- After an exhaustive national search for its next leader, the Grand Rapids Police Department named Eric Winstrom as its next Chief of Police and thrust immediately into the job.

While Chief Winstrom officially was sworn in as Chief on March 7th, less than a month later, Patrick Lyoya would be fatally shot by a Grand Rapids police officer on April 4th with Chief Winstrom having to be the face of the GRPD throughout the process and he is our honored guest today here on this edition of Newsmakers.

Eric Winstrom is the 15th chief of police for the Grand Rapids Police Department.

He comes from the other side of the big lake where he served on the Chicago Police Department for over 20 years in various patrol, tactical, investigative and administrative positions.

At the time he left Chicago, he was an executive on the Chicago Police Department Leadership Team and led the Area Five detective division, where he oversaw a staff of 200, including 40 homicide detectives.

He holds a bachelor's of science and administrative of justice from Rutgers University and a Juris Doctorate from Brooklyn Law School.

Chief Winstrom is a court recognized expert on police policy, use of force, criminal investigations and the Fourth Amendment.

Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Winstrom, thank you so much for joining us here on this edition of Newsmaker, welcome.

- Thanks for having me, Daniel.

- You know, a lot to get to, a lot to unpack and we will, we will get there, but what kind of hosts would we be if we didn't welcome you to west Michigan?

How you liking it so far?

- The Grand Rapids is beautiful.

The area's beautiful.

I'm excited to get out and be a tourist in my own town and tourist in west Michigan.

Very much so far, so good.

- Yeah, you know, I lived in Chicago for over 10 years and when I moved here to Grand Rapids, the first thing that I loved more than anything was the traffic.

The traffic in Chicago is just insane and here it's just like a breeze in the wind.

What have you found moving from such a big city to such a smaller city?

What have you found that you've enjoyed most?

- Well, I'll tell you it is a small city, but it's got a ton to offer.

So there's a lot of places to eat.

A lot of things to do.

It's a lot of culture here and it's beautiful, within driving distance from some great state parks, so close to the lake shore still so it's a great area.

- So obviously your bio that we just read to you, you've served at the Chicago Police Department for over 20 years.

You've got this incredibly impressive resume.

You're leading a team of 200.

Why Grand Rapids?

Why the decision to throw your hat in the ring?

You know, the Grand Rapids Police department looking for the next Chief of Police.

They've launched this national search.

You've got a nice, comfortable job I'm sure in Chicago, you're deep-rooted in the community.

Why the decision now at this point in your career to upend your family and move here to Michigan?

- Well, like you, you mentioned my family.

So I have an eight year old daughter and a 10 year old son.

And if I was gonna make a move, it would be, you know, about this time.

I would like to move early enough in their lives we can get settled in a place where, you know, I'd love to see them graduate high school here and stay here.

And what attracted me to Grand Rapids is especially the Grand Rapids Police Department.

Oftentimes when you're working within a police agency, you don't really grasp the reputation that it has across the country and being in Chicago, not so far away, Grand Rapids Police Department, and the city, has an exceptional reputation.

And when the job was posted and I saw the opportunity, I jumped at it because this is a real opportunity.

- Now your wife is a police officer as well.

Was the, if I can ask a personal question, was she on board with the decision?

And was she excited as well?

- She absolutely was, yeah.

So she was a police officer in Chicago for about 13 years.

She left the police department maybe three years ago now and she's extremely excited to come out here too.

- So I appreciate that when you got here, in spite of everything that's happened over the course of the month, last six weeks, and we'll talk about that in a little bit, but when you first got to the Grand Rapids Police Department, what did you think that we were doing right when you first got here and what did you think, hmm, you know, might need to have some changes?

- Well, I'll tell you one of the things that I initially saw that I was thrilled with was there is a training culture in the police department.

There's such a solid foundation to make it just topnotch in policing, like the gold standard in policing, across the country, because there is this foundation of every day at roll call, they, you know, announce names of a few officers you're going to training today.

Every, they're constantly training.

They have a system in place.

When I was a police officer starting out in Chicago, I came on the job in the year 2000.

It wasn't till 2015 at other than in the police academy that I had a use of force class.

We didn't train at all.

It was all, you know, you learn by doing on the street and that was all they gave you.

So to come here and see just they train constantly, they have a great facility.

The building itself that they're in, they have plenty of training inside the building.

They have exterior facilities, great relationships with the other agencies in the county to do joint training.

