Keep going, dude. 9 millm handgun on his hip. Go to the sidewalk or you're going to jail. To address those individuals in a respectful way. Do not touch your People need to recognize that officers have the lawful right to put their hands on you. Get back over this way. Comply now, complain later. Welcome back to the Lackluster channel. On June 13th, the Grand Rapids Police Department went viral online for their complete and utter incompetence. Police Chief Eric Winstrom responded to the public's outrage by holding a press conference. All right. Hey, thanks guys for coming. Uh late notice, I know, but uh on January Oh boy, falling apart already. June 13th. So that was this Friday at about 9 9:15 a.m. Uh one of our officers patrolling down um the 1600 block of Kamazoo was flagged down by an individual said an armed man was just seen going into uh the Walgreens down there. Instead of informing the public that Michigan law allows individuals 18 and older to openly carry legally owned pistols without a permit, Chief Winstrom deflected, citing unrelated crimes that had nothing to do with the incident at hand. He then pivots to talk about gun violence, despite the fact that no violence occurred until after his officers arrived. Clearly, my officers have the direction that that is proactively what they're going to do against address gun violence. a very scary situation where an individual seen going in verified he comes out. He has an AR-15 around his neck. He has a 9mm handgun on his hip. Uh from an outsers's point of view, you could look is a potential active shooter situation, mass casualty incident, but we recognize that we have to do the full investigation. So that's where this video starts where an investigation is going to take place by the officers. They handle it extremely well. Uh they're fantastic at deescalating. They take what could have been a deadly officer involved shooting uh to a very peaceful conclusion. You will soon find his statement to be false. Unfortunately, during this entire incident, a few individuals uh insert themselves in a situation in in an illegal uh improper manner manner. Officers, as you will see, go above and beyond uh to address those individuals in a respectful way. Do not touch me [Music] to get them to comply with their lawful orders because they are placing themselves and everyone else in more danger. Um and then you'll see of course there there's been a video circulating online of a use of force incident then where uh as officers were attempting to take one individual into custody. Second individual uh interfered with that arrest was subsequently taken into custody as well. We're going to take questions after this and I'll let the video speak for itself as a roles. The chief then plays a few short clips of body cam footage taken during the incident poorly edited to paint their unconstitutional actions as heroic. go over that way. He's got two angles. Keep going, dude. When we get one more car here, he'll come back to us. Yep. He was compliant. He's open here. despite having a compliant lawful firearm owner with his hands raised above his head. The officers hold him at gunpoint to wait for backup. Then they purposefully play three sections of video to lead the public to believe a threat was present after the man open carrying was detained and unlawfully disarmed. The first clip shows a timestamp of 9:16 and 30 seconds. Get back over this way, everyone. Please, let's go. You're in the back stop, man. Okay, we need to get you back just because you're in the background of a could be bad situation. Okay, back up. Back up. Back up. They already told me what's going on, so back up. Please, please back. The next shows a time stamp of 9:16 and 7 seconds. Keep going. Go now. It's your last chance. You're going to jail. Back up now. Go around the other side of the Walgreens. Well, you're in their backdrop, so it's not a good place to stand. Okay, last chance to go to the sidewalk. You're going to jail. The chief played those clips first to make it appear that the man lawfully carrying his firearms had not been taken into custody, though he had complied and was disarmed at 9:14. It's going down the hill. Stop right there. I'm have you come to your right. Okay. Yes, sir. Come to me. Keep coming this way. Come this way. Come this way. Come this way. Come this way. Come this way. Come this way. Stop right there. It's right here on my hip. And then you can take this off my neck. All right. I'm going to take this off of you. Yep. It's one in the head in the chamber. That's on me. Sorry, Sean. And then you could just take this off my neck. It's strapped on. Start that way. All right. Yeah, that's on me. My ID is right here, sir. It's in this hand right here. The pistol, the AR pistol, it's in this wallet right here. Okay, perfect. All right. Anything else on you? No, I don't know. He then plays a clip that occurs 5 minutes after the unlawful detention where his officers unlawfully arrest a man for not backing up, though he was more than 50 ft away from the subject during the incident. [Music] [Applause] Listen, I put my life on the line so that don't dig around in your pocket. Listen. Hey, back