Cop Pulls Gun On Preacher In Detroit Traffic Stop

DETROIT, MI — A Detroit pastor who is a member of the city’s Board of Police Commissioners says he was pulled over after leaving a commission meeting last week, then ordered by a Detroit police officer to open all the windows of the vehicle, remove the key from the ignition and place his keys on the vehicle’s hood.

The officer also drew his service weapon and placed it across his chest, Bishop Edgar Vann Jr., the pastor at Detroit’s Second Ebenezer Church, told commissioners Thursday at a board meeting. The 11-member, civilian Board of Commissioners has broad supervisory authority over the police department and investigates complaints against police.

The incident unfolded around 5 p.m. June 15 outside the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, WWJ/CBS Detroit reported. The officer pulled Vann over for running a red light. Vann said he’s fine with the ticket, but discouraged by the show of force.

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“When I saw that gun, that was an escalation for me,” Vann said. “It made me very uncomfortable. I didn’t think for a simple traffic stop a gun should have been pulled. Does the driver have any rights.”

At Thursday’s meeting, Assistant Police Chief Arnold Williams said “there’s no such thing as a simple traffic stop” and that a show of force is necessary sometimes to ensure police officers’ safety, The Detroit News reported.

“When a police officer gets a description of a person or vehicle who was involved in a violent felony, and someone they stop matches that description, the officer will take steps to ensure their safety,” Williams said. “So regarding pulling a weapon: Is it appropriate? Sometimes. Was it appropriate in this case? I don’t know, because I wasn’t there. But I will look into it.”

Detroit Police Chief James Craig said police are trying to determine if body or dashboard camera videos exist to shed light on the situation. Police normally only approach suspects with their weapons drawn in high-risk or felony stops. He said he doesn’t know “why the bishop would be stopped for a felony,” but neither does he want to “prejudge why the officer did what he did.”

Detroit police officers are on high alert after a string of shootings and ambushes. In the past seven months, 10 officers have been shot, three of them fatally — two from the Detroit Police Department and one from Wayne State University.

“So certainly, our officers, we want them to stay safe,” Craig said. “We don’t want them to underreact, but we certainly don’t them to overreact.”

Commissioner Willie Bell, a former Detroit cop, said police killings were just as frequent when he was on the force, but the police department spent 13 years being watched by the federal government about how it handles arrests and lockups. Oversight ended in March 2016, but Bell said the police commission board “must deal deal with these issues.”

“We know this is the reality: African-Americans feel like they’re not safe when they encounter the police. Those perceptions are real. They’re out there,” Bell said.

Photo: James Craig in a 2016 news conference (AP Photo/Mike Householder)