The council says Sheriff Swain began the process of filing one of the deputy positions a month ago, well before any protests began. (WTIU/WFIU News)
The Monroe County council met in special session Thursday to consider hiring two new sheriff’s deputies.
Less than two minutes into the meeting, Sheriff Brad Swain withdrew the request in front of a virtual audience of more than 250 people.
"I decided to push pause on making this request for today until more information is made available on our budget," Swain says.
Council member Kate Wiltz, along with several other county council members, agreed to postpone the request.
“Right now is not the time to continue business as usual in law enforcement. Our black and brown neighbors have been devalued and dehumanized by our white institutions," Wiltz says.
About midway through the meeting, the council discussed whether to allow the public to comment, despite withdrawing the request to add the new deputies.
During the discussion, council member Kate Wiltz said the council should prioritize people of color to voice their opinions.
Monroe County Chief Technology officer Eric Evans, who was in charge of the video and audio of the zoom meeting, responded by saying this:
“We can do public comment, but it’s just how am I going to decide who’s black enough to talk? We need for someone to make that decision," Evans says.
The comment evoked hundreds of emotional responses within seconds inside the zoom chat. Several members of the public expressed sentiments of outrage and bewilderment. Council members also addressed the racial undertones of Evans' remark.
Evans later issued an apology:
"I made a nervous attempt to make light of the difficulty of trying to prioritize a group of people, with only a text list of names to go off of. My statement offended a great amount of people and I can understand why they would feel that way. I am deeply sorry. If I could do it over again, I certainly would, and I would be clearer about the technical difficulty I faced. I sincerely apologize to all who were offended. I will do better," Evans says in a statement.
Several members of the Bloomington Black Lives Matters organization (BLM) were given a chance to speak toward the end of the meeting.
They say the county doesn't need more police, but a smaller and less funded local law enforcement.
"These are not emergency situations and I think it's interesting timing given that there's a huge rally happening on Friday," Bloomington BLM member Jada Bee says.
A large-scale protest is scheduled for 3 p.m. at Dunn Meadow Friday.
"All of the protests that we've seen have been peaceful until the police made them violent," Bee says. "We need to be very sure that we're listening not just to the community, but the most vulnerable within the community."
Bee says that includes all minority voices.
"It is so good to see so many people here expressing their democratic voices," council member Peter Iversen says. "The murder of George Floyd was sickening to watch. It should not have happened and we know that too many people in our black and brown communities have suffered."
The council says it will host a public town hall meeting where people will have a chance to discuss the relationship between law enforcement and the public.
Council president Eric Spoonmore says the date and time of that town hall will be announced at next Tuesday’s county council meeting.
The full text of Eric Evans apology:
I was the technical liaison for the Monroe County Council meeting on 6/4 at 1:00 p.m. We expected a large crowd. As previously discussed, we had the County Council members with their microphones open, and the majority of the attendees were muted, which would require the intervention of myself as the technical liaison.
At 56:19 into the meeting, Councilor Wiltz asked if, for the remainder of the time of the meeting, we could hear public comment “...and given that we can’t hear from everybody, perhaps we can prioritize people of color”.
As the technical liaison, the way I would go about granting the floor to a public speaker would be to select them from a list that is similar to this:
<<screen shot of text only list of names blacked out>>
Then I would right+click their name and select unmute. By having people use the raise hand function in the chat, it puts them on a list that I can simply go down and give each person their turn in the order
they raised their hand. Scrolling through a list of 250 people on the fly who I do not know is a difficult proposition.
With more than 250 people in the meeting at that time, this list was several pages long. So on the meeting recording, you can hear me say (at 50:31) “I don’t even know how we would do that”.
At 57:21, Councilor Spoonmore said that it sounded like we wouldn’t have the ability to do public comment. My intention when I spoke was to clarify that we could go ahead with public comment, but had no feasible way to prioritize people of color as Councilor Wilks had requested. My control panel is a list of names, which was the only information I had in front of me.
But what I said did not make clear that I was looking at only a list of names. I made a nervous attempt to make light of the difficulty of trying to prioritize a group of people, with only a text list of names to go off of. My statement offended a great amount of people and I can understand why they would feel that way. I am deeply sorry. If I could do it over again, I certainly would, and I would be clearer about the technical difficulty I faced. I sincerely apologize to all who were offended. I will do better.
Eric Evans
Chief Technology Officer, Monroe County