up or you will go to Back up or you will go to jail. Take my phone, please. Three officers pull the man in opposing directions as he tosses his phone to a friend for safekeeping. He is thrown off balance by the officers and then thrown to the ground. All for recording an incident 5 minutes prior. Okay, get down. Damn it. Hey. Hey. Hey. Back up now where you go to jail. Back up. Back up now. Right here. Come on, man. You need to back up. Don't touch me. Do not touch me, dude. The department adds this slow motion sequence. I said don't touch him. But they allow that portion to play through, preventing the public from seeing that the officer was the first to start pushing and then throws a punch at the man's face. [Applause] Then this message is shown on screen before replaying a different angle of the officer pushing and then punching the witness. Back up. Don't touch him. What are you doing? Stop. It's almost jittery enough to miss the criminal actions of the officer. Unfortunately, the department's editor did not attempt to edit this portion of the video to make it viewable, but I did. Don't touch him. [Applause] Watching again in slow motion shows the officer first pushed the man. The man then pushes the officer's hand off of his chest. Immediately after, the officer throws the first punch, striking the man on the left side of his face. The man's wife attempts to stop the officer from battering her husband as he ducks and side steps. The officer pushes the woman and follows the man's movements and attempts to punch the man again. officers, as you will see, go above and beyond uh to address those individuals in a respectful way. That is all of the footage the department released. Though the beatings continued until the man was apprehended after being tased. We are so used to being videotaped. Uh as as long as you at a safe distance from officers, of course, you're lawfully allowed to videotape. It's part of your First Amendment rights. That is clearly not the case here where that individual was standing directly behind in the line of fire of an individual armed with not one but two deadly weapons. And people need to recognize that officers have the lawful right to put their hands on you. When that officer put just his finger tips on that person, let him know this is a very serious situation. This is not a request. You will back up for the ninth time. and he hit that officer like that. Now he became an active aggressor. Obviously that takes it to a higher level. What is going to be reasonably believed to be effective to address the situation at this time? That's why it escalated to a point where eventually that individual was tasered. The chief continues revealing that the activists were known by the department and inserts again that the female cop was begging them to move without adding the relevant context that the lawful firearm owner was already unlawfully detained. So officers did a a fantastic job. I think you can say it was a misunderstanding. Uh they I know the individuals involved, the three individuals that were on this tape. Um as I said in the past, I think they're good people. They may have thought that they were doing the right thing at the time, but uh in the context you got to understand I listen to the way especially the female officer talked to these over and over. She's pleading with them please get out of the way please. And why is she saying that? Because they put themselves in a situation where they are in danger. They're also endangering everybody everybody else involved. if their participation made that a more day if their participation like like with their friend here where you see that they're sort of sort of all interacting with each other and all all believing like hey we don't have to follow the law we don't have to obey these commands of these officers. Can you imagine if that young person who had that AR-15 uh rifle was motivated by the resistance that these adults in the community? And as I often say, what we need to drive crime down in this community is adults taking interest in young people, doing the right thing by young people, mentoring young people. So we have adults that are standing right behind these young people, openly ignoring lawful instructions from the police. One of those individuals is armed with not one but two deadly weapons at AR-15. Those rounds can go for literally over a mile and still be deadly. If that individual was inspired by the lack of lawful behavior by these individuals, we could have been having a totally different and tragic conversation today. So I, as I said, I think these three individuals, I think they're good people. I think they just made a very bad decision that day. After demonstrating a rich misunderstanding of ballistics and the constitutional limitations of his authority, he is then asked whether the firearm owner was released. Are you allowed to open carry in public? Yes. Of course, uh that doesn't count for private property. I know Walgreens corporate policy is they do not allow open carry. So that certainly adds to the reasonable suspicion of thei citizens in the community that waved down that officer and said