GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Bobby Kozminski and Trevor Slot are among the fallen police officers who are memorialized with photographs on a wall inside Brann's Steakhouse & Grill on the city's West Side.

The restaurant's owner, Johnny Brann, Sr., likes to make a point of supporting law enforcement, and he made pointed comments to that end Tuesday night.

Speaking on Jan. 12, to the Grand Rapids City Commission, Brann said he was flabbergasted that last month's vote to purchase rifles for police was not unanimous. You can hear audio of his comments above.

"ISIS is real. It is real," Brann said at City Hall. "(An attack like the one in) San Bernardino, it could happen here, and thank God we do have the weaponry now.

"I just was really disappointed to see the votes against it."



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The commission in December voted 4-3 to buy rifles for every police car at a cost of about $300,000 including ammunition and training. Only a GRPD special response team currently has rifles.



The votes against it were cast by Ruth Kelly, Senita Lenear and Elias Lumpkins, who was term-limited and no longer is on the commission. Kelly said police could move toward having fewer weapons, rather than adding new ones. Lenear voted against the rifles because Grand Rapids administrators did not hold a community forum about buying them, and she apologized Tuesday after residents from the Third Ward she represents said they didn't feel like they had a voice in the process.

"I apologize to you and everybody else in this community," Lenear said. "I requested (a public forum) probably six times since last summer. I was just as disappointed as you were that we did not do that for the community."

Police Chief David Rahinsky said he met with several neighborhood associations and other groups to talk about the rifles. But no public forum was promoted because "what we didn't want to do is have a meeting that would be a referendum on guns," he said.

Open-carry advocates in the past have shown up at commission meetings, prompting then-Mayor George Heartwell to have a police presence in the room.

"It really makes the community feel voiceless and powerless," resident Divine Booker said. "We're looking for real solutions. Police actions here have proven that they absolutely don't need to be militarized. They need to learn the communities and people they serve as human beings."

Kelly last month said she was concerned that rifles would give Grand Rapids Police a "para-military appearance," and she advocated instead more study of firearm-free policing.

Former city commissioner Mary Alice Williams last month sent Grand Rapids leaders a letter about the same thing.

"In this era of police over-response it is concerning that our police force would be issued even more lethal weapons," Williams wrote. "It is imperative that we invest as much money in training our officers to understand the communities they are called on to protect and serve as we spend in arming them. An emphasis on superior weapons as a 'life-saving' strategy is short-sighted and chilling.

"It seems like overkill, literally, to have such a rifle in every patrol car."

Matt Vande Bunte covers government for MLive/Grand Rapids Press. Email him at mvandebu@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter and Facebook.