.
The arrest of Stephanie Anderson comes shortly after the council tabled a controversial anti-nuisance gathering ordinance at its Aug. 18 meeting.
The ordinance is intended to help local police to break up pop-up gatherings that sometimes end in violence. But the measure that the council introduced has been criticized for being too vague and potentially violating the civil rights of protesters and others.
Stephanie Anderson’s family has hired local attorney Ven Johnson.
“Once every second of footage has been reviewed, Ven Johnson Law will do everything in our power to ensure the officers involved are held fully accountable, including discipline by the city of Saginaw, up to and including termination, as well as any appropriate criminal and civil consequences.”
Michigan Public’s Steve Carmody contributed reporting to this story.
