“I’m here to speak out against the gentlemen running for our senate.”
The disorder at Tuesday's Grand Rapids city commission meeting started with citizen Daniel Schutte’s comments about democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
“He is a devout Muslim. He wants to implement Sharia law. Sharia law believes that if you are caught stealing your hands are cut off.”
That got a reaction from the audience and led to an exchange between city commissioner Marshall Kilgore and mayor David LaGrand.
“Mayor I would ask the city attorney if that is hate speech.”
“I haven’t heard the speaker say he hated Abdul El-Sayed.”
“Asserting that Muslims believe in folks hands being cut off, that is not hate speech?”
The hate speech opinion from city attorney Philip Strom:
“I don’t believe we have gotten to that yet.”
After a brief recess to what the mayor called quiet the room, some in the audience started a chant demanding justice for Grand Rapids resident Mario David Coronado Juárez.
“Justice for Mario.”
Coronado Juárez was an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala who died Sunday morning after crashing his vehicle trying to escape from federal ICE agents.
“Justice for Mario. Cops and ice go hand in hand. Ok, adjourning the meeting in the hopes this will allow this to deescalate.”