So that foundation, if you have that, that training foundation already built into a police department, sky's the limit.

- Fantastic, I, you know, it's time to address the elephant in the room.

And at the time of this taping fully understand that this is an ongoing investigation by the Kent County Prosecutor's Office, by the Michigan State Police and now the Kent County Prosecutor's Office is asking for expert guidance in all of this.

I understand that there's not a whole lot that you can say about the shooting of Patrick Lyoya, but what can you say to our viewers?

- Well, as you said, it's not our investigation.

So the process here in the city of Grand Rapids is when there is an officer involved shooting, we immediately notify the Michigan State Police.

Now I went on scene that day.

I drove out there.

Michigan State Police were out there very quickly.

We just simply held the scene for them and helped them out if they needed us to set up tape or anything like that, but they took over from day one and they've been running it.

We keep a strong divide so I don't know where they are in their investigation.

I know that they've, you know, they've come, they've asked for different records from us and we, you know, cooperating, but we take a step back.

You know, I've seen Chris Becker a couple times since at different public events.

Haven't said a word to him.

We maintain that divide.

So to maintain the integrity of the investigation, so I can't say anything specifically about the investigation, other than it's ongoing.

I have been involved in many investigations of police involved shootings during my time in Chicago.

So I am familiar with how, you know, things should work.

But as far as the specifics of this investigation, I know it's still ongoing.

- As somebody who oversaw, excuse me, as somebody who oversaw a team of detectives in homicide though, I'm sure that you can say, you know, firsthand how, in every instance like this, that it's a tragedy.

Anytime somebody loses their life in a shooting incident, it's a tragedy.

You had to speak with Patrick Lyoya's parents.

I know that that's a private conversation.

I'm not gonna ask you about that.

I am curious to know how you as a police officer, you know, someone who's worked in homicide as long as you have, how do you put yourself in that mental space and get ready to speak to somebody who's dealing with the loss of a loved one and it's extremely fresh.

It's extremely raw.

You don't have all the answers.

How do you prepare for that?

- Yeah, and there's no good answer to that.

Like you said, I just, I do wanna say that I did speak to, you know, I spoke to Patrick's father early on and he was in my office for over an hour and there were a lot of tears.

He had to a few faith based members of Congolese community, a few of the leaders there, a few pastors, and we spent a lot of time and it was difficult.

And it, from the first time that I made a notification, when I was a young detective in Chicago, I had to make a notification, not a police involved incident, but notify a family that a loved one of theirs had died in another jurisdiction and it has not gotten easier since that day.

So this was a tragedy.

I feel terrible for the pain of Mr. Lyoya and his wife and their family.

And it's not easy to have those conversations and I don't think I'll ever get used to it.

- You, I mean, obviously I, as a father myself, I know you're a father of two children, as a father myself, it choked me up just having to report it, as a reporter here at WGVU.

Initially you were hesitant to name Officer Christopher Schurr as the police officer who shot Patrick Lyoya and then the department recanted that decision, and you went ahead and released the name.

Can you tell us what led to your decision to that change your mind?

- Sure, well, so initially the pressure that you know was out in the media and a lot of what I was being said, you know, confronted with individuals at meetings was if this was any other person, his name would be out there.

If it wasn't a police officer, you know, why are you you're just protecting him 'cause he's police?

Any other suspect, the name would be out there.

And I think I made clear from the get go, that is not the case.

So we don't name suspects in criminal investigations.

We name individuals when there's a warrant issued for them.

We name an individual when they're charged, but we don't name suspects in a situation like this.

So while it is under the investigation, there is no charge on this officer.

So in, if he was not an officer, he would not be named.

However, I'm gonna show a little vulnerability here.

And as time went on, me being new to this role in west Michigan, I started reaching out to my counterparts, not only in Michigan, but across the country.

I reached out to Police Executive Research Forum, which is a group that often advises chiefs of police and talked to the leader, the Executive Director, a guy named Chuck Wexler there.

And I really said, hey, what's the national trend here, because this is how we did it in Chicago.

This is how I'm hearing from other chiefs.

Is this the right thing to do?

And what I learned as you know, in the year 2022, once you've established that the police officer is safe because there is always the threat of, you know, whether it's just on social media or physical threat to people coming to the officer's house or bothering his family, once you get to the point where the officer's safe and you've moved on to the point where it's not going to negatively impact the viability of a criminal investigation, in 2022, most of the police community has determined that it's better for transparency to get that name out there.

