The Truth Staff
Several days after a Toledo Police Department officer threw a 15-year-old girl to the ground – twice – during an arrest for walking in the street, Toledo City Council members held a press conference, along with a few concerned residents, to express their anger over the incident.
“A 15-year-0ld child was abused by a Toledo Policeman,” said City Council President Vanice Williams, opening the press conference. “If anyone else did what they did, they would be charged and put in jail.”
So began a press conference designed to express the ire of certain elected officials the morning after those same officials and certain city residents held a meeting with Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz and Police Chief Michael Troendle to discuss and analyze the situation and explore what action should be taken.
“I take issue with how Black women are treated across the country because I am one,” Williams continued. “That incident did not have to happen. I saw a grown man throw a young lady to the ground because she did not give her first name.”
The incident, which was captured on camera by onlookers, occurred when TPD officers stopped a group of Black teenagers who were walking in the street, a street which had no sidewalk. On film, one sees the officer take the 15-year-old girl to the ground. Twice. Even after she was handcuffed.
Williams said that as a Black woman who has faced so many challenges in her own life because she is Black, the racial aspects of the case are particularly troubling to her.
“I take issue with the racial inequality of this community,” she said. “I will protect Black women at all costs. I support the Toledo Police Department but I do not support bad behavior.”
Several other council members spoke at the press conference. Council members Nick Komives and Brittany Jones, PhD, both termed the action of the police officer as “unacceptable.”
The president of the Toledo Police Patrolman’s Association, Michael Haynes, later disagreed with the council members assessment of the situation. He defended the police officer’s actions. He said that taking a person to the ground “is a helpful tool that we use the ground in order to gain compliance in control.”
Haynes also defended the police officers’ use of profanity in the situation towards the teen and her mother. Profanity by police officers is “used appropriately as de-escalation,” he said.
Toledo Police Chief Troendle Mike Troendle also apparently confirmed the department’s reason for the use of profanity in a meeting with city council members and community representatives.
“The chief said that profanity was used to de-escalate the situation,” said Earl Murry, PhD, professor emeritus of the University of Toledo, who attended that meeting.
Meanwhile the officers on the scene have been moved to other parts of the city as police officials and the city administration seems loathe to punish them for that behavior.
Nevertheless, the uproar continues – the anger in the Toledo community continues.