A Michigan police chief blamed a “disproportionate number of minorities” coming into the community to commit crimes to justify police pepper spraying two Black friends within inches of their faces under false accusations in August.

The Black men, Lonnie Smith and Mason Woods, both 22, were participating in Michigan State University’s Fall Welcome, a week-long series of events to welcome new students to the university when they were pepper sprayed and arrested by an overly aggressive cop who accused them of fighting.

But Smith was actually trying to break up a squabble between Woods and another man outside Dave’s Hot Chicken in downtown East Lansing when they were both pepper sprayed by a cop who also pepper sprayed fellow cops and other citizens who had nothing to do with the squabble.

See Full Page