Because what the public really wants to know is, hey, is this some dirty cop that, you know, the public has heard about this rogue cop for years.

We wanna know his name to know if that's the case.

And so we reached a point where we felt that the officer was safe and we felt that it was not gonna impact the investigation.

I did notify the prosecutor and the Michigan State Police that we were gonna release the name and we came to the conclusion that it was the right time for transparency to release his name.

- You know, Officer Schurr, you know, it is another case.

The fact is it's another case of a white police officer shooting an unarmed black man.

And while that cannot be undone or overstated, considering the history of America over the past 10 years, the reality is though, too, is that if you look at Christopher Schurr, here's a cop who was a missionary in Kenya for his church, was married in Kenya, in Africa, in a traditional Kenyan ceremony.

So it's hard to say that this is a racially motivated shooting and so hard for me to get there.

Can you speak to Officer Schurr's character?

Can you speak to his police record and have you spoken to him?

- Well that's, so to answer your last question first, I spoke to him, the first time I actually met Chris was on the scene that day.

I just, you know, checked him out physically, does he need to go to the hospital, whatever.

And I said, I'll call you later at night and then I called him later that night.

And I've talked to him a few times since, and I met with him once.

And so I didn't know him before this incident.

That was literally the first day I met him.

As to his character, I will say, I've met with numerous members of the Congolese community over the past month and a half or so and they've even noticed, they said, now that we're learning more about this young man, they're impressed with, you know, his history and that by all accounts, like I said, I don't know him well, but they see his faith and they see that, you know what he done, what he's done and they, they pretty much said the same thing that you've pointed out, that he seems to be a very good young man.

- As someone, as an expert at your caliber that you are, a lot of people say that this situation escalated far too fast.

And I'm curious to know, having been a patrol police officer, having been in situations similar to this, how hard is it for a police officer when a suspect is running, when you're fighting with a suspect, when you feel like as a police officer, you are losing control of this situation, how hard is it sometimes to remember your wits when you're exhausted and remember your training?

Is it difficult to do?

- Well without speaking to this incident, I'll tell you just plainly every situation is different.

Literally every situation is different, and that's why we do train so hard to so that we can take into account other circumstances, which can happen because situation, any sort of use of force incident, extremely dynamic, changing it every time.

So, you know, you write policy and you want policy to be followed but it doesn't end there.

You have to train, you have to train, you know, relentlessly and constantly, which is something that I'm a big fan of.

And I mentioned earlier that the foundation is there for the Grand Rapids Police Department and it's gonna be something that I ensure throughout my time as chief of police, that that continues.

- The shooting has sparked of course, six weeks of countless demonstrations and protests and City Commission meetings being called off early.

People are angry.

People are upset and rightfully so.

To their credit, the protests and demonstrations have all been peaceful and there hasn't been a lot of violence or destruction of property.

As chief of police, what is the message to those out there who are demonstrating, who are protesting over this?

- Yeah, we've seen, so we've seen a lot of passion and some, from some of the earlier protests, you know, we kinda had a tactical decision that we made at the police department, recognizing that this is not something that happened, you know, in a far away city, this is something that happened at home and there is a lot of passion.

So our tactic was that we wanna let everyone's voice be heard and we were going to do what we could to accommodate protestors as far as, you know, making accommodations for them.

When there aren't permits obtained, we're still going to let them do things that they could do, like block streets and things like that because we know there's a lot of emotion out there and there's a lot of passion.

So I am proud of the work that the police officers have been doing during these protests to try and protect not only the rights of the protestors, but also other individuals in the community to provide safety.

We have not had property destruction.

We have not had, you know, violence.

We have not had one use of force incident between a police officer and a protest throughout this whole time, which is something that's nearly unheard of in the last few years in policing.

So very proud of the work that the police officers done.

And you've said, what can be said for protestors?

I have seen on occasion protestors, when other protestors in the group started to throw things or get the, that they almost are policing themselves saying, you know, we're not here for violence.

We're not here, and some success in that.

So and that I was very happy to see.

- And to Patrick Lyoya's parents credit, I know that that is something that they have championed.

They have gone out of their way to say, we don't want violence in these protests.

March and chant all you want for justice for Patrick, but they didn't want violence, which I thought was commendable.

I'm curious to know the inner workings as police chief.

Obviously you have to answer to Mark Washington, you have to answer to City Hall.

