More than a month after the pepper-spraying and arrest of two black men, Lonnie Smith and Mason Woods, both men have filed federal lawsuits against the city of East Lansing — specifically, Police Chief Jennifer Brown and Officer Anthony Lyon – alleging excessive force and libel for a misleading press release.
More than a month after the incident, the city council has not responded to multiple calls for Chief Brown’s removal, and more than a month after the incident, community leaders and officials worry that they still aren’t being heard.
On Sunday of MSU Welcome Week, Lonnie Smith attempted to break up an altercation between his friend and East Lansing resident, Mason Woods, and several other young men outside of Dave’s Hot Chicken. After the police were called, Officer Anthony Lyon deployed pepper spray within inches of their faces. Both men were arrested that night.
Their charges weren’t dropped until Oct. 21, and the East Lansing Police Department later issued a press release that has been the subject of scrutiny from community leaders. The release included blurry and shaky body cam footage, no security camera footage and named both Smith and Woods.
Smith’s attorney released the security footage supporting that the altercation was not a violent fight, and the lawsuits describe that both men neither knew of police presence nor received adequate care for injuries inflicted on them by the police.
Nadia Sellers, Smith’s mother, spoke out at the Oct. 7 city council meeting.
“The leadership Chief Brown displayed is dangerous,” Sellers said. “Not just to her officers, to the community, to visitors [in] East Lansing and to the badge.”
During the public communication period of the council meeting, Sellers detailed her perspective on the event as a mother, accusing the city of bias and misrepresenting her son.
“You released my son’s video. You released his full name to the press. You shared only the police body cam footage prior to even his attorney viewing it to the press,” Sellers said. “Not the Dave’s Hot Chicken security footage, which you had in your possession, that clearly shows your officers committing a crime against my son, deliberately trying to blind him. Then you tell the press my son was a drunk when he blew sober. You called my son a criminal when he has not even had his day in court. He’s never been arrested. He’s never been suspended from school. He has never had a fight in his life.”
Sellers also took this time to share details about Smith and explain who he is outside of the recent controversy.
“My son is a 21-year-old senior at a major university,” Sellers said. “He’s an entrepreneur who had a business right here in East Lansing for two years. That young man is a philanthropist. He’s a kid without a record until somebody arrested him unfairly.”
When asked about the arrest and accusations against the police department, Police Chief Brown said in a statement to WLNS that a “disproportionate number of minorities are coming to the city and committing crime,” sparking public outcry.
Of the organizations that have called for Brown’s resignation, the Women’s Center of Greater Lansing was the first to issue a formal statement.
Rebecca Kasen, executive director of the Women’s Center explained that the organization was willing to “take the heat” for speaking out, supporting other black organizations raising similar concerns about police leadership.
“The NAACP [Lansing branch] was not ready to call for Jen Brown’s resignation when we were,” Kasen said. “I said, let me take the first hit. I’ll call for it, and then when you guys feel that you’re politically safe to call for it, I’m going to step back and let you take the lead.”
Organizations like the NAACP aren’t the only ones facilitating conversations—Nadia Sellers has continued to remind the community of the intersectionality of the incident.
“Nadia Sellers came to the Human Rights Commission meeting and really filled us in on what had happened and her perspective as a mother,” Kasen said. “This is a women’s issue. If you can’t feel safe, you know, with your child literally buying chicken, I mean, then you can’t live your full life as a woman.”
One of the primary concerns Kasen has is that she believes there’s a lack of understanding between the police department and East Lansing citizens.
“It’s not just the East Lansing police, but Michigan bars municipalities from requiring their employees live within city limits,” Kasen said. “So the majority of the police force does not live in East Lansing. They don’t know our kids. They don’t know what we need. And it’s, they don’t know the community.”
Community leaders have voiced that this isn’t an isolated event. In fact, it’s contextualized by a long history of racism in East Lansing; the city was widely considered a “sundown town” — a town exclusionary toward black people, the term originating from the posting of signs warning black people to leave before sundown — until the 1960s.
In 1954, Clarence Underwood watched an integrated Spartan team in the Rose Bowl and decided that Michigan State University was where he was meant to be.
In 1955, Underwood stepped off of a train with his wife and 3-month-old, to be met with dozens of leasing offices refusing to rent to a black man.
Underwood was later able to find an apartment to rent with the help of a black man he ran into on Butler Street, but housing discrimination in East Lansing persisted throughout the decade.
Clarence Underwood eventually became the first black teacher in the East Lansing School District, as well as the second black athletic director of MSU — but not without numerous roadblocks. Even as a teacher, he was still refused housing.
