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Oversight panel warns East Lancing council police reports lack data; city plans new transparency page
Summary
The chair of the oversight commission told the council the police department dropped dozens of data fields from monthly use-of-force reports and has delayed requested spreadsheets; the department says it will add narrative reporting, launch a transparency web page in April and move to an automated reporting platform this summer.
Christine Root, chair of the use-of-force committee of East Lancing’s Independent Police Oversight Commission, told the council at its March 10 discussion-only meeting that the commission cannot produce an annual report for 2025 because key data fields were removed from police monthly reports and three information requests made on Jan. 14 remain unanswered.
Root said the department provided a memo on March 4 saying it would “correct” certain complaint-notification language to comply with the ordinance and would add more narrative to the February 2026 report. But she said the memo did not restore “the 20 or so fields” developed in 2024 through cooperation between the commission and the East Lancing Police Department (ELPD), and the commission has not received the spreadsheet it requested for 2025.
“Now the commission has been denied access to [these fields],” Root said, adding the delay on the information requests had already exceeded the ordinance’s timeline. “We don’t have the information from which to write a report.”
Assistant Chief Craft replied later in the meeting that the department recognized shortcomings in data systems and has begun a contract with Axon to customize a reporting platform, with a planned summer go-live to create automated analytics. He said the department also drafted a transparency web page that staff are seeking stakeholder feedback on, and aimed for an April launch.
“We identified some shortcomings regarding our data software systems,” Craft said. “This new standards platform, as things go in, it goes to a transparency page.”
Council members pressed both sides on next steps. Several said they want the commission’s outstanding information requests resolved and a clear timeline for when the full spreadsheet fields will be available. Root said the commission has repeatedly asked for the spreadsheet and that the city attorney had told the department that withholding it complied with ordinance language; she asked the council to help resolve the disagreement.
The police department said Chief Brown’s March memorandum updates complaint-tracking and notification criteria and that the transparency page will be paired with the new analytics from the Axon platform to reduce manual entry and produce consistent outputs.
Council members requested follow-up within a month so they can confirm whether the commission’s information requests have been satisfied and whether the transparency page will include the historical fields the commission developed.
The council did not take formal action at the meeting; the matter remains an open oversight and interdepartmental communication issue, with the department promising technical fixes and the commission seeking restored access to data it helped design.