He's your boss.

You have to answer to the public, to the protesters.

And then you also have to answer, you are the leader of a fraternal order of police, not the Fraternal Order of Police, but it's a fraternity.

I mean, it's a small group of police officers.

And how do you strike the balance between having to answer to all these different three people and still maintaining good relationships with all three?

- I'll tell you it works best when everyone is on the same page.

And that's how to get there is communication, 'cause there's a lot of time that City Hall doesn't understand why the police department's doing what it's doing.

And I will go, you know, for example, tactics during a protest and I'll have to go explain, well, this is the rationale behind it.

This is why we're doing it.

And there's time that, you know, protesters are angry.

You know, how come you're closing this road?

What, you know, what purpose does that pose?

And communication, listening to them and then explaining can get to the point where really all three of those can work together and we can all have the same goals.

- You know, and sitting in that chair before you, I had the opportunity to interview your two predecessors, Grand Rapids Police Chief David Rahinsky and then Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Payne, and both of them on both separate occasions, said the exact same thing to me and I wanna repeat it to you.

They said, Daniel, unless you are a police officer, you will never know what it is like to put on the uniform every day, kiss your loved ones goodbye at the door, go to work and not know that, not know if you're coming home that morning.

It is an exhausting, overworked, underpaid, and sometimes thankless job that requires you to police the evil underbelly of society on a regular basis.

And it's an exhausting gig.

For viewers at home who don't know, how hard is it to be a cop and what can you say about your experience?

- Well, I'll tell you I've been a police officer for what about 22 years now and it's been an extremely rewarding career.

There are difficult days, but I wouldn't trade my career for anything.

So I've loved it.

And Eric Payne and David Rahinsky are correct.

It is difficult.

And you know, you throw in what's been going on for the past few weeks here, when you have this difficult job and you do experience these things where, you know, you could be faced with the prospect of losing a coworker, which I've lost a, you know, one of my mentors was murdered in Chicago on the job, losing a coworker or being in physical danger yourself, having a family, dealing with all those emotions, it's tough.

And when you throw in what we've been dealing with the past few weeks, and you're in the position where it feels like a large number of people, I mean, extremely vocal people are, you know, just throwing hatred and vitreal at you because of that passion and kind of feeling a lot of times unsupported by the city that you are putting your heart and soul into, it makes the job that much more difficult.

So when I do get the question from the community of, hey, what can we do to help support you?

I just say, you know, when you do see a police officer, 'cause they're going through a really tough time and it happened after the murder of George Floyd.

I see it happening here now.

If we can get to the point where the city's saying, you know, we support the police department, it's really important because at the end of the day, we still need police officers in this city.

- You do need police officers and is it, what does it require?

Is it like being a teacher or is it like being a pastor?

Is it something that you feel like a calling to do or is it, you know, what characteristics do you think could go into people wanting to be cops?

- It's really people that wanna help people.

That's it, yeah it is and it's a calling.

Some people wanna do that through teaching or some people you know wanna be a doctor, yeah.

And they see, you know, they're called in different ways.

But if you have that servant's heart, I mean, policing is a little bit different too, because it's that servant's heart and you also have that, you have to be willing to work at 3:00 AM in the morning.

You have to be willing to have that bravery to run towards gunfire instead of away from it.

So, but you have to start with that, the heart of a servant and yeah, we need good police officers.

- I did want to, you mentioned it a little bit.

I wonder if you can expound on it because I'm curious to know, when a shooting like what we just saw over the past few weeks, when that happens, what does it do to the morale of the police department?

And are they more scared to go into work?

Are they more nervous on the job?

- Yeah, you're talking about a police involved shooting.

Yeah, yeah, police involved shootings and agencies are just devastating for morale because you know, reflexively, there'll be a segment of, you know, on social media, a segment in the population, individuals that show up at commission meetings who are just, you know, going to criticize you no matter what the circumstances at all and police officers become a little hesitant, they feel a little less supported.

So it really drops morale significantly.

Additionally, in, you know, there's about 300 officers, a little bit less in the Grand Rapids Police Department, but most of the officers know the involved officer.

So if not just to say hello in the hallway, they know him personally.

So having a friend that's in a situation like this, it's very difficult for morale, yeah.

And it will take time to get through that.

- Now as your bio tells us, you're a court recognized expert on police policy, use of force, criminal investigations and the Fourth Amendment, you have your doctorate, I'm sure you have your opinions.

