LANSING — After the Lansing Police Department lost 36 officers in the summer of 2011 due to city budget cuts, reports of vehicle thefts, violent crime and rape significantly increased.
From 2012 to 2013, both rapes and vehicle thefts rose 38%, according to 2013 FBI data. Violent crime rose 12%.
In fact, 2012 to 2013 saw the biggest increase in violent crime, rape, motor vehicle theft and robbery since at least 2008.
Although 2011 crime levels were down overall, violent crime jumped the next year.
Lansing Police Chief Daryl Green said that data is a sign of what's to come if the Lansing City Council moves forward on a proposal that, if passed, could cut funding to the department by 50% over the next five years.
"It's extremely reckless to use a national cookie-cutter strategy to abolish the police department. To think reducing the police budget by 50% will improve public safety in the City of Lansing is fundamentally flawed," Green said. "(In 2012)...we paid for it dearly."
Green was not chief at that time. He became a captain in 2012 and was a lieutenant in Internal Affairs prior to that.
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City Council Member Brandon Betz's defunding proposal came after calls from protesters, activists and Black Lives Matter Lansing to defund the police department and reinvest in resources that support communities of color.
"Police right now do too many jobs. They solve crimes, they arrest people for jaywalking, they pull people over for having weed," Betz said. "We can take away responsibilities from police that shouldn't be housed in the police department."
In the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2021, the city budgeted $46.5 million for the police department. Of that, about $39 million is for personnel.
Patrol, investigations reduced
If the budget is reduced by 50%, the department would lose 120 officers, Green said. They currently have 203, and Green said even that isn't enough for Lansing's size.
Nationally, departments average 2.4 officers for every 1,000 residents, according to FBI data. Lansing currently has 1.7 officers for every 1,000 residents. To meet the average, the city would need 284 officers. After losing 120 officers, the city would have 0.7 officers for every 1,000 residents.
The patrol division has a staff of 95 officers, which boils down to about 10 per shift, Capt. Ellery Sosebee said. Shifts are currently organized so there are more officers on the streets from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m., when the most crime occurs.
If there's a crash at a major intersection, LPD may need to send at least six patrol officers — four to block each side of the intersection, one to render aid and one to talk to witnesses — which ties up more than half the platoon, he said.
"When resources are limited so much…people are going to suffer," Sosebee said.
Not only would they lose officers, Green said, but special assignments and programs would be eliminated. Community police officers, the cold case detective and the Violent Crime Impact Team would disappear.
Detectives and other investigators would have to be shifted to road patrol to attempt to keep up with calls for service, Green said. They'd be forced to forgo calls for less-urgent reports like vandalism, vehicle crashes without injuries, neighbor disputes or small larcenies.
"We would have to parcel those out and figure out what's the highest priority calls," Green said.
The case for defunding the police
Black Lives Matter Lansing co-founder Angela Waters Austin said fixing the police will not be a quick or easy task. A system that has harmed Black people for more than 400 years needs more than reform, she said. It needs to be dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up, Waters Austin said.
"Police do not make communities safer, they don't prevent violence," Waters Austin said. "They show up after it. ... They're criminalizing an entire population of people based on the color of their skin."
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Waters Austin has been an advocate for Betz's proposal, which aims to create a study committee tasked with reducing the police budget by 50%, or $23.5 million, over the next five years. The committee also will decide how to fund police operations on a smaller scale and put money taken from LPD into education, health care, mental health programs and community-led social programs.
Betz said the primary reasons he advocates for defunding the police are to produce more racial equity and increase public safety. He said he believes that taking money from the police and targeting the roots of crime — like a lack of education, mental health treatment and youth services — will reduce crime rates over time.
A 2018 New York University study found in cities with 100,000 residents, for every 10 additional nonprofit organizations that focus on crime and community life, the city would see a 9% reduction in the murder rate, a 6% drop in violent crime and a 4% decrease in property crime.
"Policing is a racist institution, I know they target Black and brown people in Lansing," Betz said, citing studies done on traffic stops and youth arrests. Betz's proposal is in the council's equity, diversion and inclusion committee. If that committee approves it, the full council will vote on the proposal.
FY 2012 budget cuts
Facing a $20 million budget deficit after the Great Recession caused housing values and property tax revenue to plummet, Lansing was not in good financial shape heading into fiscal year 2012.
A millage to fund police and fire departments had been rejected by voters in May 2011, taking away the possibility of an extra $8.5 million for public safety.
Without that money, then-Mayor Virg Bernero had to lay off 36 police officers that summer, leaving the department with 186 officers at the end of the year. It was the "hardest, most gut-wrenching thing I ever did," Bernero said.
Bernero said it's difficult to tell what happened to crime levels in the city after the officers were laid off.
The 36 officers represented 16% of LPD's force. In September 2011, after the layoffs, LPD made 38% fewer arrests than in September 2010, according to a November 2011 State Journal analysis. They also didn't respond as quickly to non-emergency calls.
Two months later, city voters passed a similar millage, one that included funding for local roads as well as police and fire departments. It allocated $2.9 million for police, including more than half a million dollars to bring back seven officers. Eleven more officers were brought back by July 2012 through a grant program.
At this point, Bernero said, the tough cuts to LPD have been made.
"I feel we have a pretty bare bones, and yet still quite effective and respected, police department," he said. "I am proud of the men and women of LPD and grateful for their service."
'A day like that should never happen'
The only thing that saved Lansing from another year of high increases in crime after 2013 was the Violent Crime Impact Team, Green said, which was already in the works in 2012 and began in 2014.
The city still saw increases in overall violent crime, aggravated assault and motor vehicle theft, but the changes were nowhere near as drastic as the year prior. In 2016 and 2017, violent crime dropped by 1.5%, according to FBI data.
The VCI began partly because of a terrible 24-hour period in July 2010, Capt. Robert Backus said.
A 19-year-old woman was sexually assaulted early on July 23 by a stranger during a home invasion. Amaia Edmond, 7, was fatally shot by her stepfather after he mistook her for an intruder. Shayla Johnson, 19, was dragged out of bed, thrown into a car trunk and shot five times by Charles Lewis Sr. and seven other men, including Lewis' 13-year-old son.
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The accused in all three crimes had a criminal history. Some had warrants out for their arrest or were on supervised release.
"We knew something had to change. Violent crimes are committed by a small number of people. We should know the status of those people," Backus said. "A day like that should never happen."
The VCI would likely be one of the first things to go if budget cuts became a reality, Backus said. The VCI functions as a support group, filling the gaps between officers who take the reports and detectives who complete the investigations.
Over the past three years, VCI made 1,210 arrests and took 261 illegal guns off the street, Backus said.
"When we're in response mode and are overloaded, there's an inability to give people the resolution they deserve," Backus said. "I've seen what (violent crime) does to our people in our community. We're not going back there."
Contact reporter Kara Berg at 517-377-1113 or kberg@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @karaberg95.
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