there's a man in there. He just walked in there with a handgun. that obviously knowing that he's not a law enforcement officer um dressed the way he was that he didn't show any initial of uh of any sort of lawful authority that's a concern. If we didn't take action in that scenario and that individual took some sort of illegal steps we would obviously would be crucified. We would be totally in the wrong. We have a duty to take actions. Once again, the chief is incorrect. The courts have ruled over and over that the police have no specific duty to protect the citizens that are forced to pay them. Those three young people who are very cooperative, they were released. No charges whatsoever. Chief, can you tell us what is your message for the community members that come up on the scene? They want to help or they want to observe and make sure things um are appropriate. What should members do? I'll tell you easiest message you can say said it time and time again. Comply now, complain later. every single and this is probably social media video number 15 that I've been asked to respond to. This is the first time I've done a press conference just because it got so much attention. Um, every single one the first question I ask when somebody brings it to my attention, okay, did the individuals comply with the lawful instruction of the officers. Well, no, but they he shouldn't have punched him. He shouldn't have done this. He shouldn't have done that. Comply now, complain later. As you could see from the video, every single one of my officers who responds to 911 calls, they are armed with a body warn camera. We have in-car camera in every one of those cars. So there is other angles. There is so much accountability. I am more than happy to review a use of force to examine it and say absolutely we need better training. We need we need to discipline this officer. Maybe this off officer isn't suitable for police work. We hold our officers to the highest standards certainly in the state of Michigan, possibly across the country. Confidence, real or pretend, is your magic ingredient. We just watched quite a bit of instructions, maybe stern. Certainly, no one was rude this, but if you believe that those instructions were improper, bring it to my attention and we will absolutely address it, but do not, especially when you don't have the whole context of what's going on, do not attempt to interfere at the scene. That's my message. Thanks for the question. The chief is then asked about a complaint filed by one of his officers victims, which sends him spiraling on another rant that has nothing to do with the incident and only appears to deflect blame onto people who weren't involved in either incident. Have I watched every single body war on camera? No. I'd have to read his complaint to see what it is that the complaint is. But a lot of what I saw and what was I tell you of all the all the incidents that that happened. Let me I'll share with my another frustration that I had. Okay, I just talked about the two people that we had murdered. 30-year-old. We had a 15-year-old girl killed, shot in the head and killed, and zero community members reached out to me about that 15-year-old girl that was killed. They never asked about the firefighters, the police officers, the EMS that were at the scene that worked so hard to try and save her life. They never asked about the the efforts that the department's taking so that we could stop the violence. We had two 15year-old kills last year. Zero. I I don't know. I might have had 50 people reach out to me on this video. Extremely frustrating. Um, and I don't even remember what your question was. You just took me off on a tangent. Can you ask that again? That was a large man. Um, as you saw, I don't think that punch landed. I think it was a glancing blow, the one the one that you saw there. But even if it did land it, I I don't know that that would have been effective in addressing that situation. Eventually, the officers tased him. It was a very dangerous situation, and it didn't have to be that way. But to short answer your question, what you tolerate, you condone. And we're not going to put up with things that could take us down that slippery slope of lawlessness. Well, that's rich. At the end of the day, the greatest threat to gun ownership doesn't come from politicians. It comes from the very people we're told are here to protect us. Police unions regularly oppose proun legislation, support red flag laws, and advocate for disarming the public while arming themselves to the teeth. And when that time comes, it won't be lawmakers kicking in your door. It'll be armed agents of the state hiding behind badges. Like it or not, police have become the largest anti-gun group in America, and they'll be the ones ordered to carry out the confiscation. I know a large portion of this audience may disagree with the right to private gun ownership, but if you made it to this part of the video, I'd be quite interested to hear what you have to say. So, let me know what you think in the comments. And if you value the efforts invested in these productions, check out another episode linked on screen. [Music]