GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Grand Rapids residents - many of which have never met an 11-year-old girl handcuffed by police at gunpoint last week - implored the city commission Tuesday night to bring justice to the situation and to hold the police accountable.

"When a little girl has a grown man pointing a gun at her, and she's seen hundreds of black men and women get killed on the internet - do you not think she thought she could get killed?" said Deborah Jandle, a clinical social worker, to the city commission. "I hope you get sued."

The public outcry - organized in a matter of hours - is in response to a Dec. 6 incident in which fifth-grader Honestie Hodges was put into handcuffs at gunpoint, patted down and put into a patrol car as police searched for the girl's 40-year-old aunt. The aunt was suspected of stabbing another family member that day.

About 20 people spoke before the commission Tuesday, Dec. 12, about the girl's treatment, hours after the Grand Rapids Police Department released a gut-wrenching body camera video from the incident that showed Honestie screaming in terror as she was handcuffed.

Lauren Taylor of Cascade Township reminded the commission that if justice is not delivered for the girl or her family, there will be no peace in the community or with the police department.

"Why are black children not black children, why are they just others?" asked community advocate LaDonna Norman.

Mayor Rosalynn Bliss said the video was "deeply, deeply disturbing" and "heartbreaking."

"This little girl, Honestie, she was clearly terrified. And it was really painful to watch," Bliss said, her voice heavy with emotion. "No child in our community should experience that. None. And we have a lot of work to do. And we know that."

Grand Rapids' poet laureate, Marcel "Fable" Price, said the family needs the care they deserve.

"Not only are you continuing to ruin rapport with individuals of color in this community, but you're continuing to make our city look even more racist than people know it to be," Price said. "The only time the city goes viral is when young black and brown people have guns pointed on them by police."

Many of those who spoke during public comment - including Price - addressed Grand Rapids Police Chief David Rahinsky directly as he sat in the audience Tuesday night.

"If you feel you can sleep at night and feel just knowing that you have police officers on the force that feel justified, that it's justifiable force to point a gun at an 11-year-old, when you're looking for a 40-year-old white woman, then that's the force that you want to have," Price said to Rahinsky. "But there's a lot of people who are never going to have faith in you if that's what you want to do."

Commissioners reviewed the body camera video Tuesday afternoon in a closed session with Rahinsky before the footage was released in a press conference.

Rahinsky met with Honestie's mother and grandmother late Tuesday afternoon after the press conference. Local NAACP President Cle Jackson, First Ward Commissioners Dave Shaffer and Jon O'Connor, as well as Second Ward Commissioner Joe Jones were also present.

"This is embarrassing. We ought to be embarrassed," Jones said Tuesday night at the end of the commission meeting. "It's been a very, very long day, yet I have hope because I believe I sit amongst colleagues who recognize it is not a good place for us to be as a city."

Honestie, who wanted to become a police officer up until the incident last week, wasn't emotionally ready to attend the meeting Tuesday afternoon, Rahinsky said. Rahinsky said the department is looking for another time to meet with her.

Before reporters Tuesday afternoon, Rahinsky said the video of the incident made him "physically nauseous." Rahinsky said the incident was a breakdown of how the department polices domestic situations.

"That's our community's child. You should feel safe running to an officer. So we have work to do," Rahinsky said.

The police department has opened an internal investigation into the incident.