Another well-known victim of housing discrimination in the Lansing area was the Earl Little family, who were ordered by the court in 1928 to move from their home because it was in a white neighborhood. The house was burnt to the ground before the Littles could vacate.
One of the Little children, Malcom, viewed this as a formative experience which shaped him into the separatist activist Malcom X.
Dr. Robert L. Green, the first black MSU dean and civil rights activist, also became the first black homeowner in East Lansing in 1964, after filing a federal lawsuit. MSU president John Hannah had offered to buy a house and sell it to Green, which Green refused because it wouldn’t have furthered the fight for housing equality.
After protests and sit-ins across the city and MSU campus during the 1960s, the East Lansing city council eventually passed an ordinance on April 8, 1968 to end race-based housing discrimination in the city.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Interstate 496 was constructed to connect Lansing to the freeway system, largely seen as controversial for its location: Main Street through St. Joseph Neighborhood, Lansing’s most densely-populated black community.
The route was deliberately built through this area, which displaced over 600 black families, led to the demolition of dozens of black-owned businesses and cut the community off from the rest of the city.
Efforts to reconnect the area to the city didn’t start until this year, when the city received federal funding after three years of rejection.
The city of East Lansing has racism embedded in its history, but the question stands: has it moved away from that history?
East Lansing Independent Police Oversight Commission, ELIPOC, Vice President Kath Edsall referred to the city as a sundown town in 2021, the same year ELIPOC was established. Both the comment and establishment of the commission came after a four-year study on the ELPD revealed racial biases within the department.
Here are some of the key points from the study, and other data releases in 2021:
- Out of 468 cases between 2017-2020, 184 black people were subjected to use-of-force by the ELPD (39.3% of cases), whereas white people were subjects of use-of-force 179 times (38.2% of cases).
- As of 2021, white people outnumbered black people 11 to 1, raising concerns with the disproportionate amount of arrests of black people.
- Black residents were three times more likely to be stopped by police than white residents.
- Throughout the 2010s, black people accounted for anywhere between 18% to 41% of arrests while only making up 7.8% of East Lansing’s population.
Data as recent as 2024 upholds similar statistics, finding that despite identifying 12% of East Lansing residents as black or African American, 46.2% of people subjected to use-of-force were black.
All of this data comes with recent ordinances passed by the city council that lessen the power of ELIPOC, concerns being raised that the oversight commission was given minimal warning and didn’t approve the decision.
The term “sundown town” was used again in reference to East Lansing in October, when city Councilmember Dana Watson said: “We are not a sundown town, but we’ve gotten the messages enough: Black people don’t come here to hang. Some of us just drive around the city of East Lansing, because we got the message.”
The President of the NAACP Lansing branch Harold A. Pope described East Lansing’s history and current biases in more detail.
“What they fail to realize is that East Lansing was nothing until minorities moved in after the Second World War,” Pope said. “That city would not be on the map without minorities moving there.”
Pope stressed the lack of action from the city council and what that implies.
“I think the city council is satisfied with doing nothing without properly investigating the situation and putting weight behind her comment, even though the city manager agreed that it was a racist comment,” Pope said. “I think that he and others in the city are worried about being sued, but they’re not worried about the safety and well-being of Blacks and other minorities. I believe that the city council was more concerned with the upcoming elections than trying to fix a wrong.
Outside of community leaders, East Lansing citizens have also commented on recent events and developments.
On the r/MSU subreddit, one user posted: “Downtown has really become a disgrace this year, this is the only year in my 22 years of living in el that ive been nervous and on edge while down town.”
MSU graduate student Makinsey Rosser shared her perspective as someone who moved to East Lansing from Georgia, and what trends she sees in police departments across the nation.
“Honestly, this city is kind of similar to the outskirts of Atlanta, where I’m from,” Rosser said. “There really aren’t a lot of black students here, but there is appreciation, a huge appreciation for black art. I feel like, have been lifted up and supported. I know I have, and I’ve seen it from other students and professors.”
Rosser’s father and step-mother were both police officers in Atlanta, but she says this hasn’t stopped her from having poor interactions with the police.
I’ve had many not great situations happen with the police,” Rosser said. “You would think that I, of all people, would know how to interact with police officers, but sometimes things just happen. It could be training. It could be a person having a power trip.”
Since the city council meeting on Oct. 7, where calls for Chief Brown’s resignation dominated public discussion, there has been no definitive action from the city. Both the city council and police department declined to comment when reached out to.
Despite inaction and negative trends coming to light, Pope feels strongly about continuing to speak out and petition the city to address the situation.
“Don’t sit down,” Pope said. “Don’t give up. Be relentless. Stay on top of the issues. Stay on top of the concerns and continue to fight and have your voices heard. Demand that your voice be heard. Demand justice.”
