Detroit councilmember wants police chief to explain Cinco de Mayo celebration shutdown
(CBS DETROIT) - A Detroit councilmember is calling for the city's police chief to attend Tuesday's meeting to address the shutdown of the Cinco de Mayo celebrations on Sunday.
This comes after Detroit Police Chief James White touched on the situation during a news conference Monday and said that the department did not shut down the celebrations.
White said that some businesses were "paused" due to overcrowding, but they didn't shut any businesses down.
"We did not shutdown Cinco de Mayo," said White. "Thousands of people attended and enjoyed the event. There were a number of instances where overcrowding was a safety issue. Some businesses had overcrowding double and triple capacity, which obviously creates a number of issues for us.
Detroit City Councilmember Mary Waters "wants to know if the early militaristic shut down of Cinco de Mayo activities was a reflection of racist xenophobic double standards not employed during NFL Draft crowd control," according to a release.
Waters said she wants White to be at Tuesday's city council meeting.
"I am requesting that Detroit Police Chief White appear before Detroit City Council to discuss the successful crowd control associated with NFL Draft activities involving 275,000 attendees daily and the seemingly inability of DPD to handle much smaller crowds during Cinco de Mayo activities in Southwest Detroit this weekend," said Waters.
On Sunday evening the eight people were detained, ticketed and released, according to the Detroit Police Department.