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The East Lansing Police Department is launching a “structured reset of media relations” using a 10-point plan developed by crisis communications firm Mario Morrow and Associates.
It comes as some groups and community members have spent the past five months calling for Police Chief Jen Brown to resign over comments they characterize as racist. Brown said in August that ELPD used force against Black individuals at a higher rate because the city had a “disproportionate number of minorities come into the community and commit crimes.”
Brown said in emails obtained by WKAR News in November that ELPD needed to “start controlling the narrative.” They began consulting with a crisis communications firm with the support of City Council members in December.
The city released the communication plan created for ELPD by Mario Morrow and Associates was released to WKAR News through a Freedom of Information Act request after a successful appeal. It had initially denied the request citing attorney-client privilege.
City Manager Robert Belleman has said Brown’s comment can serve as a learning opportunity, citing a desire to minimize turnover in leadership.
The department has had 11 chiefs or interim chiefs in the past 15 years, which the communications plan said has “disrupted reform efforts, created shifting priorities and made it challenging to develop and sustain community trust.”
It calls for the city to create a framework for evaluating the police chief’s performance, including annual and semi-annual evaluations of progress on reform initiatives and community engagement goals.
“By formalizing expectations and evaluation metrics, East Lansing can ensure that progress in policing reform, organizational culture and community trust is measured, documented and sustained, regardless of who occupies the role,” the plan said.
The communication plan said ELPD “must show transparency and sustained action, moving beyond statements and demonstrating measurable change.”
It recommended direct engagement with organizations like the Lansing NAACP and the Women’s Center of Greater Lansing and “centering acknowledgement of harm and specific follow-ups.” Both groups have called for Brown’s resignation.
That could begin with a “Community Healing Roundtable” that would “provide a space for stakeholders to talk honestly, listen to one another and begin rebuilding trust.”
The firm also recommended the department launch a quarterly conversation series bringing together community leaders and members of ELPD’s command staff.
It also calls for implementing a structured, ongoing engagement framework with the East Lansing Human Rights Commission and East Lansing Independent Police Oversight Commission “focused on relationship repaid, transparency and shared problem-solving.” Details of that are redacted.
The plan would create a group of community stakeholders, including business owners and faith leaders, who would be informed about details of ongoing cases to “help maintain transparency in crisis situations.” The group would be known as the “Chief’s Community Cabinet.”
The plan calls for ELPD to issue a correction notice to media within 24 hours if the department publishes a factual error or incomplete information and to maintain a corrections log on a public transparency dashboard.
The city is facing lawsuits after Brown named two individuals who later had charges dropped in a pre-trial press release. The department deleted the press release from its website.
Belleman said during a City Council meeting last week that officials have been unable to directly address concerns raised by residents due to the ongoing litigation.
Once the lawsuits are resolved, the plan says ELPD should begin offering regular ride-along days and open-house tours for local media, as well as hosting an annual forum where media, community members and department leadership “convene to discuss coverage trends, transparency expectations and trust-building.”
Mario Morrow and Associates also recommended ELPD develop a dashboard that would be regularly updated with key metrics, including stops, arrests and use of force. It would include interactive features, like filtering by demographic or incident type.
The dashboard would be paired with quarterly briefings by a command officer, and a command officer would also make regular updates on the metrics at ELIPOC meetings.
The East Lansing Police Department and East Lansing Fire Department plan to start providing updates during discussion-only City Council meetings. There are nine discussion-only meetings remaining in 2026.
The firm’s plan said increasing the frequency of communication from the department will “reduce space for rumors to take hold.”
