Detroit Police Department Deputy Chief Todd Bettison choked back tears Tuesday while speaking about taking a knee with protesters during Monday’s demonstration against police …
Detroit Police Department Deputy Chief Todd Bettison choked back tears Tuesday while speaking about taking a knee with protesters during Monday’s demonstration against police brutality.
Bettison recalled seeing the crowd of protesters and the line of police officers facing them in opposition Sunday afternoon.
“I said, ‘This is not good, it’s not good.’ I’m like, ‘I have to do something, we have to do something.’ I didn’t want any violence,” Bettison said. “I went to the front and I saw organizers and I saw a lot of angry people, I saw protesters and I heard what they were saying. At first, I didn’t hear what they were saying. ‘Kneel with us, kneel with us. Kneel for George Floyd. If you just please kneel with us, we will leave.’ “
Bettison said he told the protesters that from a protocol standpoint, the officers could not all kneel with the protesters — but he could.
“But as the highest ranking person here, I will kneel, on behalf of my department, the City of Detroit, and all of our sisters, everybody, I will kneel,” he said.
Bettison said he was addressing the large majority of people who were there for the right reasons, not those who came to cause chaos. While Detroit Police Chief James Craig and Mayor Mike Duggan both called Floyd’s death a murder early on, Bettison said he did not understand the anger toward his department.
“We don’t want to be in this place, this space, but I understand the anger for what happened to George Floyd,” he said.