What is the problem?

What is going on?

I mean, what do you see as the fundamental flaws in policing in America to today and what is the answer?

- Well, so you ask an interesting question, the fundamental flaw in policing, and I'll tell you when I was a brand new police officer in 2000, I worked with some police officers that had been, that had come on in the sixties.

And they had worked with officers that came on in the thirties and forties and hearing the old timers, when I came on, tell stories about that, how they used to work with officers that would pull people over and take money, you know, on traffic stops instead of writing a ticket and you know, just the stories of corruption that existed.

And then, you know, to get to the point where I started, I was like, wow, that's, you know, policing was terrible back then it's and then, you know, it evolved and things like body-worn cameras, which were really a significant game changer in policing where good police officers really feel now, even strengthened and empowered that the bad police officers like just, they don't want to come to work.

You know, when I heard stories that when body-worn cameras were rolled out in certain agencies, that there were officers who just quit that day because they know they couldn't hack it with their actions being recorded.

So for the good police officers, which are just the vast majority, body-worn cameras, which rolled out really most prominently 2015, 2016, it has been such a game changer in policing and a positive improvement and a positive reform.

So I just bring that up to say that I won't say that there is some something terribly wrong with policing in the year 2022, that I would just say that it's always gonna be reforming.

It's always gonna be changing and just gotta get the progression right.

And that's where I wanna get the Grand Rapids Police Department.

- And there are good cops and there are bad cops just like there are good teachers and there are bad teachers.

There are good doctors and there are bad doctors, you know, it's just across the board.

What do you say to people when they, when you hear the word defund police, what's your immediate reaction?

- My immediate reaction is I wanna live in that world too.

I wanna live in a world where I can, I can get a job doing something else and we don't need the police, but we just, we don't live in that world.

I was out on the street Saturday night, this past weekend, and we had, you know, two murders within 12 hours.

- [Daniel] Three shootings, two murders, right?

- Three shootings, total shell casings on the street, over a hundred, there were rifle rounds on the street just, and bottom line is we need the police.

Now we, people that say defund the police, and what they're really talking about is, hey, we wanna make sure that, you know, other social services are funded.

Like, I'll be the first one to stand next to you and say like, yes, I wanna be an advocate for affordable housing.

I wanna be an advocate for mental health services and things like that but you don't fix all of that by removing the police.

- Yeah, you know, in the intro, I said that you were thrust into this job, and I'm curious, on a human level, when this happened, do you immediately say to yourself in the mirror, what have I gotten myself into?

You know, I wish I didn't take this job, or I suspect that you probably feel the opposite.

You feel like this is what I was brought here to do, and that this is a real opportunity to lead and to make positive change.

- Yeah, the, I would say that that's more the case.

And I remember very well, it was about 8:08 when one of the deputy chiefs walked into my office and said we had a police involved shooting.

And to be honest, I experienced so this so many times in Chicago that I did find it kind of ironic because, you know, when I was packing up in Chicago, a lot of my coworkers there said, oh, we think you're gonna be bored in Grand Rapids after going through, I've definitely not been bored here.

And when it happened, I did think it was kind, kind of strange that it happened so soon in my tenure here.

And I would hope never to handle another officer involved shooting, but because of the experiences that I had, I did kind of feel like, well, I guess this is, you know, I was meant to be the chief at this time to be here for this so.

- You know, finally, Chief, we thank you so much for your time.

As you look at the Grand Rapids Police Department, eventually this story will conclude and there is a future ahead of us.

When you look at the Grand Rapids Police Department, what policies, what things would you like to see?

I guess my question is, in three to five years under your leadership, what does the Grand Rapids Police Department look like?

- I think it's gonna look like the gold standard in policing.

I think that you're gonna look at the Grand Rapids Police Department and the agencies around here are gonna look at what we're doing in policy and in training and say, you know, those are the things that we wanna implement to yeah.

Issues such as, you know, big, big issues to me are things like crisis intervention training, deescalation training, you know, use of force training, policy in general.

So I really think three to five years, it's gonna be the gold standard of policing.

- Chief Winstrom, on behalf of everyone here at WGVU Public Media, thank you so much for your public service.

Welcome to west Michigan.

We look forward to talking to you again in the future.

- Thank you for having me, appreciate it.

- And that'll do it for this edition of Newsmakers.

Thank you for joining us.

We'll see you again soon.

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